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.

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is being sued by 11 former investors in the sustainability firm Aspiration Partners.

Ballmer was added this week as a defendant in an existing civil lawsuit against Aspiration co-founder Joseph Sanberg and several others associated with the now-defunct company. Ballmer and the other defendants are accused of fraud and aiding and abetting fraud, with the plaintiffs seeking at least $50 million in damages.

“This is an action to recover millions of dollars that Plaintiffs were defrauded into investing, directly or indirectly, in CTN Holdings, Inc. (‘Catona’), previously known as Aspiration Partners, Inc,” reads the lawsuit, which was initially filed July 9 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Central District.

Attorney Skip Miller said his firm, Miller Barondess LLP, filed an amended complaint Monday that added the billionaire team owner and his investment company, Ballmer Group, as defendants in light of recent allegations that a $28-million deal between Aspiration and Clippers star Kawhi Leonard helped the team circumvent the NBA’s salary cap.

“Ballmer was the perfect deep-pocket partner to fund Catona’s flagging operations and lend legitimacy to Catona’s carbon credit business,” says the amended complaint, which has been viewed by The Times. “Since Ballmer had publicly promoted himself as an advocate for sustainability, Catona was an ideal vehicle for Ballmer to secretly circumvent the NBA salary cap while purporting to support the company as a legitimate environmentalist investor.”

Although Ballmer did invest millions in Aspiration, it is not known whether he was aware of or played a role in facilitating the company’s deal with Leonard. The Times reached out to the Clippers for a comment from Ballmer or a team representative but did not receive an immediate response.

CTN Holdings filed for bankruptcy in March and, according to the lawsuit, is no longer in operation.

In late August, Sanberg agreed to plead guilty in federal court to a scheme to defraud investors and lenders of more than $248 million. On Sept. 3, investigative journalist Pablo Torre reported on his podcast that after reviewing numerous documents and conducting interviews with former employees of the now-defunct firm, he did not find evidence of any marketing or endorsement work done by Leonard for the company.

That was news to the plaintiffs, according to their amended lawsuit.

“Ballmer’s purported status as a legitimate investor in Catona was material to Plaintiffs’ decision to invest in and/or keep their investments with Catona,” the complaint states.

It also says that “Sanberg and Ballmer never disclosed to Plaintiffs that the millions of dollars Ballmer injected into Catona were meant to allow Ballmer to funnel compensation to Leonard in violation of NBA rules and keep Catona’s failing business afloat financially. Sanberg and Ballmer’s scheme to pay Leonard through Catona to evade the NBA’s salary cap was only later revealed in 2025, by journalist Pablo Torre.”

Miller said in a statement to The Times: “A lot of people including our clients got hurt badly in this case. This lawsuit is being brought to make them whole for their losses. I look forward to our day in court for justice.”

The NBA announced an investigation into the matter in early September. Speaking at a forum that month hosted by the Sports Business Journal, Ballmer said that he felt “quite confident … that we abided [by] the rules. So, I welcome the investigation that the NBA is doing.”

The Clippers said in a statement at the time: “Neither Mr. Ballmer nor the Clippers circumvented the salary cap or engaged in any misconduct related to Aspiration. Any contrary assertion is provably false: The team ended its relationship with Aspiration years ago, during the 2022-23 season, when Aspiration defaulted on its obligations.

“Neither the Clippers nor Mr. Ballmer was aware of any improper activity by Aspiration or its co-founder until after the government instituted its investigation.”

Leonard also has denied being involved in any wrongdoing associated with his deal with the now-defunct firm. Asked about the matter Sept. 29 during Clippers media day to open training camp, Leonard said, “I don’t think it’s accurate” that he provided no endorsement services to the company. He added that he hadn’t been paid all the money due to him from the deal.

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.

Aspiration Partners made a splash when it entered the green investing space in 2013.

The Marina del Rey firm billed itself as a socially conscious online banking company, offering investments and focusing its finances on the climate crisis. It also generated and sold carbon credits meant to help offset greenhouse gas emissions.

