Breaking Down Every Penalty the NBA Gave the Clippers After Kawhi Leonard Probe

On Wednesday, the NBA concluded an 11-month investigation into allegations the Clippers circumvented the salary cap in order to pay Kawhi Leonard extra money. The process, initially sparked by a report from Pablo Torre’s podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out, was conducted by the Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz law firm. The result: The NBA handed out severe penalties after finding the franchise guilty of violating salary cap rules.

The Clippers have been stripped of five first-round picks—their 2029, ‘30, ‘31, ‘32, and ‘33 selections —as a result of the investigation. In addition, the franchise was fined $30 million.

Team owner Steve Ballmer is suspended “from all team and league activities” for a full year for “knowingly seeking to help [Leonard] obtain off-court income opportunities.” Team president Lawrence Frank is suspended without pay for six months for his role in the violations. Los Angeles’s president of business operations, Gillian Zucker, is suspended without pay for a year. The organization is “subject to a compliance and monitoring program overseen by the league office” for the next five years.

As far as Leonard himself, the superstar forward has been fined $700,000 and said he accepts responsibility for the “lapses in judgement” of those in his inner circle. However, Leonard also stated he “entered into [the] contract with the Clippers as well as the agreements in question in good faith, fully committed to fulfilling my obligations and with no knowledge of any intent on anyone's part to circumvent the salary cap.”

NBA commissioner Adam Silver released a statement in tandem with the findings.

“The NBA’s collectively bargained system for determining player compensation is a fundamental component of the basketball competition that the league oversees for the benefit of the teams and players and ultimately the fans,” he said. “I am deeply disappointed by the flagrant violations of our rules and by the Clippers’ institutional and leadership failures that led to this misconduct. The severity of the penalties reflects the seriousness of the violations.”

Shortly after the news broke, the Clippers released a statement of their own.

“We vehemently reject the NBA's findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence,” the team said. “What the league told us privately differs from what it announced today publicly, and they have not held themselves close to the standard Commissioner Silver set at the start of this investigation to ensure it’s fairness and accuracy. For the past year, we cooperated fully and in good faith and we will now fight just as hard to demonstrate our innocence. We intend to vigorously challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available to us and look forward to an ethical and impartial arbitration process.”

It’s a massive development with just over a month to go before the start of the 2026–27 NBA season.

Breaking down every penalty from the NBA’s Clippers investigation

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has been suspended from team and NBA activities for a year. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The league handed down a variety of penalties as a result of the findings of this investigation. The best way to understand those penalties is to break them all down, item by item.

Clippers stripped of draft picks, fined $30 million, subject to compliance program

The NBA hit the Clippers hard for this violation of cap rules. L.A. has to give up a first-round pick in every draft from 2029 to ’33, and must pay $30 million as a fine.

Obviously, the draft picks are the most impactful aspect of this. The fine is not chump change by any means but money is just that: money. Draft picks are the lifeblood of NBA franchises, used to add young talent to build contenders or as assets in blockbuster trades. The Clippers are now stripped of five such picks over a five-year period.

That doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t have any picks at all. Reports have already emerged Los Angeles will be stripped of the second pick it acquired in the Ivica Zubac trade with the Pacers, which falls in the ‘29 draft. Therefore, the Clippers will have their own pick in the ‘29 draft while still forfeiting a first-rounder. However, they owe Philadelphia swap rights to that pick unless it falls in the top three selections, in which case they keep the pick outright. Beyond that, L.A. is free to acquire other teams’ first-round picks if possible. The team might get two from the Raptors in short order if the Leonard trade goes through now that the investigation is done.

But no matter what, the franchise must forfeit a first-rounder in each of those drafts. How exactly that will unfold (and what impact it has on L.A.’s ability to trade picks) remains to be seen.

To ensure the Clippers do not violate the rules any further, the organization is also subject to a compliance and monitoring program run by the league office for the next five years.

