NBA Suspends Clippers Owner Ballmer, Fines Team $30M

The NBA handed down sweeping penalties against the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday for violating salary cap circumvention rules, suspending owner Steve Ballmer for one year and stripping the team of five draft picks.

Two-time NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard was fined $700,000, president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank was banned for six months, and team president of business operations Gillian Zucker was suspended for one year. The Clippers will also be fined $30 million.

The punishments followed a nearly yearlong investigation led by an outside law firm. The Clippers had repeatedly denied wrongdoing and said they expected to be exonerated. After the league's announcement, the team said in a statement it "vehemently reject[s] the NBA's findings," calling the investigation "heavily biased" and vowing to challenge the penalties through arbitration.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said he was "deeply disappointed by the flagrant violations of our rules and by the Clippers' institutional and leadership failures."

The league began investigating in September 2025 after journalist Pablo Torre reported on a $28 million endorsement contract between Leonard and Aspiration Fund Adviser LLC, a company that later filed for bankruptcy. Aspiration co-founder Joseph Sanberg was sentenced earlier this year to 14 years in federal prison for defrauding investors and lenders of at least $248 million.

The NBA said Ballmer knowingly helped Leonard secure off-court income deals and approved a business arrangement he knew was a precondition for Aspiration's endorsement contract with Leonard. Leonard, through a statement issued via his new agent Harrison Gaines, said he accepted "full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle" but denied knowledge of any cap circumvention.

The league said Leonard's former business manager and uncle, Dennis Robertson, pressured the Clippers into arranging off-court opportunities and was banned from doing business with NBA teams for five years. Frank was penalized for approving impermissible expenses, and Zucker was found primarily responsible for the illegal arrangements and for lying to investigators.

The Clippers organization will be subject to league compliance monitoring for five years. Leonard's pending trade to the Toronto Raptors, on hold during the investigation, appears set to proceed, with Leonard saying he is "focused on... closing this chapter, and moving forward with a clean slate" as he returns to Toronto.

It is not the first cap-related violation for the Clippers under Ballmer, who bought the team for $2 billion in 2014; the team was fined $250,000 in 2015 over an improper pitch to free agent DeAndre Jordan.