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INGLEWOOD, Calif. – \u00a0The Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, took center stage as host of the 2026 NBA All-Star Weekend.<\/p>\n
While the weekend spotlights and celebrates basketball\u2019s biggest stars, a scandal looms over the Clippers as fans await the findings of a league investigation.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the season, a bombshell report alleged that Clippers superstar Kawhi Leonard was paid $28 million under the table to help the team evade the NBA\u2019s salary cap.<\/p>\n
What we know:<\/p>\n
A report from Pablo Torre alleges Leonard was paid $7 million per year through a fraudulent endorsement deal with Aspiration, a tree-planting company.<\/p>\n
Torre obtained documents related to a bankruptcy filing that included a list of creditors and entities. Among them was “KL2 Aspire LLC,” a name referencing Leonard\u2019s initials and jersey number.<\/p>\n
“Every other celebrity Aspiration gave money to was well known,” Torre said. “But the number of times that I found Kawhi Leonard publicly referencing Aspiration: zero times.”<\/p>\n
PREVIOUS COVERAGE:<\/p>\n
What they’re saying:<\/p>\n
Ahead of Saturday afternoon\u2019s events at the Intuit Dome, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver addressed the status of the investigation.<\/p>\n
“I haven’t come to any decisions whatsoever yet on the Clippers matter,” Silver said. “As you know, the league office is not directly running the investigation. It’s being overseen by a law firm, Wachtel, in New York.”<\/p>\n
He added, “From everything I’ve been told, the Clippers have been fully cooperative. But as I said, I’m not involved day-to-day in the investigation.”<\/p>\n
Silver described the matter as “complex.”<\/p>\n
“You have a company in bankruptcy. You have thousands of documents, multiple witnesses that have needed to be interviewed,” he said. “Just in case anyone’s wondering, the fact that All-Star is here this weekend has had no impact on the timeline of the investigation. Our charge to the Wachtel law firm is: do the work, then come back and make recommendations to the league office. And that\u2019s where things now stand.”<\/p>\n
Dig deeper:<\/p>\n
Leonard has been pivotal in helping the Clippers rebound this season. Entering the All-Star break, the team sits two wins shy of .500.<\/p>\n
He is averaging 27.9 points, 6.4 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the All-Star Game, Silver appointed Leonard as a reserve, marking his seventh career All-Star appearance.<\/p>\n
PREVIOUS: Kawhi Leonard added to 2026 NBA All-Star Game roster for game at Intuit Dome<\/a><\/p>\n “I\u2019m not looking for handouts,” Leonard said Saturday. “I was just going to keep putting in the work. I didn\u2019t get down. There was a lot going on at that time as well. I just wanted to focus on the team. And like I said, for everybody that got the nod, they deserved it.”<\/p>\n Leonard and the Clippers maintain they are on the right side of the issue and do not believe the investigation played any role in his initial All-Star snub.<\/p>\n “I don’t think Adam Silver would let something like that play into how a player is playing on the court. Especially me,” Leonard said.<\/p>\n SUGGESTED: Kawhi Leonard, Clippers make All-Star impact off the court for Inland Empire family<\/a><\/p>\n What’s next:<\/p>\n The 75th NBA All-Star Game will take place Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Intuit Dome.<\/p>\n Leonard, who grew up in Moreno Valley and is the sole Clipper on the All-Star roster, said he\u2019s looking forward to playing in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s very exciting,” Leonard said. “Especially being so young, the architecture, the way it was built \u2014 it\u2019s amazing. And especially being in LA.”<\/p>\n The Source: This story is based on public comments made by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver during a media availability at All-Star Weekend, as well as reporting from journalist Pablo Torre regarding the allegations. Player statistics and All-Star selections are from official NBA records.<\/p>\n Los Angeles Clippers<\/a>NBA<\/a>Instastories<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INGLEWOOD, Calif. – \u00a0The Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, took center stage as host of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,559,3023,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6,67,651,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-603659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-clippers","10":"tag-instastories","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-la-clippers","13":"tag-laclippers","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-losangelesclippers","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-series","21":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116071805126006010","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603659","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=603659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}