‘A Black Eye on the League,’ ‘An Embarrassment’ — Lawyer Reacts to Kawhi Leonard Scandal, Clippers’ $30M Fine, What’s Next for Steve Ballmer

Matt John Sun, September 20, 2026 at 12:07 PM UTC

5

Apr 8, 2026; Inglewood, California, USA; Los Angeles Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard (2) reacts after a missed basket in the second half against the Oklahoma City Thunder at Intuit Dome. © Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

After a roughly yearlong investigation into the Los Angeles Clippers and whether they circumvented the salary cap, the NBA handed down major punishments to the organization, owner Steve Ballmer, and the team’s front office.

The Clippers lost five first-round picks and received a $30 million fine. Ballmer was suspended for one year, while Clippers president of business operations Gillian Zucker was suspended for one year and president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank was suspended for six months. Leonard was fined $700,000.

Lawer Breaks Down Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard Scandal

On September 13, Ballmer announced on his personal X account that he accepted the NBA’s punishment and would not fight it.

Before Ballmer publicly accepted the NBA’s punishment, PFN got an exclusive interview with Raul Gasteri of Gastesi, Lopez, Mestre, Gobiella, a law firm specializing in commercial litigation and commercial transactions.

In this exclusive interview, Gastesi gave his legal thoughts on the investigation itself, Ballmer, Leonard, and a whole lot more. The interviewed has been edited for clarity.

As a lawyer, is there anything in particular that drew you to this scandal as a whole?

Gastesi: “The amount of money involved, and how… it’s almost like a pay-to-play type of agreement. And when I say pay-to-play, I’m talking about so that the companies could do business with the Clippers. To me, the amount of money that Kawhi made during this period of time, I think it’s like $375 million, or close to that. Agreements signed in the depths of the pandemic by companies that had never signed an endorsement of remotely that size, with minimal performance obligations, never announced, never activated. How could you sign someone to endorse your product and not say it? For some of these companies, there’s just no need to have anybody endorse their product. Yet they were entering into these contracts. That’s why the NBA brought the hammer down on them.”

Is there something that you see from the scandal that you believe needs to be touched on from a legal perspective that hasn’t been since the NBA handed down its punishment?

Gastesi: “I’d like to know how they came to their reasoning. In other words, why [fine the Clippers] $30 million? Why? Because depending on where you go with the agreements and which one was violated, how did you get to the $30 million? Was it the $7.5 million times four? Did they go into the provision that allows an unlimited fine, and this is what the commissioner picked? Those types of things are interesting to me.

“You know, this is the third time that Balmer has had this issue. He had an issue in 2015, had an issue in 2019, and now this is the third time. And this last time, he could have done damage to the other owners themselves, because if he was trying to avoid a luxury tax, which is money that gets spread amongst the owners, his fellow owners are not happy about this.”

MORE:‘Gary Payton Jr 2.0,’ ‘Did This Guy Just Get Taller?’ — NBA World Hypes Up Bronny James After Lakers Guard Shows Off Ridiculous Bounce

What was your reaction to Kawhi getting a $700,000 fine?

Gastesi: “I thought it was a speeding ticket compared to what could have happened. He got $18 million in total, paid by August of 2021. The only confirmed activity across all three agreements, from what we could tell, was one visit to a military base, signing memorabilia. Under Aspiration’s agreement, he got $7 million in cash and $5 million in equity for four years, and they described him as not a big name.

“Aspiration never publicly announced that it actually had him as one of their endorsers. I don’t see it. I don’t know if there was some legal posturing where they didn’t have to go to an arbitration, and he accepted his punishment. I don’t understand it, but they could have gone so far as voiding his contract…

“Look, he faced disgorgement of all or part of his contract. That is a severe, severe penalty. If I’m one of the other owners, and I’m playing against them, and I’m forfeiting salary cap money, I would be really upset about this going on, especially if this is conceivably the third time that something like this happens with this franchise and this ownership group. I think it was a light penalty in light of all of the circumstances as far as Kawhi is concerned.”

Do you think that part of why he got a “speeding ticket” is because he’s Kawhi Leonard? Do you think that his status impacted that?

