In his first public comments about the Los Angeles Clippers’ alleged salary-cap circumvention involving star forward Kawhi Leonard and so-called “green bank” Aspiration, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday that he and the league must “let the investigation run its course.” He also said that, if the investigation finds that cap circumvention did occur, he would have the ability to impose significant punishments.
“My powers are very broad,” Silver said. “I have a full range of financial penalties, drat picks, suspensions, et cetera. I have very broad powers in these situations.”
Before last Wednesday, when “Pablo Torre Finds Out” reported that Leonard had secretly signed a $28 million contract for a no-show job with Aspiration, the commissioner had “never heard of the company,” Silver said, and “never heard a whiff of anything around an endorsement deal with Kawhi or anything around an engagement with the Los Angeles Clippers, so it was all new to me.” Rick Buchanan, the NBA’s general counsel and chief compliance officer, had a conversation with Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, and “we quickly concluded this was something that rose to the level that necessitates an investigation, in fact one that’s done outside of our office,” Silver said. The league enlisted the New York-based law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to oversee the investigation.
After the podcast went live, the Boston Sports Journal and Pablo Torre Finds Out reported that, in addition to the $28 million endorsement deal that required nothing of Leonard, he signed another contract with Aspiration for $20 million in stock. The Clippers have denied any wrongdoing, and last week Ballmer flew to Bristol, Connecticut for an ESPN interview in which he said that he had “no control” of Aspiration, a “fraudulent company” that independently “went off and made a deal” with Leonard after the Clippers had introduced the two parties, as they are allowed to do. Ballmer said that his $50 million investment in Aspiration gave him an ownership stake of less than 3% and he didn’t know…
..
