kawhi leonard

PHOENIX — Jalen Green scored 29 points in his Phoenix debut, Devin Booker added 24 points and the host Suns beat the short-handed Clippers 115-102 on Thursday night.

Green, who missed the Suns’ first eight games with a right hamstring strain, played 23 minutes and was 10 of 20 from the field, including six of 13 from behind the three-point line.

The guard was acquired from Houston in the offseason in the seven-team trade that sent Kevin Durant from Phoenix to the Rockets.

Grayson Allen, playing through an illness, scored 18, Mark Williams had 13 points and nine rebounds and Royce O’Neale scored 17, 11 in the third quarter when Phoenix outscored the Clippers 40-23 to take a 91-74 lead.

The Clippers lost their third straight. They played without James Harden, who missed the game for personal reasons, and Kawhi Leonard, sidelined with a right ankle sprain.

Ivica Zubac led the Clippers with 23 points and 11 rebounds. Cam Christie scored 17 off the bench, John Collins had 13 and Bogdan Bogdanovic 12.

Bradley Beal, in his return to Phoenix, had a miserable night for the Clippers. The veteran guard was two for 14 from the field and finished with five points. Beal played two seasons in Phoenix but was frequently sidelined by injuries. He was booed during introductions and every time he touched the ball during the game.

The Suns took their biggest lead at 104-79 on Allen’s three-pointer with 7:53 to go.

Bam Adebayo had 25 points and 10 rebounds, Norman Powell added 21 points in his return to Southern California and the Miami Heat held off the Clippers 120-119 on Monday night.

Powell was a key member of the Clippers for three seasons before being traded to the Heat before this season.

Andrew Wiggins scored 17 points and Kel’el Ware added 16 to help the Heat end a two-game losing streak and win on the road for the second time in five games. Miami is 1-2 to open a four-game trip.

James Harden scored 29 points and Kawhi Leonard added 27 as the Clippers lost at home for the first time in four games this season.

Ivica Zubac had nine points and 12 rebounds for the Clippers. Derrick Jones Jr., Bradley Beal and John Collins each scored 12 points.

The Heat shot 54.2% from the field and made 12 of their 25 three-point attempts to 50% for the Clippers, who were 17 of 41 from long range. The Clippers had 21 turnovers that the Heat turned into 37 points.

Miami led 120-116 after two free throws from Adebayo with 56 seconds remaining. Adebayo missed a shot inside with 26 seconds left and Harden made a three-pointer on the other end with 20 seconds left to pull the Clippers within a point.

The Clippers had a chance to win it, but Leonard missed a 26-foot step-back three-pointer at the buzzer.

The Clippers trailed by as many as 13 points in the third quarter before getting even 105-105 with 9:55 remaining on a three-pointer from veteran Chris Paul.

Kawhi Leonard had 30 points and 10 rebounds and the Clippers beat Portland 114-107 on Sunday night in the Trail Blazers’ second game since head coach Chauncey Billups was arrested on gambling charges.

Billups and Miami Heat player Terry Rozier were among those arrested Thursday for what federal law enforcement officials described as their involvement in illicit gambling activities. Billups was charged with participating in a conspiracy to fix high-stakes card games.

The NBA placed Billups and Rozier on leave following their arrests. Assistant coach Tiago Splitter is serving as Portland’s interim head coach.

Down 60-55 at the half, the Clippers outscored Portland 32-22 in the third quarter to take an 87-82 lead. Leonard, James Harden and Ivica Zubac each had nine points in the period.

Zubac finished with 21 points and eight rebounds. Harden had 20 points and 13 assists — along with seven turnovers. John Collins scored 16 points.

The Clippers improved to 2-1, following an opening loss at Utah and home victory over Phoenix. The Clippers are 19-2 against Portland since the start of the 2019-20 season.

Deni Avdija led the Trail Blazers with 23 points. Jrue Holiday had 21, Shaedon Sharpe 19 and Jerami Grant 17.

Portland played its first road game of the season. It opened with a loss to Minnesota under Billups, then beat Golden State.

Kawhi Leonard mumbled his way through a few answers to questions Monday about his endorsement deal with Aspiration Partners that has triggered an NBA investigation into whether the Clippers circumvented the league salary cap.

The Clippers allowed only two reporters to ask about the deal during media day at Intuit Dome, refusing to give the microphone to additional reporters — including one from The Times — who raised their hands to ask questions. Leonard was ushered off the dais and out of sight.