Steve Ballmer suspended

Ballmer has strongly asserted his own and his team’s innocence since the investigation was first launched in September of last year. He did a full sit-down interview with ESPN to deny the initial reports, and inside reporting has reflected his insistence that there was no wrongdoing.

But the NBA’s investigation said otherwise.

Ballmer was found to have knowingly helped Leonard secure off-court financial opportunities, with one specific action highlighted as “a significant act of team facilitation” in pursuit of that goal. The report further alleges Ballmer failed to create an environment in which his organization abided by the NBA’s circumvention rules.

As such, he cannot be present at any team or NBA activities for one year.

Lawrence Frank, Gillian Zucker suspended

Frank and Zucker were the two Clippers employees who were penalized for their roles in violating the cap.

Frank is a longtime figure in the NBA, a former head coach who joined Los Angeles’s basketball operations department in 2014. Now the president of the department, he’s been suspended six months without pay for his “involvement in the impermissible endorsement arrangements” and approving impermissible expenses incurred by Leonard and his family.

Zucker is the team’s president of business operations who also joined the franchise in 2014. She’s been suspended for a year without pay; the report named Zucker as “primarily and directly culpable” for the impermissible endorsements, as well as “for providing false and misleading statements to investigators.”

Kawhi Leonard fined $700,000

Leonard must pay the NBA $700,000 for his role in the situation. The report states the superstar forward violated the salary cap circumvention rules through the actions of his representative: Dennis Robertson, his former business manager.

Leonard’s former business manager banned from engaging with any NBA teams for five years

Robertson was named as Leonard’s representative in the report who pushed the Clippers to violate the salary cap circumvention rules. As such, the NBA has banned him from interacting with NBA teams or their affiliates for five years. Leonard fired Robertson in June of this year.

NBA’s full findings from the Clippers investigation

NBA commissioner Adam Silver said he is “deeply disappointed” by the Clippers’ violation of salary cap rules. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Now that we’ve gone through the penalties, here’s what the NBA revealed the report found about the Clippers’ cap circumvention.

“The investigation found a pattern of misconduct and multiple significant rules violations by the Clippers organization, a prior offender of the salary cap circumvention rules,” the league’s statement reads. “As described in a summary report prepared by Wachtell Lipton, the Clippers broke the rules by:

Affirmatively initiating off-court income opportunities between Mr. Leonard and four companies doing business with the team: Aspiration Partners, Boingo Wireless, Daktronics, and Lockton Insurance;
Facilitating endorsement agreements between these companies and Mr. Leonard;
Inducing the companies to enter into these agreements by offering them business from the team;
Paying personal expenses on behalf of Mr. Leonard and his representatives; and
Failing to report improper solicitations for off-court income opportunities made on Mr. Leonard’s behalf through his then-business manager, Dennis Robertson.

“Mr. Leonard, through the conduct of Mr. Robertson on his behalf, violated the circumvention rules by pressuring the Clippers to assist him in obtaining off-court income opportunities, successfully obtaining those opportunities, and failing to reimburse payments by the Clippers for personal expenses.”

According to the full report made public by the NBA, Zucker and Frank were found “primarily and directly responsible” for the team’s misconduct. However, Ballmer “knowingly sought to help [Leonard] obtain off-court income opportunities and, in at least one instance, engaged in a significant act of team facilitation.” The report also states Ballmer “failed to create conditions under which his organization abided by the NBA’s circumvention rules—an especially egregious lapse because the Clippers are a prior offender of those rules and were previously and specifically investigated by the NBA with respect to [Leonard].”

Leonard was also found culpable in the report, which states he violated the rules through the conduct of Dennis Robertson, his previous business manager.

Leonard, the report reads, “through the conduct of Mr. Robertson on his behalf, violated the circumvention rules by pressuring the Clippers to assist him in obtaining off-court income opportunities, successfully obtaining those opportunities, and failing to reimburse payments by the Clippers for personal expenses.”

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