Los Angeles. The NBA He said Wednesday that he will investigate whether a $ 28 million sponsorship contract between Kawhi Leonard and a Sustainability Services company based in California allowed the Los Angeles Clippers To avoid the rules of the salary limit of the League, after a report by the journalist Pablo Torre.
The investigation will focus on the links between Leonard, the Clippers and a company called Aspiration Fund Advier, LLC, which was declared in bankruptcy this year. At that time, several creditors were listed, including the clippers (who were owed about $ 30 million) and a company called KL2 aspire LLC to which $ 7 million were owed.
Leonard appears as manager of that company in the California records. KL are his initials and 2 is his shirt number. The emails sent on Wednesday to their representatives in search of comments were not answered immediately.
“We are aware of this morning’s media report on the Clippers and we are starting an investigation,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass said Wednesday.
The clippers denied having violated any rule of the league. The owner of the Clippers, Steve Ballmer, invested $ 50 million in aspiration, and the company and the team announced an alliance of $ 300 million in September 2021.
That happened approximately one month after Leonard signed a four -year contract extension and $ 176 million with the clippers.
“Neither Mr. Ballmer nor the clippers eluded the salary limit nor incurred any undue behavior related to aspiration,” the clippers declared in a statement released to several media, including The Associated Press. “Any opposite statement is demonstrably false: the team ended its relationship with aspiration years ago, during the 2022-23 season, when Aspiration breached its obligations.”
The aspiration co -founder, Joseph Sanberg, declared himself guilty last month after facing federal electronic fraud charges. The Prosecutor’s Office declared that it defrauded investors and lenders for $ 248 million, and added that “the financial statements of Aspiration were inaccurate and reflected much larger income than those that the company really received.”
In his report, Torre obtained a copy of the Sponsorship Agreement between Aspiration and Kl2 Aspire, which stipulated that Leonard would receive $ 7 million annually for four years. With that schedule, Leonard would still have received the remaining $ 7 million at the time of the aspiration bankruptcy declaration.
There is no evidence that Leonard did something to publicly support aspiration.
“Neither the clippers nor Mr. Ballmer were aware of any undue activity by aspiration or his co -founder until after the government began its investigation,” The clippers alleted. “The team and Mr. Ballmer are ready to help forces of order as much as possible.”
The League, which previously investigated the complaints that Leonard’s representatives requested certain things that would be considered evasions of the salary cap when he was a free agent several years ago, he can impose hard sanctions if it is discovered that a team has infringed the rules of the salary cap, including a fine of up to $ 7.5 million dollars, the cancellation of contracts and the loss of future selections of the draft.
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