“The NBA is going to do their job,” Leonard said. “None of us did no wrongdoing and, yeah, that’s it. We invite the investigation.”

Asked about his understanding of the endorsement deal and whether he performed any services, Leonard replied, “I understand the full contract and services that I had to do. Like I said, I don’t deal with conspiracies or the click-bait analysts or journalism that’s going on.

“I don’t think it’s accurate” that he provided no endorsement services to Aspiration, he said. “It’s old. This is all new to you guys. But the company went bankrupt a while ago, so we already knew this was going to happen.”

He added that he wasn’t paid all the money due to him, saying “I’m not sure [how much I’m owed]. I’ve got to go back and look at the books. … The company went belly up and it was fine.”

Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard speaks during media day at the Intuit Dome on Monday.

(Eric Thayer / Associated Press)

Lawrence Frank, Clippers president of basketball operations, was insistent that the investigation will exonerate owner Steve Ballmer and the franchise.

“We appreciate that there will be a clear-eyed look at these allegations,” Frank said. “And we are eager for the truth to come out.

“The assumptions and conclusions that have been made are disappointing and upsetting. And we expect the investigation will show that these allegations are wrong.”

The salary cap limits what teams can spend on player payroll to ensure parity and prevent the wealthiest teams from outspending smaller-market teams to acquire the best player. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has called attempts to circumvent it a “cardinal sin.”

In this case, Leonard agreed to a $28-million contract for endorsement and marketing work for Aspiration, which went out of business in March. Players are allowed to have separate endorsement and other business deals. At issue in this case is whether the Clippers participated in arranging the side deal beyond simply introducing Aspiration executives to Leonard.

The most painful penalties the NBA could impose would be suspending Ballmer for a maximum of one year and docking the Clippers their first-round draft picks for up to five years. The team already is without a first-round pick in 2026 and 2028, having traded them away. Forfeiting the remaining picks through 2032 would make it harder for the Clippers to compete for their first-ever NBA championship.

“I hurt for Steve,” Frank said. “He’s one of the best people, most honorable people I’ve met. He does things the right way for the right reasons. And he constantly reminds us to stay on the right side of the rules.

“I also hurt for our players, our staff and fans. And, on a larger level, as I’ve learned about this over the past month, I feel bad for all the people defrauded by [Aspiration].”

Frank said a partition exists between team executives and companies that signed players for endorsements.

“Endorsement contracts are completely separate from player contracts,” he said. “So what a player makes, Kawhi, or any of our other players, in endorsement contracts, I have no idea.”

Ballmer, however, had a 2-3% ownership share in Aspiration and made separate investments of $50 million and $10 million in the company. Whether that same partition applied to him is something NBA investigators will examine, according to Michael McCann, a visiting professor of law at Harvard who has followed the situation closely.

Frank emphasized that the Clippers front office takes the salary cap rules seriously.

“The salary cap governs everything we do,” he said. “Our mission every day is to build the best team we can under the constraints of the cap. There is no gray area. There are no secret shortcuts. It’s clear what we are and are not allowed to do.”

Whether Leonard was as clear about the rules remains unknown. The forward who is under contract for two more seasons and $100 million said the upcoming season is all he’s thinking about.

“I’m not getting into any conspiracy theories or anything like that,” he said. “It’s about the season and what we’ve got ahead of us right now.”

NBA commissioner Adam Silver on Wednesday pulled back the reins as allegations swirled about the Clippers circumventing the salary cap by orchestrating an endorsement deal for star forward Kawhi Leonard.

Silver, speaking to the media after a previously scheduled meeting of all 30 team owners in New York, said an NBA investigation would need to uncover clear evidence that the Clippers violated rules for owner Steve Ballmer to be punished.

“The burden is on the league if we are going to discipline a team, an owner, a player or any constituent members of the league,” Silver said. “I think, as with any process that requires a fundamental sense of fairness, the burden should be on the party that is, in essence, bringing those charges. …

“I think as a matter of fundamental fairness, I would be reluctant to act if there was sort of a mere appearance of impropriety.”

The Clippers and Ballmer are under league investigation after it was alleged last week on the podcast of Pablo Torre that Leonard was paid $28 million for a do-nothing endorsement role by Aspiration, a sustainability firm that had agreed to a $330-million sponsorship deal with the Clippers and had offered $1 billion for naming rights to the arena that instead became the Intuit Dome.

