Five first-round picks are gone from the Clippers’ future, Steve Ballmer is suspended for a year, and Kawhi Leonard’s next move could shape the Clippers’ next chapter.
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But while the NBA has handed down its punishment, the Leonard trade to Toronto is moving again—and Ballmer’s fight with the league is not necessarily over.
Pablo Torre said, “I think there’s a very real chance that Steve Ballmer emerges from this refusing to accept the legitimacy of the process… Steve Ballmer declined an earlier settlement offer from the league office because he maintained that neither he nor the Clippers violated the cap… The question now is whether he accepts the Commissioner’s authority under the NBA Constitution or takes the nuclear option of filing a lawsuit in open court.”
On the trade, Shams Charania said, “As of right now, both sides—the Clippers and Raptors—are moving forward as if the trade is going to happen. Both sides have already spoken Wednesday night and have the intention of moving forward here with this trade… The expectation is there will be an extension here to come with Kawhi Leonard.”
Leonard was fined $700,000, while the Clippers received a $30 million fine and lost five first-round picks. Ballmer was suspended for one year, while the NBA also suspended Gillian Zucker for one year and Lawrence Frank for six months.
The legal situation is more complicated than simply saying Leonard’s settlement took arbitration away from Ballmer. The research found that Ballmer never had standing under the player-side CBA arbitration system in the first place. The NBA-NBPA settlement made Leonard’s player-side penalties final and binding, but it did not remove a separate arbitration right that Ballmer had held. Ballmer’s relationship with the league is instead governed by the NBA Constitution, which gives the commissioner authority over disputes involving team governors.
Torre described a lawsuit as Ballmer’s main theoretical route outside the league’s internal system, not as a lawsuit Ballmer has already filed or confirmed he will pursue.
Despite the dispute with the NBA, the Leonard trade is being revived. The Clippers and Raptors had agreed to the deal in principle before the league temporarily halted the transaction during the investigation. After the NBA’s ruling, the two sides re-engaged to complete it.
Shams Charania reported on The Pat McAfee Show that the Clippers and Raptors had spoken Wednesday night and intended to continue with the trade.
The Clippers have rejected the NBA’s findings and said they intend to challenge the penalties.
“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. For the past year, we cooperated fully and in good faith, and we will now fight just as hard to demonstrate our innocence. We intend to challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available to us.”
The NBA’s investigation went beyond the Aspiration deal that first drew attention. Investigators found that the Clippers had facilitated endorsement opportunities for Leonard with four companies that did business with the franchise, using team commercial relationships to help create off-court income for the star. The league also found that Ballmer approved a Clippers business arrangement with Aspiration that was a direct precondition for Leonard’s $28 million endorsement agreement.
The financial ties stretched across several transactions. Ballmer’s investment entity put $50 million into Aspiration in September 2021, while the Clippers later transferred $56 million to the company for carbon credits. Leonard’s separate four-year endorsement agreement with Aspiration was worth $28 million.
The Clippers have faced an NBA anti-circumvention penalty before. In 2015, the league fined the team $250,000 after executives presented DeAndre Jordan with a potential $200,000-a-year Lexus endorsement during free-agency recruitment. The NBA found that the presentation violated rules against teams arranging third-party compensation during contract pitches, although the offer did not ultimately affect Jordan’s decision to re-sign.
The scale of the current case is far different. The 2026 punishment includes a $30 million fine, five forfeited first-round picks and suspensions for multiple Clippers executives, making the 2015 penalty a useful precedent but not an identical case.
Kawhi Leonard Trade Could Bring New Draft Assets to Clippers
Charania also pointed to the draft capital coming back to the Clippers after the team was stripped of five first-round picks by the NBA.
“You talk about five first-round picks you lose, well, you’re getting some of that back here in this Toronto deal. The expectation is there will be an extension here to come with Kawhi Leonard,” Charania said.
The incoming draft assets do not replace the five picks erased by the NBA. Those selections—covering the 2029 through 2033 drafts—are gone from the Clippers’ draft inventory. The Toronto deal instead gives Los Angeles new picks to use as it reshapes the roster around the players coming back in the trade.
For Toronto, the trade would bring Leonard back to the franchise where he won the 2019 NBA championship and Finals MVP before leaving for the Clippers in free agency that summer.