Soon, it collected celebrity investors such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom, Robert Downey Jr., and Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft chief executive, philanthropist and owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.

But 12 years later, things have turned sour.

Earlier this year, the co-founder and another top company official agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud charges and scheming to bilk investors using falsified documents. Aspiration went bankrupt.

And now, the company is at the center of a NBA investigation into whether a $28-million deal the firm cut with Clippers star Kawhi Leonard was designed to help the team circumvent the league’s salary cap.

The Clippers have strongly denied that, and said neither the team nor Ballmer played any role in Leonard’s deal and that there was no intention to violate any NBA rules. Leonard has also denied any wrongdoing.

In a statement, the Clippers said Ballmer and his family are “focused on sustainability” and built the Clippers’ home arena at the leading edge of environmental design. Aspiration was part of that effort, the statement said, and Ballmer was “duped on the investment and on some parts of this agreement, as were many other investors and employees.”

A review of hundreds of pages of court records offers a window into how the once high-flying green company fell amid illegal dealings and multiple federal criminal investigations.

A company’s rise and fall

Founded by Joseph Sanberg and Andrei Cherny, Aspiration Partners reportedly raised $110 million from venture capital funds in just its first few years of existence.

It came at a moment of rising concern about climate change, and Aspiration seemed to capitalize. Sizable deals rolled in, including a $315-million pact with Oaktree Capital Management and Ballmer.

The firm even partnered with rapper Drake in 2021, using its reforestation program to offset the artist’s estimated climate impact. The company at the time claimed its business partners and customers had funded the planting of 15 million trees over the course of a year.

In September 2021, the Clippers announced a deal with the company as the first “Founding Partner” for its state-of-the-art arena in Inglewood. The idea was fans would be able to offset their carbon impact when buying a ticket to watch the team. Aspiration even bid unsuccessfully for the naming rights to the venue, now known as Intuit Dome.

The partnership, the news release announcing it declared, “set a new standard for social responsibility in sports.”

But behind the cadre of celebrity sponsors and investors, court documents reveal trouble was brewing inside Aspiration.

In 2020, the company explored a potential $55-million loan from an investor fund in exchange for 10.3 million shares of stock, according to federal court filings. But the investor fund wanted a “put option” — a sort of safety net guaranteeing it would be able to sell its stock if Aspiration defaulted on the loan, according to federal complaints.

Sanberg, according to federal prosecutors, turned to Ibrahim Ameen AlHusseini, a venture capitalist and then-board member of Aspiration Partners.

According to a federal criminal complaint, Sanberg was aware AlHusseini didn’t have the funds to cover the “put option.” So he allegedly coordinated with AlHusseini to falsify financial records and inflate AlHusseini’s worth by tens of millions of dollars.

Federal prosecutors allege AlHusseini sent Sanberg a spreadsheet showing his investment portfolio from several years back and told Sanberg the spreadsheet was not accurate but a “hypothetical.”

Sanberg, according to the federal complaint filed against him, revised the spreadsheet to read as if it were from Dec. 31, 2019, and sent it to an investment advisor.

AlHusseini also used a graphic designer from Lebanon to falsify financial documents at least 24 times between April 2020 and February 2023, according to the federal complaint filed against Sanberg. The records sent to the financial advisor made it appear that AlHusseini’s investments and assets were worth more than $200 million, the records show.

But in reality, federal prosecutors allege his Bank of America account balance in September 2021 was $11,556.89. His Fidelity investment accounts, according to court records from federal prosecutors, totaled $2,963.63 at the time.

According to a federal complaint, Sanberg then refinanced the loaned $55 million, securing $145 million from another investment firm, again using a “put option” from AlHusseini. This time, AlHusseini promised to buy the shares for $65 million from that firm if Sanberg defaulted, according to the federal complaint.

AlHusseini did not have the funds to back that deal, federal prosecutors alleged in court papers. But he still banked $6.3 million for his role in securing it, the complaint alleged.

There were other signs the company was in trouble.

