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NBA suspends Steve Ballmer one year, fines Clippers $30 million and strips five first-round picks over Kawhi Leonard salary-cap circumvention

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The NBA suspended Clippers owner Steve Ballmer for one year, fined the team $30 million (the largest fine in league history), and ordered forfeiture of five first-round picks (2029–2033) after a Wachtell Lipton investigation found salary-cap circumvention via team-facilitated endorsement deals for Kawhi Leonard [3][6][2]. Leonard was fined $700,000; president of business operations Gillian Zucker was suspended one year without pay and Lawrence Frank six months [3][6]. The probe, triggered by Pablo Torre's September 2025 podcast, found Leonard received $66 million from Aspiration, Boingo, Daktronics and Lockton; Ballmer invested $50–60 million in Aspiration, whose co-founder Joseph Sanberg got 14 years for a $248 million fraud [2][3][8].

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