Kawhi Leonard Endorsement Payment Followed Clippers Minority Owner’s Cash Infusion
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The Los Angeles Clippers’ contract with star forward Kawhi Leonard is facing new scrutiny after documents showed a $1.75 million endorsement payment to the player was issued immediately after a team minority owner injected nearly $2 million into the same company making the payment.
Pablo Torre, speaking on the latest episode of his “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast, reported that Dennis J. Wong—vice chairman and the Clippers’ sole minority owner—wired almost $2 million to the San Francisco–based environmental firm Aspiration in December 2022. Hours later, Aspiration delivered a quarterly $1.75 million installment to Leonard, even as the firm laid off roughly 20 percent of its staff.
The timing adds to questions about whether the Clippers circumvented the NBA salary cap when they landed Leonard in free agency in 2019. Leonard had previously agreed to a four-year, $28 million endorsement contract with Aspiration, payable in $1.75 million quarterly installments. Last week Torre revealed that Leonard performed no work under the deal after Clippers governor Steve Ballmer invested $50 million in the company.
League commissioner Adam Silver confirmed Wednesday that the NBA has retained an outside law firm to investigate, noting that the league bears the burden of proving any rules violations.
By late 2022, Aspiration was already under financial pressure: auditor KPMG had quit, and the company faced multimillion-dollar lawsuits over missed obligations. According to records reviewed by Torre, Aspiration failed to pay Leonard during the fall, prompting repeated calls from Leonard’s uncle and business manager, Dennis Robertson. Internal emails labeled the overdue payment “critical.”
“We felt like we were on the other end of collections calls,” a former Aspiration employee told Torre, recalling fears over layoffs and unpaid wages before Wong’s transfer covered Leonard’s installment.
In a statement to Torre, the Clippers said, “The details of our relationship with Aspiration are under NBA investigation, but it is clear the company was a house of cards that defrauded Steve and many others. We look forward to sharing the facts with the league and providing them with all the information they need.”
Source: Hoops Rumors