Federal prosecutors allege Sanberg moved money from his personal checking account between Aspiration and another one of his companies in March 2022, making it appear on paper as if new investments were coming in.

On Nov. 2, 2022, Sanberg defaulted on the loan, and AlHusseini agreed the following month to boost the put option value to $75 million.

Some contractors began to complain that they were not being paid, according to court filings. Lawsuits followed.

In July 2022, Cherny also notified the company he would step down as chief executive. The day after he and the company signed a separation agreement in October, Sanberg threatened to sue him, according to a letter from Sanberg’s attorneys sent to Cherny.

Cherny would later file suit against Aspiration Partners, alleging the company didn’t pay him the entirety of his severance package agreed to in October 2022, according to a complaint filed in federal court. The suit was settled out of court earlier this year.

Federal prosecutors filed charges against AlHusseini in October 2024. He later agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud, as well as to work with federal authorities in their investigation.

He is expected to appear in court for a sentencing hearing on Feb. 26, according to court filings.

Aspiration Partners filed for bankruptcy in March.

Sanberg originally entered a plea of not guilty to the charges, but in August he agreed to plead guilty to two felony counts of wire fraud, according to federal prosecutors.

Court filings show he is expected in court on Oct. 20 for a change of plea hearing.

An NBA star’s deal

Aspiration cut its deal with Leonard in 2022. Although players are allowed to have separate endorsement and other business deals, the NBA probe is trying to determine whether the Clippers participated in arranging the side deal beyond simply introducing Aspiration executives to Leonard.

The investigation follows information detailed in the “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast, which reported that Leonard’s deal amounted to a no-work contract meant to circumvent the NBA’s salary cap rules.

The salary cap limits how much teams can spend on player payroll. It’s meant to ensure talent parity by preventing the league’s wealthiest teams from outspending smaller markets to acquire the best players.

Circumventing the cap by paying a player outside of his contract is strictly prohibited and can be severely punished.

Cherny, in a statement posted on X, disputed that the agreement with Leonard required no work from the basketball star.

“The contract contained three pages of extensive obligations that Leonard had to perform,” Cherny wrote in the Sept. 12 post. “And the contract clearly said that if Leonard did not meet those obligations, Aspiration could terminate the contract.”

In the statement, Cherny said he does not remember any conversations about the NBA’s salary cap when the contract between Leonard and Aspiration was signed.

“There were numerous internal conversations about the various things Aspiration was planning to do with Leonard once the 2022-23 season began, including emails from the marketing team about their plans,” he said.

Cherny declined to be interviewed for this article.

It was Aspiration’s collapse that shed light on the Leonard deal. According to bankruptcy filings, Leonard’s private company, KL2 Aspire, is listed as one of the company’s biggest creditors — being owed $7 million.

The Clippers are, by far, the biggest creditor listed for the company, with more than $30 million in outstanding debt.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Clippers said the team terminated its relationship with Aspiration during the 2022-23 season, when the company defaulted on the agreement.

Ballmer has said he was duped by Aspiration, and insisted the Clippers followed all NBA rules. He also said he welcomed the investigation.

The Clippers signed Leonard to a four-year, $176-million contract in August 2021. In an interview with ESPN last month, Ballmer said that the sponsorship deal with Aspiration was completed in September 2021 and that the Clippers introduced Leonard to Aspiration two months later.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Clippers said both the team and Ballmer were unaware of Aspiration’s suspicious dealings.

“Neither the Clippers nor Mr. Ballmer was aware of any improper activity by Aspiration or its co-founder until after the government instituted its investigation,” the statement read. “The team and Mr. Ballmer stand ready to assist law enforcement in any way they can.”

Tuesday, Oct. 14, would have been the 32nd birthday of Charlie Kirk, the right-wing political influencer murdered last summer. It is a birthday shared by George Floyd, Jr., asphyxiated by arresting police in 2020 and who would have been 52. The horror of these tragedies has roiled a divisive society, but must they now demand a political battleground of opposing memorials?/

The concept of a civic memorial has long and often been, in Western culture, the privilege of classical music. Music may be permitted to speak not of specifics but the essence of grief, a collective cherishing of existence.

