Former Toronto Raptors star Kawhi Leonard is at the centre of what is alleged to be one of the biggest cases of fraud in NBA history.
Leonard left the Raptors as a free agent for the Los Angeles Clippers in 2019, after just one season in Toronto.
According to the self-titled podcast episode Pablo Torre Finds Out that dropped Wednesday from journalist Pablo Torre, Leonard was receiving four years of US$7 million payments starting in 2022 tied to Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, via an endorsement deal for Aspiration, Inc.
Aspiration is publicly listed as a sustainability non-profit, though its co-founder Joe Sanberg was arrested on fraud charges earlier this year in March, as the company also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Leonard was named in the bankruptcy filing, via a company named KL2 Aspire LLC, a reference to Leonard’s No. 2 jersey.
KL2 Aspire listed in the bankruptcy filing, via Pablo Torre Finds Out
Leonard’s uncle and agent, Dennis Robertson, was also listed on the paperwork for the initial filing of the contract with the California Secretary of State.
Per an anonymous former Aspiration employee who spoke to Torre, Leonard’s endorsement deal was specifically made to circumvent the salary cap. The deal also contained a clause that it could be terminated if he played for another NBA team that wasn’t the Clippers.
Unlike most celebrity endorsement deals, where the big-name talent appears in commercials, other forms of advertising, or promotes the brand on their social media, Leonard doesn’t appear to have any public endorsement of the brand.
The Clippers denied the allegations in a statement to Torre, calling them “provably false.”
Ballmer is currently listed as No. 8 on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people, with a net worth of US$152 billion. The alleged payments to Leonard amount to a little over 0.01 per cent of his net worth, or the equivalent of about $10 for someone with a net worth of $100,000.
Who is breaking this story?
Torre has developed a knack for breaking some of the biggest stories in sports, including a recent collusion scandal within the NFL, Wayne Gretzky’s relationship with FBI director Kash Patel, and the validity of an oft-questioned 100-point NBA game by Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain.
Torre, a former full-time employee of ESPN and Sports Illustrated who now sees his podcast run by Meadowlark Media and distributed by The Athletic, stated on social media that he’d been working on the story for seven months.
Why did Kawhi Leonard leave the Raptors?
The allegations reported by Torre do not reference any previous payments made during his first three years with the Clippers, so it’s tough to draw the line with salary cap circumvention being the sole reason why Leonard may have joined the team in the first place.
But Leonard’s departure from Toronto was one of the most monumental free agent signings in league history, given that it was just mere weeks after winning the NBA title and Finals MVP.
Leonard’s motivations for the move were largely reported at the time as a desire to return to his home state, after playing his professional career first in San Antonio with the Spurs and then in Toronto.
He has since signed two new contracts with the Clippers, but the playoff success anticipated by the signing hasn’t exactly come to fruition, as Los Angeles has won just three playoff rounds in the six years since Leonard joined the team, and none since advancing to the Conference Finals in 2021.
What’s the likely conclusion of this story?
The NBA will likely be compelled to investigate the claims, given the nature of the story.
In 2000, the Minnesota Timberwolves were charged with the most well-known case of cap circumvention in league history, where they were fined US$3.5 million and had to forfeit five first-round picks.
Just in case, here are the penalties when the Minnesota Timberwolves were found to have circumvented the salary cap to sign Joe Smith:
-5 first-round picks forfeited (two were returned later)
-$3.5M fine
-Smith’s most-recent contract was voided, and his Bird Rights were stripped…
— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) September 3, 2025
The Raptors, likely, won’t see much benefit at all, other than the team’s fans having another reason to have a cross-continent rivalry with the Clippers.
While it’s tough to tell what exactly will happen next, it’s hard to imagine we’ve heard the last of these bombshell allegations.