When news broke that the Los Angeles Clippers were being accused of circumventing the NBA salary cap by creating a $28 million bogus job for star Kawhi Leonard, it was an “Aha!” moment for many fans. After all, it was a shock in 2019 that the Clippers came out of nowhere to sign Leonard when most people who follow basketball thought he would end up with their in-city rivals, the Lakers.
The news also launched a series of competing media statements, as most parties involved tried to explain themselves publicly. This, of course, should be expected given that we live in a world where perception often trumps reality and a story can easily spiral out of control. If the public is only hearing one party’s account, it’s understandable that their version may be accepted as truth.
It didn’t take long after the latest episode of the “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast aired for the Clippers to release a thorough and emphatic statement that argued the facts. They claimed that team owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was the victim of fraud at the hands of a sustainability company called Aspiration, which ultimately conned him out of tens of millions of dollars. Aspiration, the Clippers former team sponsor, is the company at the center of Leonard’s alleged “no-show” job and has since filed for bankruptcy with its co-founder pleading guilty to over $240 million in fraud.
The NBA also issued a timely, brief, statement that suffices for the short term, saying, “We are aware of this morning’s media report regarding the LA Clippers and are commencing an investigation.” This was followed by public comments from commissioner Adam Silver cautioning everyone not to rush to judgement.
The person in all of this who has not been heard from to this point is the man himself, Kawhi Leonard.
Maybe Leonard is waiting until the NBA investigation is complete before making a statement, but if he is, that is a mistake. Human nature is such that the longer nobody hears from him, the more guilty he will look. With NBA training camps and media days beginning in just a few short weeks, Leonard will no longer have the luxury of staying silent. And if he doesn’t have a fact-based, plausible story to tell at that point, this whole incident may very well end up serving as a huge distraction for himself and the entire Clipper organization as the season begins.
To be clear, there are a number of other factors that are coming into play as this saga unfolds. Leonard’s uncle and official advisor, Dennis Robertson, was investigated by the NBA in 2019 for requesting impermissible benefits from teams who were courting Leonard’s services, including the Clippers. Though the league found no evidence that the Clippers granted any illegal benefits to Leonard at that time that they were pursuing him, the accusations surrounding Robertson’s character are enough to further justify the need for a statement to prevent this from getting further out of control.
There is precedence on the Clippers’ side as well, given that organization has already been found to have engaged in impropriety with third-party endorsements during Ballmer’s reign as owner. A decade ago, the NBA fined the Clippers $250,000 for “violating NBA rules prohibiting teams from offering players unauthorized business or investment opportunities” while pursuing free agent DeAndre Jordan. While this past similar indiscretion doesn’t help the Clippers credibility, they have at least taken a proactive approach to minimizing the damage for this latest crisis.
To be fair to Kawhi Leonard, he may currently be coordinating with his team, which hopefully includes at least a couple of seasoned PR professionals, to come up with a public statement that introduces plausible reasoning for his part in this sordid affair. He just has to hope that the public hasn’t deemed his silence to this point to be an admission of guilt.
