The NBA has been rocked ever since whispers of a Kawhi Leonard–Los Angeles Clippers salary cap scandal started spilling into the open. At the center of it all: owner Steve Ballmer, who has already funneled $50 million into the franchise, yet denies wrongdoing, even as evidence piles up. The controversy traces back to accusations of Leonard signing a “no-show job” with the financial firm Aspiration, followed by reports of his camp allegedly making improper demands on rival teams. The picture forming isn’t pretty, and it raises an uncomfortable question: how long before the league itself is forced to step in?

While Adam Silver has opened an investigation against Kawhi Leonard and the Clippers, they won’t be rushing their decision. According to ESPN reporter Harrison Sanford, this is because the league doesn’t want too many eyeballs on this scandal if it’s true. While chatting with former Lakers guard Danny Green, Sanford laid out the entire timeline of how he believes the commissioner, Adam Silver, and the league will try to handle this $28 million issue.

“I think the news about Kawhi Leonard and the punishment for the Clippers is probably gonna come out Super Bowl week,” Sanford predicted. It’s a bold claim, but not without logic. Leagues and teams often time their most damaging announcements when they know attention will be elsewhere. The NFL’s postseason, with its relentless wall-to-wall coverage, provides the perfect backdrop to bury a scandal. “So, early February, when the NFL… Danny, you want to be, you see, you’ve got to know the communications and PR game. You want this news—you can’t avoid it—but you don’t want it to be highlighted.”

The strategy is often called the “Friday news dump,” where bad news is released when the audience is distracted or tuned out. In sports, the NFL’s dominance of headlines makes that timing even more effective. The ESPN employee revealed that, “AFC… the first weekend of February, you’ll have the AFC Championship game and the NFC Championship game. The Bills are going to be hosting somebody. The Packers are going to be playing somebody. Everybody’s looking forward to it. “What do you do? You drop it on Friday at 5:00 p.m. Eastern. That’s when you do it. You bury it right there.” However, it’s hard to imagine this investigation stretching that long.

With pressure on the league mounting by the day, the NBA has already enlisted the New York–based law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to investigate the allegations. And let’s be clear, the league shouldn’t be handing over a five-month grace period for answers. If evidence confirms that Kawhi Leonard and the Clippers circumvented the salary cap through a $28 million “no-show job,” the fallout would be grave. Not only would it drag the franchise and its star into scandal, it would put the league itself under intense scrutiny, forcing Adam Silver’s office to act swiftly as each new revelation surfaces.

Former Aspiration CEO breaks his silence on Kawhi Leonard deal

While the NBA continues to investigate Kawhi Leonard’s alleged four-year, $28 million deal with Aspiration that was designed to circumvent the salary cap, a new layer has been added to this ongoing saga. This comes after the Aspiration’s former CEO, Andrei Cherny, has finally decided to narrate his side of the story. The former employee of the now bankrupt company revealed that there were no discussions of the salary cap during the deal, and more.

“In the months of discussion among our executives before signing the sponsorship, I don’t remember conversations about the NBA salary cap,” Cherny told The New York Times and The Athletic. That statement suggests the deal with Leonard’s camp may have been treated as a straightforward sponsorship on paper, even as questions linger about whether it functioned as a workaround to funnel money outside league rules.

“I signed the contract shortly before I submitted my resignation, but before I left 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 in just the week before my last day.”

The former CEO not only suggested that the deal wasn’t made to circumvent the salary cap but also stated that it wasn’t actually a ‘No Show Job‘; instead, there were several marketing stints that the Klaw had to perform before the commencement of the 2022-23 season. In fact, he has even claimed that there are several emails sent by the marketing department that can back his words. Now, that’s a huge revelation. Will this help Leonard and the Clippers avoid any punishment from the NBA? Only time will tell as we continue to monitor the situation closely.