There happens to be another anniversary, Tuesday, to acknowledge. Leonard Bernstein, a great gatherer of differences in his music, died Oct. 14, 1990, at 72. And all around us, as we approach the 35th anniversary of his death, are reminders of Bernstein as the megastar memorializer of the 35th president of the United States, and what those tributes to John F. Kennedy might mean for us today.

The must-see Los Angeles Opera production of “West Side Story,” which closes Sunday, is by Francesca Zambello, who heads Washington National Opera at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and where she is slated to mount her production of Bernstein’s classic musical in May. Saturday night at the Soraya in Northridge, Martha Graham Dance Company gave the world premiere of “En Masse,” which is based on Bernstein’s “MASS,” written to open the Kennedy Center, where “En Masse,” too, is headed in the spring.

Along with all that, Gustavo Dudamel caps his three fall weeks leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic this weekend with four performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Bernstein chose this epic score, known as the “Resurrection,” to memorialize Kennedy two days after his assassination in 1963. A large New York Philharmonic, vocal soloists and chorus assembled on a CBS sound stage for a live national television broadcast.

It was a Sunday and untold millions (there were no Nielsen ratings) gathered in their homes to watch a somber Bernstein begin Mahler’s symphony with gut-wrenching intensity and end it with an overwhelming sense of triumph 90 minutes later. As a legendary act of national healing, the broadcast riveted a shocked nation.

It still does. The following year, Bernstein channeled that Kennedy spirit into a famous performance of Mahler’s symphony at London’s Ely Cathedral that was televised in Britain and released on commercial video. It is that Mahler Second performance that Bradley Cooper chose as the musical centerpiece of his Bernstein 2023 biopic, “Maestro.”

Bernstein further memorialized JFK in the dedication of his Third Symphony, “Kaddish.” And then there was the Kennedy Center opening in 1971, with Bernstein doing the shocking. At the time and for the occasion, “MASS” seemed a bizarre mashup of pop, schlock, jazz, 12-tone, electronics, grand symphonic utterances, hippie currency, mysticism, traditional Catholic Mass, Jewish Sabbath service, anti-Mass climaxing with a psychotic and psychedelic breakdown of Mass’ celebrant and Vietnam War protest.

The general reaction to “MASS” was that of appall, no matter whether you worshipped Bernstein or couldn’t bear him, whatever your political or cultural orientation. President Nixon — who as vice president in the 1950s had attended a Bernstein festival of American music at the Hollywood Bowl and had accompanied Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic on a cultural tour to South America — stayed home.

In fact, “MASS,” after years of puzzled neglect, ultimately came to be heralded as a Bernstein masterpiece, a work that freed contemporary music of genre-fication. It gives permission not for anything goes but for anything goes together if you can find the right context. A slow awareness of the score’s genius has empowered a new generation, such as the conductor and composer Christopher Rountree, who made the new arrangement of parts of “MASS” for his genre-breaking orchestra, Wild Up.

The Graham company based “En Messe” on a flimsy premise, the discovery of a page or two of sketches that Bernstein made for a proposed score he meant to write for Graham in 1988. The discovery is minor. Bernstein and Graham knew and admired each other, but she was a footnote in his career.

In the end, Rountree wrote a short series on variations on two themes he extracted from the sketches that serve as an epilogue to the “MASS” suite. The themes are hard to discern and don’t matter. Rather, Rountree makes a gripping case in his variations for a way forward from Bernsteiniana to today.

The intent of “En Messe” was meant to cap a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Graham company, the oldest dance company in America. Graham 100 began a year ago with a revival of “Appalachian Spring,” Graham’s most famous piece, which also gave us Aaron Copland’s iconic score (the popularity of which was greatly helped by Bernstein’s recording).

