More details seem to be emerging about the Los Angeles Clippers ' salary cap circumvention scandal involving Kawhi Leonard , with ESPN's Shams Charania revealing how deeply the organization went to help get lucrative endorsement opportunities for the Clippers star.
Speaking on ESPN's Get Up , Charania spoke about what one executive told him about the Clippers' role in getting outside income for Leonard and his former business representative and uncle Dennis Robertson.
"I had one executive tell me last night, Greeney, that the Clippers were essentially acting like a power agent brokering deals for Kawhi Leonard's business representative at the time and Dennis Robertson. And that's millions and millions of cash flow coming into Kawhi Leonard at a point in time in the calendar where we were in the pandemic in 2020 and 2021."
"By mid-2021, Kawhi Leonard had pocketed tens of millions of dollars in endorsement deals where there just was not any type of showing up or any type of obligation that he had. And it wasn't just one company, it was four companies that the NBA found."
This revelation is very important context to the NBA's decision to issue such harsh penalties on the Clippers following its year-long investigation.
The Clippers were fined $30 million and stripped of five future first-round picks , while owner Steve Ballmer and executives Lawrence Frank and Gillian Zucker were also suspended .
Leonard, meanwhile, was ordered to pay a mere $700,000 in restitution , while Robertson was banned from conducting basketball business.
There is one particular distinction which might have shown why Kawhi Leonard only received such a lenient penalty.
That finding is important because it helps explain why Leonard avoided a suspension or voiding of his contract despite the massive amount of money that was involved.
"And the investigation — I do have to make it clear — did show that Kawhi Leonard did not have any knowledge of this salary cap circumvention that was going on. He had essentially given all of the power to his uncle Dennis Robertson for years now, and Dennis Robertson is now banned from all basketball business moving forward."
The league's investigation eventually determined that Leonard, through Robertson's conduct on his behalf, violated circumvention rules by getting off-court income chances with assistance from the Clippers.
The Clippers, however, continue to dispute the league's conclusions and findings .
The organization has claimed no wrongdoing and said that the investigation is unfair and has suggested that it will keep this fight ongoing . But with no formal NBA appeals process available, Ballmer and the Clippers will have to take the fight to court.
But these latest details paint a clear picture of why the league treated this case so harshly.
According to Charania's account, there was not just one questionable sponsorship. The NBA found two to four companies involved with Leonard getting tens of millions of dollars with little or no obligations attached to those deals.
While this investigation did find that Leonard did not know anything about the salary cap circumvention itself, the financial benefits that went his way were just massive.
