29 NBA Teams Warned About Rooting For Steve Ballmer’s Punishment As Tricky Situation Unfolds

“I’d want the league to investigate, take it seriously,” said Steve Ballmer in an interview after the release of Pablo Torre’s report. The Los Angeles Clippers owner, along with the team’s star player, Kawhi Leonard, continues to be in hot water amidst reports that the small forward was given a $28 million endorsement deal in which he did not have to truly endorse anything or show up anywhere. Leonard reportedly received payment through a now-bankrupt tree-planting company, in which even Steve Ballmer held a significant investment. As the NBA prepares to launch an investigation, one renowned NBA reporter warns the 29 other franchises to keep a distance from the proceedings.

Sportswriter and journalist Zach Lowe recently touched base on the Clippers’ troubles during a recent segment of his show. Law expert Michael McCann, who came in as a guest host, warned that while other teams “may be rooting for punishment, they better be careful what they root for because they may suddenly get a new policy that changes how they interact with the sponsors.“

Interestingly, the Los Angeles Clippers highlighted in a statement, after Pablo Torre’s report, that “There is nothing unusual or untoward about team sponsors doing endorsement deals with players on the same team”. But the situation is further complicated by the fact that the $28 million deal with the now-bankrupt company, ‘Aspiration’, raised suspicion since no high-powered executive was reportedly consulted. Founder Andrei Cherny never presented the deal to Aspiration’s Board of Directors.

Moreover, McCann highlighted that creating a new policy could be “bad for teams,” as it would set a precedent that a team has a “duty to police endorsement deals of players … including whether or not teams should even be in that space. …  [and] that’s not contemplated by the CBA.”

“And not only that,” McCann added, “I could see the Players Union saying, ‘Wait a second. You don’t have a right to be policing endorsement deals.'”

Whether the Los Angeles Clippers’ situation ultimately has consequences that affect the other 29 teams depends on what the investigation reveals. If an optimistic insider is to be believed, then nothing would happen to Steve Ballmer or Kawhi Leonard.

A defense of Steve Ballmer: “Don’t believe he’s dumb enough”

‘The Athletic’s Jason Lloyd recently released a report that went into detail about the Kawhi Leonard situation. In the same, he revealed an anonymous front office executive speaking about Steve Ballmer and stating that “Steve is really intelligent. I don’t believe he’s dumb enough to wire $50 million to a company, just to have that company turn around and give it to Kawhi. I don’t believe it.”

Steve Ballmer reportedly funded Aspiration with $50 million back in 2021. Two weeks later, the Clippers announced a $300 million partnership with the brand. While something like this would raise suspicion, the reporter thought that the Clippers would not have had to take such drastic steps just to keep Leonard. After all, his injury troubles made him less appealing to other teams.

“Also unexplained in all of this is why the Clippers even needed a sweetener to land Leonard, who was already going to miss the 2021-22 season with a partially torn ACL,” Lloyd wrote. “If the evidence uncovered this week dated to 2019, when the Clippers first landed Leonard, the dots would connect themselves. The period in question is after Leonard had already played two seasons in Los Angeles”.

As of now, no other NBA team owner has spoken out about these issues and the upcoming investigation. Whether they choose to do so, and thereby put themselves at risk too, is something that remains to be seen.