The company has also revived another of Graham’s most important (and severe) dances, “Night Journey,” based around the last moments of the life of Jocasta (the mother of Oedipus in the Greek tragedy). The revival with Anne Souder as an imposing Jocasta, Lloyd Knight, an enthralling Oedipus, and Ethan Palma, a haunted Tiresias (the seer), retained all the work’s stunning power. William Schuman’s mostly forgotten score received a revelatory performance by Rountree and Wild Up.

“En Messe,” itself, did not serve its purpose to cap a centennial closer to the work of a seminal choreographer. It accomplished something more important by heralding a path forward. The company can’t live forever reviving Graham’s work or doing showy new dances such as “We the People” (also on the program).

Instead, Hope Boykin’s choreography added a dark intensity to Bernstein’s brightness. The stage was dim. Each dance featured a soloist in seeming personal meditation with the music, its rhythms and its spirit, and with the company’s other dancers, who appear ghostly figures in the misty distance.

Movement didn’t match music but brought you into it, while the music seemed to demand movement. It began with the score’s hit, “A Simple Song,” Bernstein at his most tuneful, even saccharine. Jodie Landau didn’t buy into its surface simplicity but sang with a fresh, cool, contemporary edge that immediately told you we were headed into unknown territory. Every discovery that followed proved her right on.

“En Messe” will tour the country and beyond over the next year with, unfortunately, a recording of Wild Up, not live performance. If the company gets over its overamplification, which cheapens everything it presents, that need not disastrously lessen the impact.

Will “En Messe,” or “West Side Story,” actually reach the Kennedy Center, which the federal government is attempting to turn it into who-knows-what, this spring? Both Bernstein works are exactly what the new overseers say they want — more populist art, inspirational attempts to make American art great. But they are also works that make us look inside ourselves, discover what matters beyond self-interest. That’s become a hard sell.

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.”

NEW YORK — The NBA will not rush to any judgment in its probe of whether a business relationship between Kawhi Leonard and a California company was legitimate or merely a way for the Clippers to circumvent salary cap rules, Commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday.

Silver spoke after a board of governors meeting in New York — one that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer attended — and said the league will wait to see the report from the outside firm it has hired to run its investigation before taking next steps.

“We’re constantly learning in the league office and again, I’m reserving judgment because I don’t know the facts here,” Silver said. “I don’t know what Kawhi was paid. I don’t know what he did or didn’t do. We’ll leave all that for the investigation.”

The NBA opened its investigation last week into whether a $28 million endorsement contract between Leonard and sustainability services company Aspiration Fund Adviser, LLC — one that filed for bankruptcy earlier this year — broke league rules, following a report by journalist Pablo Torre.

The Clippers have strongly denied that any rules were broken and said they welcomed the league’s investigation.

“I think as a matter of fundamental fairness, I would be reluctant to act if there was a mere appearance of impropriety,” Silver said. “I think the goal of a full investigation is to find if there really was impropriety. … I would want anybody else in the situation that 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.”

Ballmer made a $50-million investment in Aspiration, and the company and the team announced a $300-million partnership in September 2021. That was about a month after Leonard signed a four-year, $176-million extension with the Clippers.

The team ended its relationship with Aspiration after two years, saying the contract was in default. Aspiration’s co-founder, Joseph Sanberg, agreed to plead guilty last month after facing federal charges of wire fraud. Prosecutors said he defrauded investors and lenders out of $248 million, adding that “Aspiration’s financial statements were inaccurate and reflected much higher revenue than the company in fact received.”

The league — which previously looked into claims that Leonard’s representatives asked for certain things that would be considered cap circumventions when he was a free agent several years ago — can issue stiff penalties if cap rules are found to have been broken by a team, including a fine of up to $7.5 million, the voiding of contracts and the forfeiture of future draft picks.

“I’m a big believer in due process and fairness and you need to now let the investigation run its course,” Silver said, adding that he has “very broad powers” when determining penalties if wrongdoing is found.

More details are emerging about a company that allegedly paid Los Angeles Clippers star Kawhi Leonard millions to circumvent the NBA’s salary cap, including that the team came close in 2021 to granting naming rights for its Inglewood arena to Aspiration Partners.