Aspiration turned out to be a fraudulent company, and co-founder Joseph Sanberg has agreed to plead guilty to defrauding multiple investors and lenders.

Silver said he would hesitate to take action against the Clippers if even a shred of doubt about the situation remains following the investigation, which will be conducted by a law firm experienced in probing wrongdoing by sports franchises, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz.

“Bringing in a firm that specializes in internal investigations adds a level of expertise and creates separation between the league and the investigation of a team,” said Michael McCann, a sports law expert and a visiting professor at Harvard. “The investigators have a background in prosecutorial work, insight into what documents to request and questions to ask.”

McCann and other legal experts said the investigation would center on whether Ballmer’s $50-million investment into Aspiration was a quid pro quo for the firm to turn around and give Leonard $28 million in cash and $20 million in Aspiration stock to essentially do nothing.

Ballmer is embarrassed by the allegations and about his apparent infatuation with Aspiration — which entered into a $330-million sponsorship arrangement with the Clippers and was nearly awarded naming rights to what became the Intuit Dome, only to be revealed as a fraudulent company run by scam artists.

McCann said the investigation would need to uncover concrete evidence that Ballmer or someone else representing the Clippers directed Aspiration to make the deal with Leonard. The only evidence presented on Torre’s podcast was hearsay — an audio clip of an anonymous former Aspiration employee saying that someone else in the company told them the endorsement deal “was to circumvent the salary cap, LOL. There was lots of LOL when things were shared.”

LOL typically is used in written communication, so if the allegation was made in an email or text, the next step for investigators would be to interview the person who wrote it and determine whether Ballmer was involved.

The investigation presumably will examine all of this. Silver tends to be methodical when conducting a probe and is expected to act on what can be proved, not on the perception of wrongdoing. But he also is charged with protecting and growing franchise values. Anything that could damage the integrity of the league would be a huge concern to him and team owners.

“Silver has quite a few very interesting relationships to protect and to nurture: other owners, his corporate sponsors, the media networks that are distributing the content,” said David Carter, a USC professor of sports business and principal of the Sports Business Group. “Everybody attached to the league is interested in getting to the bottom of this. So he has to balance different stakeholder interests and he is very good at doing that.

“So I have a feeling he will — working with the law firm — get to the bottom of it and then decide to what extent if any punishment is warranted. He’ll do that with the intent of making sure he’s protecting the interests of the other owners.”

Leonard joined the Clippers in July 2019 on a three-year, $103-million contract after leading the Toronto Raptors to the NBA title. The 6-foot-7 forward from Moreno Valley signed a four-year, $176.3-million extension in 2021, when Aspiration made its sponsorship deal with the Clippers and Ballmer invested and became a minority owner in the company.

After signing a three-year, $153-million extension a year ago, Leonard will have been paid or is under contract for $375 million in career salary over 14 years with three teams.

The NBA looked into allegations that the Clippers paid Leonard or his representative and uncle, Dennis Robertson, a side deal when he first joined the team in 2019. No wrongdoing was found, although this week the Toronto Star reported that Robertson made demands of the Raptors in 2019 “that line up almost perfectly with what Leonard reportedly got from Aspiration.”

The Star reported that Robertson demanded $10 million a year in sponsorship income but that Leonard didn’t want to do anything for the money. The Raptors rejected the demand, and Leonard signed with the Clippers.

Should the Clippers be found guilty of circumventing the salary cap, they could be forced to forfeit draft picks and be fined heavily. Ballmer and other team executives could be suspended, and perhaps Leonard’s contract could be voided.

Silver will proceed carefully.

“The goal of a full investigation is to find out if there really was impropriety,” he said. “In a public-facing sport, the public at times reaches conclusions that later turn out to be completely false. I’d want anyone else in the situation Mr. Ballmer is in now, or Kawhi Leonard for that matter, to be treated the same way I would want to be treated if people were making allegations against me.”

It screamed watershed moment, the forever luckless Clippers outfoxing the eternally exalted Lakers for the services of not one, but two superstars.

The news stunned the NBA: In a matter of hours, the Clippers had traded for Paul George and signed Kawhi Leonard.

