The Strange Case of Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers
The N.B.A.’s investigation found that the team circumvented the salary cap. The severe punishment that followed was decisive, but the story as it unfolded was harder to pin down.
The Los Angeles Clippers found themselves embroiled in a scandal involving their star player, Kawhi Leonard, and the company Aspiration. The story began with a report by Pablo Torre, which revealed that Leonard had accepted significant payments from Aspiration, a climate-focused fintech firm that had gone bankrupt. The company's leadership had been imprisoned for fraud.
This revelation triggered an investigation by the NBA, conducted by the law firm Wachtell Lipton. The report concluded that the Clippers had engaged in salary-cap circumvention through these endorsement deals. The findings were based on evidence from texts, emails, interviews, and contemporaneous notes. The investigation, while meticulous, also highlighted the challenges in determining the exact nature of events.
Despite the clarity of the findings, many journalists and the public initially got parts of the story wrong. The league's investigation, although thorough, revealed that the endorsement deals were apparently undertaken to satisfy the demands of Leonard's uncle and business manager. Throughout the investigation, the integrity of the sources and the accuracy of the facts were continually questioned, adding to the complexity of the case.
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