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer nearly granted naming rights to the company, but ended up choosing financial services firm Intuit to grace the $2-billion venue, a source familiar with the matter said. Intuit, which has a $186-billion net worth and developed TurboTax, Credit Karma and QuickBooks, ended up paying a reported $500 million over 23 years for the naming rights.

Four years later, Aspiration, a sustainability firm that also generated and sold carbon credits, is out of business. Co-founder Joseph Sanberg has agreed to plead guilty to defrauding multiple investors and lenders. Listed among creditors in Aspiration’s bankruptcy documents is Leonard, raising questions about whether his $28-million endorsement deal with the company skirted NBA salary cap rules.

One of the investors Sanberg defrauded was Ballmer, listed by Fortune magazine as the sixth-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $157 billion. The Clippers owner invested $50 million in Aspiration, which in turn entered into a $330-million sponsorship agreement with the team.

This week, the Athletic reported allegations that Aspiration agreed to pay Leonard $28 million for a job with no responsibilities, in an effort to circumvent the NBA salary cap. Ballmer was interviewed Thursday night by ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and denied involvement in Leonard’s deal with Aspiration, but the NBA has launched an investigation.

Ballmer said he was “conned” by the company and that the Clippers did not circumvent NBA salary cap rules, which the team was accused of doing in a podcast report by Pablo Torre of the Athletic.

A plane flies over the Intuit Dome in Inglewood.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Ballmer told Shelburne that Aspiration offered more than Intuit for dome naming rights, and a Clippers spokesman confirmed that account. However, Ballmer insisted that the Clippers did not violate NBA rules against skirting the salary cap, and the team had agreed to a contract extension with Leonard and the sponsorship deal with Aspiration before the player and the company met.

“We were done with Kawhi, we were done with Aspiration,” Ballmer said. “The deals were all locked and loaded. Then, they did request to be introduced to Kawhi, and under the rules, we can introduce our sponsors to our athletes. We just can’t be involved.”

The Clippers signed Leonard to a four-year, $176-million contract in August 2021 even though he was recovering from a partially torn ACL in his right knee that kept him sidelined the entire 2021-22 season. Ballmer said the sponsorship deal with Aspiration was completed in September 2021 and that the Clippers introduced Leonard to Aspiration two months later.

“As part of our cooperation with the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission, we produced texts and emails,” Ballmer said. “It was part of the document production in their investigation. We even found the email that made the first introduction [between Aspiration and Leonard]. It was early in November.

“Where could any of this circumvention happened? It couldn’t have, it didn’t. The introduction got made and they were off to the races on their own. We weren’t involved.”

The Boston Sports Journal reported that Leonard did not appear in promotional material as other endorsers did because Aspiration executives “saw no brand synergy with Leonard and chose not to use his services. They instead preferred to partner with climate-focused influencers.”

Ballmer couldn’t explain why Leonard did no marketing or endorsement work for Aspiration, telling Shelburne that he never spoke with the player about his deal with the company.

“I don’t know why they did what they did and I don’t know how different it is, I really don’t,” he said. “And, frankly, any speculation would be crazy. These were guys who committed fraud. Look, they conned me. I made an investment in these guys thinking it was on the up-and-up and they conned me. At this stage, I have no ability to predict why they did anything they did.”

The salary cap is a dollar amount that limits what teams can spend on player payroll. The purpose of the cap is to ensure parity, preventing the wealthiest teams from outspending smaller markets to acquire the best players.

Circumventing the cap by paying a player outside of his contract is strictly prohibited. Teams that exceed the cap must pay luxury tax penalties that grow increasingly severe. Revenues from the tax penalties are then distributed in part to smaller-market teams and in part to teams that do not exceed the salary cap.

The NBA said it will investigate the allegations laid out by Torre. Ballmer said he welcomes the probe. If allegations were made against a team other than the Clippers, “I’d want the league to investigate, to take it seriously,” he said.

