Clippers owner hits back amid Kawhi Leonard’s $28 million controversy
Steve Ballmer has spoken out after it was suggested he was involved in a multi-million dollar controversy regarding star player Kawhi Leonard.
As the storm’s lightning crawls over the ground like the fingers of a divine piano player, Steve Ballmer is indeed sitting in the middle. The Los Angeles Clippers owner has presumably been hunkered down in his panic room after it was alleged that he was involved in a scandal (reported on AS USA last week) that suggested he compensated star man Kawhi Leonard to the tune of $28 million without any promotional duties being fulfilled.
It was journalist Pablo Torre who uncovered documents that appeared to suggest the NBA franchise orchestrated this deal to circumvent the NBA’s salary cap rules, with the owner’s company Aspiration receiving $50 million in funding from Ballmer himself, with Leonard’s contract part of this scheme.
Were the NBA to be subjected to such a scandal, Ballmer says he would want the league to “seriously” investigate any wrongdoing. “Salary cap circumvention rules are important to the league, and I’d want the league to investigate,” he proudly reminded those watching.
“They conned me... I have no ability to predict why”
As for how Aspiration got to Kawhi before Ballmer did, he told ESPN that: “We were done. We were done with Kawhi, we were done with Aspiration. The deals were all locked and loaded. Then, they did request to be introduced to Kawhi, and under the rules, we can introduce our sponsors to our athletes. We just can’t be involved.
“We made an introduction, that was in early November. We even found the email that makes the first introduction," he went so far as to admit. “It was early November. The introduction got made and then they were off to the races on their own. We weren’t involved.”
Away from what some may call filibustering, Ballmer actually took his knife and fork and tucked into the meat: “These were guys who committed fraud,” he said (Aspiration’s co-founder Joe Sanberg pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud in 2025).
“They conned me. They conned me. I made an investment in these guys thinking it was on the up-and-up, and they conned me at this stage. I have no ability to predict why they might have done anything they did, let alone the specific contract with Kawhi.”
Tens of millions of dollars might have something to do with it, Steve, but I’m only speculating.
As expected, Ballmer then distanced himself from the company that filed for bankruptcy on March 31, 2025. “I had no control over this company. I owned less than 3% of the company. I had no board seat. I had no control. Heck, it was a fraudulent company." Then he threw in a line to hint at something deeper: “It’s possible nobody had any control.”
Kawhi and Steve Ballmer showing Pablo Torre all the trees they planted pic.twitter.com/rkxZxQwvNy
— Sopranos World (@SopranosWorld) September 3, 2025
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“I reviewed, my staff reviewed primarily fraudulent financials,” he admitted before playing another card. “Now, should I have sniffed it out? Maybe I feel embarrassed and kind of silly that I didn’t sniff it out, but I didn’t.
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