Six years later, the deal for George is considered tragically lopsided, the Clippers fleeced and forced to watch assets they surrendered lift the Oklahoma City Thunder to within three wins of an NBA championship.

The trade wouldn’t be looked upon harshly had the Clippers won a championship in the five seasons that George and Leonard played together. But the deepest the team advanced was the Western Conference finals in 2021.

George left as a free agent last offseason, signing with the Philadelphia 76ers. Leonard has played in only 266 of 472 games with the Clippers because of injuries. The Clippers paid George $195.9 million and have paid Leonard $194.6 million — with Leonard under contract for another two years and $100.3 million.

Meanwhile, one of the two players shipped to the Thunder along with five first-round draft picks, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, has blossomed into the NBA‘s most valuable player. And the 2022 draft pick acquired from the Clippers was used to select Jalen Williams, a rising star who averaged 21.6 points a game this season.

Both are bargains. Gilgeous-Alexander — known as SGA — was paid just $13.5 million his first three seasons with the Thunder before signing a five-year, $173-million contract that will take him through the 2026-27 season. Williams has made $13.7 million in three seasons and will be paid $6.6 million next season, the last of his rookie contract.

And it’s a deal that just keeps giving — to the Thunder, who as a result of the trade get the Nos. 15 and 24 picks in this year’s draft and the Clippers’ first-round pick in 2026.

Asked to evaluate the deal moments after the Clippers defeated the Thunder in January 2024, George grudgingly acknowledged that the pendulum had swung toward Oklahoma City.

“I just think both sides won,” he said. “I did think it was quite a lot that the Clippers were willing to give up. … When that trade first happened, we knew Shai was going to be really, really good, but he’s special.”

George sighed and continued: “I guess in a way, Oklahoma won that trade with the picks and future MVP, but both sides won.”

The fact is, the Clippers couldn’t say no to the deal. Why? Because Leonard was a free agent coming off an NBA title with Toronto in which he was Finals MVP, and he was weighing offers from the Lakers and Raptors as well as the Clippers.

Signing Leonard was paramount, and he had given the Clippers something of an ultimatum: Trade for a star and I’m yours. Otherwise, it’s hello Lakers.

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer needed to be convinced that giving up the slew of draft picks was a smart move. Leonard signing with the Lakers was an unthinkable outcome to Clippers coach Doc Rivers, and he jokingly told Ballmer the Clippers would need to relocate to Seattle if that happened.

“Steve Ballmer was nervous about the picks,” Rivers told The Times in 2019. “I said, ‘Steve, you keep saying six picks for Paul George is insane, but you’re saying it wrong. It’s not six for Paul; it’s six for Paul and Kawhi. So three for each. I would do that.’ You have to look at it in those terms.”

Knowing the Clippers desperately needed to consummate the deal, Thunder general manager Sam Presti demanded SGA — who was coming off an impressive rookie campaign — respected forward Danilo Gallinari and the draft picks.

Unforeseen was that SGA would rapidly rise from promising youngster to foundational piece to perhaps the best player in the NBA. He led the league in scoring this season with 32.7 points a game. He put up 34 points, eight assists and five rebounds in the Thunder’s win over the Indiana Pacers in Game 2 of the Finals on Sunday.

In Game 1, a stunning Pacers comeback was helped by two late missed shots by SGA. Still, he scored 38 points, and his 72 in his first two NBA Finals games is a league record.

“I’m being myself,” Gilgeous-Alexander told reporters. “I don’t think I tried to reinvent the wheel or step up to the plate with a different mindset. Just try to attack the game the right way. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of that so far.”

Through 18 playoff games, SGA is averaging 30.4 points, 6.8 assists, 5.6 rebounds and 1.8 steals. Only Michael Jordan and LeBron James have recorded those numbers during a playoff run of 16 or more games.

None of this is a complete surprise. SGA provided the Clippers with opportunities to feel seller’s remorse soon after the trade. On Dec. 22, 2019, he scored 32 points with five assists and two steals in a 118–112 Thunder victory. Two years later almost to the day, he made a three-pointer at the buzzer to give the Thunder a 104–103 win.

Next is closing out the Finals and delivering a title to Oklahoma City — something that has proven elusive for the Clippers, the oldest franchise in North American professional sports to have never played in a championship game.

“This is where we are, you can’t go back in the past,” SGA said. “You can only make the future better. That’s what I’m focused on.”

The Clippers can only do the same.