NBA fines the Clippers $30 million and strips five first-round picks in the Kawhi Leonard case

The NBA on 2 September issued the largest fine in league history against the Los Angeles Clippers and suspended owner Steve Ballmer from all league and team activity for one year. The club must also forfeit first-round draft picks in 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032 and 2033. The penalty follows a year-long inquiry into off-court payments arranged for Kawhi Leonard.

Leonard himself was fined $700,000. President of business operations Gillian Zucker was suspended without pay for a year. President of basketball operations Lawrence Frank was suspended without pay for six months. Commissioner Adam Silver said he was deeply disappointed and that the size of the penalty matched what he called flagrant violations.

How the money was said to move

The inquiry was opened after journalist Pablo Torre reported in September 2025 that Leonard had a $28 million endorsement contract with Aspiration Fund Adviser LLC. Aspiration later collapsed into bankruptcy. The league hired Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz. The firm told the NBA that the Clippers had steered Leonard toward paid deals with four companies that also did business with the team: Aspiration, Boingo Wireless, Daktronics and Lockton Insurance.

According to the league, the club induced those firms to sign Leonard by offering them team business. It also paid personal expenses for Leonard and his representatives and failed to report solicitations for off-court income made through his then business manager, Dennis Robertson. The NBA noted that the Clippers were a prior offender on cap circumvention.

Ballmer was cited for knowingly helping Leonard find off-court income, for approving a business deal with Aspiration, and for failing to build a shop that obeyed the circumvention rules. Zucker was separately accused of misleading investigators. That last finding explains a year without pay rather than a shorter ban.

What Ballmer says

David Kelley, Ballmer attorney, called the process a witch hunt and a gross injustice. He said Ballmer reputation had been damaged and that the owner now sits inside the NBA file, civil litigation and the Aspiration bankruptcy at the same time. The Clippers have denied wrongdoing tied to Leonard 2019 signing. The league decision is not a court verdict. It is an internal penalty under the constitution and by-laws that owners agreed to when they bought in.

Five first-round picks is the part of the sentence that will still be visible in 2033. A $30 million fine is large and, for Ballmer, payable in a week. Draft capital is how a club restocks after a star era. Removing five consecutive firsts is the league way of saying the cap violation was not a paperwork error.

Leonard can keep playing. The $700,000 fine is a fraction of a max salary. The findings still attach to his name in every future negotiation with a sponsor that also sells to an NBA team. Clubs that want to copy the Aspiration model now have a price list in writing.

Silver used the word pattern. That word is doing the work. A single endorsement would have been an argument. Four companies, expense payments and a prior offence gave the league a stack it was willing to put on the table in public.