Gastesi: “No, I don’t think it’s because it’s Kawhi Leonard. I think there may be some horse trading going on in a certain sense. Because they wanted to get to the meat of the issue. I can’t explain it. There’s got to be something more to this that I don’t know, but it seems so light a sentence for a player taking so much money for doing so little, in clear contravention of the salary cap rules, that it can’t be explained.”

What was your takeaway from the fact that this took so long to finally get resolved?

Advertisement

Gastesi: “I’m used to trials and trials take two years, and we consider that an expedited trial order. In Florida, there’s a new Supreme Court rule that all cases have to go to trial between 18 and 24 months. They did 73 interviews of 60 people and reviewed more than 200,000 pages. I don’t think a year is that long a time on something like this, especially something as serious as this. One of the sanctions here could be forcing them to sell the team, and after this being the third [time] of him not playing by the rules, if I’m a fellow owner, I wouldn’t be on speaking terms with Ballmer. Remember, Kawhi’s at the tail end of his career. The players’ careers are a small window. Ballmer’s tenure could be another 20 years, and this is unacceptable conduct.”

What do you think are the Clippers’ best options after this punishment?

Gastesi: “I would try and negotiate some sort of a deal to try and get some of my draft picks back, pay the fine, agree not to proceed with litigation, but don’t punish my fanbase for the next seven years, eight years. Something along those lines. If I’m the NBA, I don’t know that I’d go for that deal, but that’s probably about the best he can hope for in terms of negotiation.”

Do you think that this kind of scandal will influence the next CBA discussion between the owners and the players?

Gastesi: “Yeah, they’ll try and tighten up some of these loose ends, but I think that taking away five first-round draft picks is a real disincentive for other people to engage in this type of conduct. But I really think they should have come down harder on the player as well to give other players a disincentive to do this. Look, it’s hard to accept that a guy who’s made $375 million dollars… to think that a guy making that kind of money would come back and engage in moves like this is something that really needs to be punished… A $700,000 (fine) on $66 million that are questionable to be made, I think that’s pretty light.”

How do you think the NBA responds to the fact that this was uncovered by a journalist (Pablo Torre) instead of them?

Gastesi: “Well, they should be thankful to the journalist. They should tip their hat to the journalist. I don’t know why they didn’t know, but thankfully, we do have a free press in this country.”

MORE:‘Stock Down Worse Than Nike,’ ‘Knew His Career Was Over’ — NBA Fans Troll Ja Morant’s Knee-Jerk Reaction to Portland Trade

Do you think that it’ll motivate the league to tighten the screws a bit when it comes to this kind of thing?

Gastesi: “Absolutely, because this is an embarrassment. This is a black eye on the league. This is a black eye on the league. This is a guy who played several seasons with improper compensation, and it’s a black eye on the league when they have to do this to one of their own, especially somebody as prominent as Mr. Ballmer.”

If the Clippers had won a championship from this, would the magnitude of this scandal be even bigger?

Gastesi: “Oh, God, yes. If they had won a championship, this would this story would be completely different. It would really, really blow up. It would be on every talk show. It would be a whole different story, and it would be an incredible embarrassment for the league.”

Do you think the league would have stripped the Clippers of their championship if they had won one or multiple during Leonard’s stint?

Gastesi: “I haven’t seen that in professional sports. They took Reggie Bush’s Heisman Trophy away. I’m trying to think of a situation where they took a team’s championship away. One doesn’t come to mind… If it were me, and they had won a championship with him on there like this, yeah, I would seriously consider it, and it should be [stripped].

“But there are players who got hurt by this as well, who had incentives and didn’t reach their incentives because of the Clippers. You know that’s a problem, guys. That if you were supposed to win X amount of games and you had incentives like that in your contract, or you had incentives where you would get to the playoffs, or how far you got in the playoffs, and you lost to the Clippers, you’re not a happy camper right now.”

Do you think that the punishment that the Clippers got was motivated by Adam Silver feeling insulted?

Gastesi: “Yeah, I would be. Look, Silver’s in a tough position. Silver’s in a tough, tough position because he’s the commissioner, and, obviously, Mr. Balmer is a prominent owner in the league.”

This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network.

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Sports”