Adam Silver Warned About Steve Ballmer’s Legal Action as More Kawhi Leonard Allegations Surface

“We are aware of this morning’s media report regarding the LA Clippers and are commencing an investigation,” said NBA spokesman Mike Bass in a statement to ESPN. The NBA franchise has recently come under hot water amidst reports that Kawhi Leonard was given a $28 million endorsement deal in which he did not have to truly endorse anything or show up anywhere. NBA journalist Pablo Torres, who first broke the news, said that Leonard received payment through a now-bankrupt tree-planting company of which even the Clippers owner, Steve Ballmer, was a significant investor. As speculation arises about what next steps the league will take amidst this controversy, one decision has been warned as carrying a counter-attack from Steve Ballmer himself!

According to a netizen by the name of ‘Anderson Hooper’, the “overpay alone” is evidence enough. He believes the NBA can infer circumvention if Kawhi Leonard is paid above fair-market value, and the team contract is below FMV.

However, another netizen replied to this speculation by stating, “Yes, but the risk if you try to use this part to go after them is it will give Ballmer the opportunity to have every team sponsor endorsement deal with star players opened up in court.” This “overpay” loophole is a critical factor for the NBA.

As reported back in 2018, NBA teams do tend to overpay their players. Bleacher Report’s Kevin Craft cited Washington Wizards forward Rashard Lewis as a ‘quintessential example’ of this problem. More recently, players like Jaren Jackson Jr., Dennis Schröder, and Myles Turner were reportedly named amongst the ‘5 Biggest NBA Free Agency Overpays So Far’ by NBA reporter Andy Bailey. Therefore, Adam Silver and the NBA league office, using the ‘overpay’ loophole, would allow Steve Ballmer to only point out the hypocrisy by bringing up the other teams.

Even if this loophole is not pursued, Kawhi Leonard and Steve Ballmer won’t be completely out of their current situation. Fortunately, they have some support on their side.

Mark Cuban Defends Steve Ballmer Amid Kawhi Leonard’s Troubles

Mark Cuban recently took to his official X account to send out a tweet to his 9 million followers. He retweeted Pablo Torres’s thoughts on Kawhi Leonard’s ‘no-show’ contract. Cuban admitted that he stands behind ‘Team Ballmer’ since, according to him, the former Microsoft CEO “isn’t that dumb” to circumvent the salary cap in the first place. Furthermore, Cuban believed Steve Ballmer wouldn’t risk the Clippers only so that he could “try to feed KL money”. The ‘Shark Tank’ fame believes that, in the end, the blame belonged to the now-bankrupt tree-planting company Ballmer used.

“They got scammed by Aspiration, along with many others. Crimes for which they pleaded guilty last week,” said Cuban in a statement. “Scammers do scammy things. They did a $300m sponsorship deal with the Clippers in 2021. That’s a HUGE deal. The better the team does, the more value the sponsorship has. It actually makes perfect sense that if they stole money from investors and want the clippers to succeed, why not give stolen money to help keep their best player?”

Cuban called it “sad” that someone like Pablo Torres didn’t focus too much on the scammers. No matter what reports were given till now, it remains to be seen just what steps the NBA will choose to take regarding the situation the Clippers squad finds itself in right now.