NBA imposes $30 million fine and draft bans on Clippers for salary-cap violations

The National Basketball Association announced on Sept. 2 that the Los Angeles Clippers will pay a $30 million fine and lose their first-round draft selections for the 2029-2033 seasons. The penalties also include a one-year suspension for owner Steve Ballmer, a one-year suspension for business operations president Gillian Zucker and a six-month ban for basketball operations president Lawrence Frank.

The league’s investigation, conducted by the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, concluded that the Clippers arranged undisclosed endorsement contracts for forward Kawhi Leonard with four companies, including a sustainability firm named Aspiration. The deals, valued at about $18 million, were not reported to the NBA and were structured to provide the player with income that bypassed the salary-cap rules.

Clippers officials denied the allegations, describing the investigation as “heavily biased” and stating they would appeal the sanctions. Leonard issued a statement accepting “full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle,” referring to his business manager.

"They were off to the races on their own. We weren’t involved," Ballmer told a television interviewer regarding the Aspiration deal.

The NBA’s salary-cap policy prohibits teams from initiating or facilitating endorsement agreements for players, requiring any such overtures to be directed to the player’s representatives and reported to the league. The investigators said emails from Zucker to three prospective business partners were intended to create the appearance of compliance, but no evidence showed the companies had independently sought the deals.

The sanctions follow a previous $250,000 fine imposed on the Clippers in 2015 for a similar scheme involving former free agent DeAndre Jordan. The current penalties represent the league’s maximum disciplinary measures for such violations.