LOS ANGELES (AP) — The NBA handed down a broad punishment against the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday for violating salary cap avoidance rules, suspending owner Steve Ballmer for one year and forcing the team to forfeit five draft picks. Additionally, two-time NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard was fined $700,000, president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank was suspended for six months and the team’s president of business operations Gillian Zucker was suspended for one year. “We vehemently reject the NBA’s findings, which are the result of a highly biased investigation that seeks to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence,” the team said in a statement. “What the league told us privately differs from what it announced publicly today, and they have not adhered to the standard that Commissioner (Adam) Silver set at the beginning of this investigation to ensure its fairness and accuracy.” The Clippers said they “will now fight just as hard to prove our innocence. We intend to vigorously contest these findings and sanctions through all avenues available to us and look forward to an ethical and impartial arbitration process.” He said the outside law firm continues to receive information related to the investigation and that the league “will consider further action as appropriate.” “I am deeply disappointed by the egregious violations of our rules and by the Clippers’ institutional and leadership failures that led to this misconduct,” Silver said in a statement. “The severity of the sanctions reflects the seriousness of the violations.” The NBA began investigating in September 2025 whether a $28 million sponsorship deal between Leonard and Aspiration Fund Adviser LLC, a company that filed for bankruptcy last year, violated league rules, following a report by journalist Pablo Torre. Earlier this year, Aspiration co-founder Joseph Sanberg was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to defrauding investors and lenders of at least $248 million. The league said Ballmer knowingly sought to help Leonard obtain off-court income deals, approved a business agreement that he knew was a precondition for Aspiration entering into an endorsement deal with Leonard and for failing to create conditions under which his team would follow league rules. “I accept full responsibility for the errors in judgment of people within my inner circle and I regret the distraction this situation has caused fans and my family,” Leonard said in a statement released through his new agent, Harrison Gaines. The NBA said Leonard, through his former business manager and uncle Dennis Robertson, “violated circumvention rules by pressuring the Clippers to help him obtain off-court earning opportunities, successfully obtaining those opportunities, and failing to reimburse the Clippers for personal expense payments.” “I entered into my contract with the Clippers, as well as the agreements in question, in good faith, fully committed to fulfilling my obligations and without knowledge of any intention on the part of anyone to circumvent the salary cap,” Leonard said in his statement. The league said Ballmer was suspended for “knowingly seeking to assist Mr. Leonard in obtaining off-court income opportunities,” among other issues. Leonard’s transfer to the Toronto Raptors has been on hold pending the outcome of the investigation. The Raptors had said they still wanted Leonard, and he is apparently just as eager to return to the team where he won an NBA title and was Finals MVP in 2019. “As I return to Toronto, I am focused on what I can control, closing this chapter and moving forward with a clean slate,” Leonard said in his statement. The Clippers and their staff will be under a compliance and monitoring program by the league for five years and Robertson was banned from doing business with NBA teams for five years. The league sanctioned Frank for his role in impermissible sponsorship deals and for approving impermissible expenses incurred by Leonard and his family. Zucker was banned for being primarily and directly guilty of illegal endorsement deals and lying to investigators. Both will lose their salaries during their bans. It’s not the first time the Clippers have broken NBA rules under Ballmer, who bought the team for $2 billion in August 2014. They were fined $250,000 a year later for violating rules against offering unauthorized business or investment opportunities to players during their courtship of free agent DeAndre Jordan. A presentation made to him improperly included a $200,000-a-year deal with luxury car maker Lexus. Ballmer, 70, was CEO of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014.___Watch AP’s complete NBA coverage here