“We know the rules, and if anything is not clear, we remind ourselves what the rules are. And we make it absolutely clear we will abide by those rules.”

The cap was implemented before the 1984-85 season at a mere $3.6 million. Ten years later, it was $15.9 million, and 10 years after that it had risen to $43.9 million. By the 2014-15 season it was $63.1 million.

The biggest spike came before the 2016-2017 season when it jumped to $94 million because of an influx of revenue from a new nine-year, $24-billion media rights deal with ESPN and TNT.

Salary cap rules negotiated between the NBA and the players’ union are spelled out in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Proven incidents of teams circumventing the cap are few, with a violation by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2000 serving as the most egregious.

The Timberwolves made a secret agreement with free agent and former No. 1 overall draft pick Joe Smith, signing him to a succession of below-market one-year deals in order to enable the team to go over the cap with a huge contract ahead of the 2001-02 season.

The NBA voided his contract, fined the Timberwolves $3.5 million, and stripped them of five first-round draft picks — two of which were later returned. Also, owner Glen Taylor and general manager Kevin McHale were suspended.

Then-NBA commissioner David Stern told the Minnesota Star Tribune at the time: “What was done here was a fraud of major proportions. There were no fewer than five undisclosed contracts tightly tucked away, in the hope that they would never see the light of day. … The magnitude of this offense was shocking.”

According to Article 13 of the CBA, if the Clippers were found to have circumvented the cap, it would be a first offense punishable by a $4.5-million fine, the loss of one first-round draft pick, and voiding of Leonard’s contract. However, the Clippers don’t have a first-round pick until 2027.

At the heart of the uproar over allegations that Kawhi Leonard of the Los Angeles Clippers received millions in undisclosed payments from a tree-planting startup is a National Basketball Association rule that caps the the total annual payroll for teams.

According to a report by Pablo Torre of the Athletic, bankruptcy documents show that the tree-planting startup Aspiration Partners paid Leonard $21 million — and still owes him another $7 million — after agreeing to a $28 million contract for endorsement and marketing work at the company.

The report claims there is no evidence to show that Leonard did anything for Aspiration Partners, whose initial funding came in large part from Clippers owner Steve Ballmer. Torre alleges that the payment to Leonard was a way to skirt the NBA salary cap and pad his contract.

The Clippers have forcefully denied that they or Ballmer “circumvented the salary cap or engaged in any misconduct related to Aspiration.”

Still, the NBA said it was launching an investigation into the matter.

The salary cap is a dollar amount that limits what teams can spend on player payroll. The number is determined based on a percentage of projected income for the upcoming year. In 2024-25, the salary cap was $140.6 million.

The purpose of the cap is to ensure parity, preventing the wealthiest teams from outspending smaller markets to acquire the best players. Teams that exceed the cap must pay luxury tax penalties that grow increasingly severe. Revenues from the tax penalties are then distributed in part to smaller-market teams and in part to teams that do not exceed the salary cap.

The cap was implemented before the 1984-85 season at a mere $3.6 million. Ten years later, it was $15.9 million, and 10 years after that it had risen to $43.9 million. By the 2014-15 season it was $63.1 million.

The biggest spike came before the 2016-2017 season when it jumped to $94 million because of an influx of revenue from a new nine-year, $24 billion media rights deal with ESPN and TNT.

Salary cap rules negotiated between the NBA and the players’ union are spelled out in the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). Proven incidents of teams circumventing the cap are few, with a violation by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2000 serving as the most egregious.

The Timberwolves made a secret agreement with free agent and former No. 1 overall draft pick Joe Smith, signing him to a succession of below-market one-year deals in order to enable the team to go over the cap with a huge contract ahead of the 2001-2002 season.

The NBA voided his contract, fined the Timberwolves $3.5 million, and stripped them of five first-round draft picks — two of which were later returned. Also, owner Glen Taylor and general manager Kevin McHale were suspended.

Then-NBA commissioner David Stern told the Minnesota Star-Tribune at the time: “What was done here was a fraud of major proportions. There were no fewer than five undisclosed contracts tightly tucked away, in the hope that they would never see the light of day. … The magnitude of this offense was shocking.”

