{"id":278881,"date":"2025-09-11T21:06:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T21:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/278881\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T21:06:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T21:06:13","slug":"smoking-gun-emerges-in-kawhi-leonard-and-los-angeles-clippers-aspiration-payment-controversy-nba-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/278881\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Smoking gun\u2019 emerges in Kawhi Leonard and Los Angeles Clippers Aspiration payment controversy | NBA News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'SmokingKawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers controversy (Image via AP Photo\/Mark J. Terrill) With the discovery of additional information, the Kawhi Leonard<\/a> controversy has taken a new turn. Journalist Pablo Torre accused the Los Angeles Clippers of being involved in what seems to be a direct connection between the basketball team and Aspiration, a now-defunct carbon offset company that was allegedly paying Leonard $7 million annually for a job that he never showed up for. According to Torre’s most recent reporting, Dennis Wong, a Clippers minority owner, also reportedly made an investment in Aspiration at a time when the environmental fintech startup was having financial difficulties paying Leonard.<\/p>\n

Kawhi Leonard controversy intensifies with \u2018smoking gun\u2019 Aspiration investment by Dennis Wong<\/p>\n

Kawhi Leonard’s “no-show job” with Aspiration has resulted in a longer paper trail. The Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast provided additional proof that the team\u2019s ownership may have been aware of the deal. The most recent evidence comes after the Clippers and their owner, Steve Ballmer, refuted the claims. They claimed that there is no evidence to support the idea that Leonard was paid by a third party to get around the salary cap<\/a>. Additionally, a “smoking gun” has also reportedly emerged which is a $1.99 million investment in Aspiration made by Dennis Wong’s business, which also owns 1% of the Clippers. Based on Adam Silver\u2019s remarks, the most recent documents are the closest this whole thing has come to a “smoking gun.\u201d Ballmer has refuted the accusations and asserted his innocence, although he hasn’t yet made any of it public. Additionally, there is no concrete proof that Ballmer and Wong’s investments were made in order to pay Leonard for his endorsements. Silver further said:\u201cI was only quasi-joking with someone earlier, when people talk about a smoking gun, that\u2019s obviously circumstantial. It means the gun is still smoking. It must have been recently fired.. I\u2019d say in the case of the league we have our investigators look at the totality of the evidence. I would be reluctant to act if there was a mere appearance of impropriety.\u201d Wong reportedly invested in the failing business to pay off this outstanding obligation. According to an unnamed former worker who spoke to Torre about the payment, Wong’s stake in the business was “beyond shocking” and “not a rational investment that someone would make.”.<\/p>\n

Kawhi Leonard\u2019s alleged illicit payments during Toronto Raptors negotiations under NBA review<\/p>\n

This fresh revelation comes days after a Toronto-based article reportedly claimed that during negotiations with Kawhi, Leonard’s camp allegedly requested illicit payments from the Raptors<\/a>. According to that report, Kawhi reportedly demanded $10 million in payments outside of his NBA<\/a> contract for a no-show job. Moreover, Leonard’s uncle and representative also reportedly informed the Raptors that Kawhi was trying to acquire ownership stakes in businesses. After being connected to the L.A. Lakers<\/a> for a large portion of the summer, Leonard shocked everyone by signing with the Clippers after the Raptors rejected the proposed deal. On the other hand, the NBA stated that it is looking into the situation and will provide updates as available. Also read: Los Angeles Clippers\u2019 salary cap controversy involving Kawhi Leonard mirrors Joe Smith penalties from Minnesota Timberwolves era<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers controversy (Image via AP Photo\/Mark J. Terrill) With the discovery of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3770],"tags":[7,46150,46151,44631,35825,6,46152,46149,681,680,476,46153,3820],"class_list":{"0":"post-278881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-raptors","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-dennis-wong-investment","10":"tag-kawhi-leonard-aspiration-job","11":"tag-kawhi-leonard-controversy","12":"tag-los-angeles-clippers-news","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-nba-investigation-updates","15":"tag-nba-salary-cap-violations","16":"tag-raptors","17":"tag-toronto","18":"tag-toronto-raptors","19":"tag-toronto-raptors-negotiations","20":"tag-torontoraptors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115187704476059828","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}