Steve Ballmer’s NBA investigation came back with no proof he laundered cap room to Kawhi Leonard through sponsors like Aspiration — and the reaction online has been to treat that as Leonard’s exoneration too.
It isn’t.
The NBA’s investigation found no evidence tying Ballmer to a scheme that funneled sponsor money into Leonard’s pocket to skirt the salary cap, and that’s a real finding. It’s also not the whole finding, and the Kawhi Leonard investigation isn’t over just because one thread of it dead-ended.
The league’s own comms chief doesn’t even buy the story that broke this open. Mike Bass told reporters the ESPN report contained “numerous and significant inaccuracies,” and the NBA never cooperated with it in the first place. So the framework everyone’s celebrating this week is simple: the league says “no evidence,” case closed. That framework is contested by the very league whose investigation was supposed to have produced it.
Leonard’s own exposure is still sitting open.
Per Hoops Rumors, the conversations happening now center on whether Leonard personally owes restitution for improper benefits, specifically travel and lodging, provided to his uncle and advisor, Dennis Robertson. That’s a separate exposure from the one where the NBA cleared Ballmer of the headline charge, and it hasn’t been touched.
Dennis Robertson’s history of asking for more didn’t start this year. During the 2019 free agency chase that landed Leonard with the Clippers alongside Paul George, Robertson reportedly asked the Clippers, Lakers, and Raptors for part-ownership of the team, a private plane, a house, and guaranteed off-court endorsement money, according to reporting via Yahoo Sports. None of that lived inside the CBA. All of it tells you what Robertson thinks he’s owed when his nephew is the prize on the table.
I read the league’s statement on my lakefront run this morning and had to stop and reread it twice. “No evidence of cap circumvention” and “fully cleared” are doing two very different jobs in the same sentence, and only one of them is true.
Pablo Torre isn’t backing down, either. He’s the reporter who broke the original allegations last September. The same week the “no evidence” story landed, he called out Ballmer, “the richest owner in American sports,” over what he described as a backstage negotiation spilling into public view.
https://twitter.com/PabloTorre/status/2089510160481890685
Torre also teased a second questionable arrangement, this one involving Daktronics, on his podcast earlier this month. No specifics yet, from him or from me. But a reporter doesn’t stand by his sourcing the same week he’s supposedly been proven wrong unless he knows there’s more sitting behind it.
Ballmer got a headline. Leonard got a pending bill with his uncle’s name on it.
