The Clipranos: Clippers allegedly paid Kawhi Leonard $28 million for ‘no-show job’ to skirt salary cap

According to a report from Pablo Torre, Clippers star Kawhi Leonard signed an endorsement deal with a fraudulent tree-planting company worth $28 million in order to skirt salary cap rules. Team owner Steve Ballmer set the business up as a front and paid Leonard for a “no-show job,” taking the longstanding organized crime practice up a few notches to pay him under the table.

Kawhi Leonard and the Clippers could be in some hot water courtesy of this report from Pablo Torre:

Exclusive: Kawhi Leonard signed a $28M endorsement deal for a "no-show job" with a fraudulent tree-planting company funded by $50M from Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, according to documents obtained by @PabloTorre.

"It was to circumvent the salary cap," an inside source says. pic.twitter.com/F6z5pNEkI1

— Pablo Torre Finds Out (@pablofindsout) September 3, 2025

This is something straight out of The Sopranos. Except instead of a no-show union job at a construction site for a few grand a month, it’s worth tens of millions of dollars and, apparently, Torre has the receipts.

Needless to say, this is not looking great for the Clippers. I also have to commend the journalism from Pablo Torre. His appearance on Bill Simmons’ show annoyed me – he mentioned Harvard and his Peabody award at least a thousand times each – but there’s no denying the quality of his reporting.

I’d almost forgotten what real reporting looked like in sports. And, really, just in general. He’s done his part in terms of digging up the facts, now it’s up to the NBA to act.

Of course, knowing that commissioner Adam Silver is a massive coward, I doubt the punishment will be all that sever. That Dobby looking ass mf is probably afraid to face the music. Meanwhile, David Stern would have already dropped a nuke on that sorry organization.

The last time a team got caught doing this was the Minnesota Timberwolves with Joe Smith, and Stern hit them with a bevvy of penalties including fines and the forfeiture of multiple first round picks.

• 5 first-round picks forfeited (two were returned later)
• $3.5M fine
• Smith’s most-recent contract was voided, and his Bird Rights were stripped away
• Wolves owner Glen Taylor was suspended
• Wolves GM Kevin McHale was forced to take a leave of absence

Of course, this was 25 years ago. $3.5 million meant a lot more back then, and Steve Ballmer is worth $153.1 billion. Any fine the league hits him with will be the equivalent of him losing some loose change in the couch.

It’s worth noting that current tampering punishments have resulted in teams losing second round picks. That said, this is far more severe an issue than any tampering case in recent years.

As a Sixers fan, I’m curious to see what happens to the first round picks the team has rights to. There’s a 2028 unprotected first, which I assume will be unaffected, but there’s a top-3 protected swap in 2029 that has my attention.

Will the Sixers be awarded the pick outright? If the penalties are as severe as they should be, there’s a chance the Clippers suck for the next few years and those picks should be pretty good.

Adam Silver will probably find a way to screw the Sixers in this anyway. Regardless, it’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out.

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