Current commissioner Adam Silver is just as adamant as Stern when it comes to enforcing salary cap rules, although the current CBA limits punishment.

According to Article 13 of the CBA, if the Clippers were found to have circumvented the cap, it would be a first offense punishable by a $4.5 million fine, one first-round draft pick, and voiding of Leonard’s contract. However, the Clippers don’t have a first-round pick until 2027.

Leonard, one of the Clippers stars, is extremely well compensated. He will have been paid $375,772,011 by NBA teams through the upcoming season, according to industry expert spotrac.com.

A former Aspiration finance department employee whose voice was disguised on Torre’s podcast said that when they noticed the shockingly large fee paid to Leonard, they were told that, “If I had any questions about it, essentially don’t, because it was to circumvent the salary cap, LOL. There was lots of LOL when things were shared.”

Aspiration Partners was a digital bank that promoted socially responsible spending and investments that, at one point, brought in a star-filled roster of investors that included Drake, Robert Downey Jr., and Leonardo DiCaprio. Founded in 2013, it offered investments in “conscious coalition” companies and offered carbon credits to businesses. The company was valued it at $2.3 million at one point.

But in August, the company’s co-founder, Joseph Sanberg, agreed to plead guilty to charges that he defrauded investors and lenders. Federal prosecutors accused Sanberg of causing more than $248 million in losses, calling him a “fraudster.”

Prosecutors alleged that Sanberg and another member of the company’s board, Ibrahim AlHusseini, fraudulently obtained $145 million in loans by promising shares from Sanberg’s stock in the company. AlHusseini allegedly falsified records to inflate his assets to obtain the loans, and Sanberg concealed from investigators that he was the source for revenue that was recognized by the company.

Sanberg had also recruited companies and individuals to claim they would be paying tens of thousands of dollars to have trees planted, but instead Sanberg used legal entities under his control to hide that he was making these payments, not the customers.

Aspiration, which was partially funded by Ballmer with a $50 million investment, filed for bankruptcy in March.

The company was expected to pay more than $300 million over two decades as a sponsor for the Clippers’ Intuit Dome, which opened in August 2024. But before the new arena opened, the Clippers said Aspiration was no longer a sponsor, just as the Justice Department and Commodity Futures Trading Commission began looking into allegations that Aspiration had misled customers and investors.

During Aspiration’s bankruptcy proceedings, documents emerged citing KL2 Aspire as a creditor owed $7 million, one of four yearly payments of that amount agreed upon in a 2022 contract. KL2 is a limited liability company that names Leonard — whose jersey number is 2 — as its manager.

Aspiration was partially funded by a $50-million investment from Ballmer. It is not known whether Ballmer was aware of or played a role in facilitating the employment agreement between Aspiration and Leonard.

The Clippers issued a lengthy statement Thursday, attempting to explain why Leonard being paid by Aspiration was unrelated to his contract with the Clippers.

“There is nothing unusual or untoward about team sponsors doing endorsement deals with players on the same team,” the statement said in part. “Neither Steve nor the Clippers organization had any oversight of Kawhi’s independent endorsement agreement with Aspiration. To say otherwise is flat-out wrong.”

“The Clippers take NBA compliance extremely seriously, fully respect the league’s rules, and welcome its investigation related to Aspiration.”

In his reporting, Torre noted that Leonard’s contract with Aspiration included an unusual clause that said the company could terminate the endorsement agreement if Leonard was no longer a member of the Clippers.

Mark Cuban, part owner of the Dallas Mavericks, took to X.com to suggest that Torre’s reporting was faulty.

‘I’m on Team Ballmer,” Cuban wrote. “As much as I wish they circumvented the salary cap, First Steve isn’t that dumb. If he did try to feed KL money, knowing what was at stake for him personally, and his team, do you think he would let the company go bankrupt ? “

Torre responded by inviting Cuban on his podcast, “Pablo Torre Finds Out.”