
Imago
IMAGO / ZUMA Press Wire

Imago
IMAGO / ZUMA Press Wire
Within hours of Pablo Torre revealing an alleged second salary cap circumvention surrounding the Los Angeles Clippers and Kawhi Leonard, sports media is weighing in. The guys at Nightcap were left reeling with Torre’s revelations that the Intuit Dome’s scoreboard-makers were used to pay Leonard off the books. When Shannon Sharpe and Chad Ochocinco asked, NBA legend Joe “King Iso” Johnson had a very bleak outlook for the star forward.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
Following the emergence of a second undisclosed multimillion-dollar corporate arrangement involving the franchise’s primary arena contractor, Iso Joe warned that the league’s disciplinary action on Leonard could escalate, including significant suspensions and serious loss of pay.
“So obviously I hate that it’s kind of, you know, came to this point, this came to the forefront, and we really don’t know if it’s really true,” Joe stated during the broadcast. “But yeah, man, they’re gonna punish, they’re gonna punish Kawhi and the Clippers. I’m talking about draft picks, it’s gonna be bad man.”
Sharpe agreed with the gravity of the situation, noting, “If they do that to Clippers, it’s gonna be over.”
This isn’t Joe’s first rodeo with this kind of story. He watched it play out before, back when David Stern came down hard on the Minnesota Timberwolves for the same kind of cap-circumvention move, this time with Joe Smith in the early 2000s.
The fallout back then was brutal: Minnesota lost several first-round picks, got hit with a $3.5 million fine, and had Smith’s contracts thrown out entirely. That history is exactly why Joe feels qualified to weigh in on just how bad things could get for Leonard.
Ocho wasn’t satisfied with vague predictions, though he wanted specifics. Joe confirmed that Leonard’s upcoming season is in jeopardy.
“Yeah… suspension,” Joe responded. While he stopped short of projecting a full-season ban, he noted the substantial financial toll it would cost. “I ain’t gonna say the whole season. It’s gonna hit him, yeah, it’s gonna be some M’s he’s gonna miss behind this.”
The latest commentary follows Pablo Torre’s explosive new investigative report revealing a hidden multimillion-dollar agreement with Daktronics, the manufacturer of the Intuit Dome’s Halo Board, a $100 million circular Jumbotron.
Leonard allegedly held a secret “sponsorship” deal with Daktronics, a B2B company that doesn’t need celebrity spokespersons.
According to Torre’s sources, who were directly involved in the arena project, the deal served as a secondary pipeline for paying Leonard outside the constraints of the standard player contract.
The Daktronics revelation marks the second time the franchise has been accused of using third-party corporate sponsorships to disguise player compensation, following Aspiration.
The NBA originally hired the elite corporate law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to investigate the team after Torre’s original reports on the Clippers’ alleged $28 million “no-show” endorsement contract through Aspiration, a company backed by Ballmer.
The ongoing investigation has already caused significant disruption across the market. The trade to send Leonard back to the Toronto Raptors has been placed on indefinite hold, leaving even Brandon Ingram and Gradey Dick’s futures in limbo.
The league warned the Raptors that they would assume possible suspension or contract nullification associated with Kawhi. But now as Johnson warns, the Raptors or any team with Leonard could be missing Kawhi for the majority of the season.
Written by
Edited by

Tanay Sahai
