Kawhi Leonard Penalized and Clippers Fined Whopping $30M for Violating NBA Rules

NEED TO KNOW

• The Los Angeles Clippers and Kawhi Leonard have been fined in connection with violations of the NBA’s salary cap circumvention rules
• The Clippers lost five first-round draft picks and were fined $30 million, while Leonard was fined $700,000
• The Clippers denied the allegations, while Leonard took “full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle”

The Los Angeles Clippers and Kawhi Leonard were punished for violating the NBA’s salary cap circumvention rules when they signed Leonard in 2022.

The Clippers were stripped of five first-round draft picks, from 2029 to 2033, and fined $30 million, the NBA announced on Wednesday, Sept. 2. Clippers owner Steve Ballmer was suspended from all league and team activities for one year. Leonard was fined $700,000, while his uncle and former business manager Dennis Robertson was banned from all NBA business for five years.

Clippers President of Business Operations Gillian Zucker and President of Basketball Operations Lawrence Frank were suspended without pay for a year and six months, respectively. The Clippers will also be “subject to a compliance and monitoring program overseen by the league office” for the next five years.

In a statement shared with PEOPLE, the team disputed the investigation’s findings.

“We vehemently reject the NBA’s findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence,” the team’s statement reads. “What the league told us privately differs from what it announced today publicly, and they have not held themselves close to the standard Commissioner Silver set at the start of this investigation to ensure its fairness and accuracy.”

A years-long investigation by law firm Wachtell Lipton found “a pattern of misconduct and multiple significant rules violations by the Clippers organization.” 

The investigation began after allegations that the Clippers paid Leonard through a $28 million endorsement deal with green banking company Aspiration, which also had a deal with the team and is now bankrupt, reports ESPN. Journalist Pablo Torre first reported on the allegations in his podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out in September 2025.

Watchell Lipton’s report found that the Clippers violated NBA rules by “initiating off-court income opportunities” and “facilitating endorsement agreements” between Leonard, Aspiration and three other companies doing business with the team. The Clippers also induced the companies to “enter into these agreements by offering them business from the team,” according to the firm’s investigation.

The Clippers also paid “personal expenses on behalf” of Leonard and his representatives, according to the Watchell Lipton report. They also failed to report “improper solicitations for off-court income opportunities made on Mr. Leonard’s behalf” through Robertson. 

“Mr. Leonard, through the conduct of Mr. Robertson on his behalf, violated the circumvention rules by pressuring the Clippers to assist him in obtaining off-court income opportunities, successfully obtaining those opportunities, and failing to reimburse payments by the Clippers for personal expenses,” the NBA said.

“The NBA’s collectively bargained system for determining player compensation is a fundamental component of the basketball competition that the league oversees for the benefit of the teams and players and ultimately the fans,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. “I am deeply disappointed by the flagrant violations of our rules and by the Clippers’ institutional and leadership failures that led to this misconduct. The severity of the penalties reflects the seriousness of the violations.”

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Although the NBA and the NBA Players Association agreed that the penalties against the NBA and Clippers are “final and binding,” the team’s statement said that it will “vigorously challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available to us and look forward to an ethical and impartial arbitration process.”

“For the past year, we cooperated fully and in good faith and we will now fight just as hard to demonstrate our innocence,” the statement read.

Leonard accepted “full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle and regret the distraction this situation has caused the fans and my family,” he said in a statement through his new agent, Harrison Gaines. 

“I entered into my contract with the Clippers as well as the agreements in question in good faith, fully committed to fulfilling my obligations and with no knowledge of any intent on anyone’s part to circumvent the salary cap,” Leonard’s statement continued.

Leonard, 35, will not be playing for the Clippers when the 2026-27 season starts. The Clippers traded him to the Toronto Raptors, but that deal was not finalized pending the results of the investigation.

Read the original article on People