The commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silversaid Wednesday that the League will not rush to rule on the accusations that Los Angeles Clippers they eluded the salary cap through an alleged fraudulent sponsorship agreement for Kawhi Leonard.
“I reserve the trial because I don’t know the facts,” Silver said at a press conference after the meeting of the Board of Governors of the League in New York.
“I don’t know what Kawhi paid. I don’t know what he did or stopped doing. We’ll leave all that to the investigation.”
A Pódcast of the journalist Pablo Torre denounced this month that the clippers mocked the salary limit through a company in bankruptcy today, aspiration, in which the owner of the team, Steve Ballmer, appeared as a investor.
Torre revealed that Leonard signed a four -year contract and 28 million dollars in 2021 to promote aspiration, although he never did it. As he said, an example of the company – who asked not to be identified – assured him that the payment sought to avoid the rules of the NBA salary stop.
The clippers and Ballmer themselves have firmly rejected the accusation, while Silver pointed out on Wednesday that it will be the league that should demonstrate whether there was any irregularity.
“The load falls on the league if we are going to discipline a team, a owner, a player or any constituent member of the league,” said Silver. “I think that with any process that requires a fundamental sense of justice, the burden must be in the part that is, in essence, presenting those charges.”
Silver said the objective of an investigation was to determine “if there really was improper” and that he “would be reluctant to act if there were a kind of mere appearance of improperity.
Leonard signed in August 2021 an extension of four years for 173 million dollars with the clippers, and a month later the franchise closed a 300 million sponsorship agreement with aspiration, whose name came to wear on the team’s shirts.
Ballmer acknowledged that the clippers “made a presentation” of Leonard to Aspiration, something allowed by the standards of the League, but assured that the club had no participation in any separate sponsorship agreement between the company and the player.
In an interview with ESPN, Ballmer said he was “scammed” by aspiration, like other investors.
Silver said he had “very broad powers in these situations” to impose sanctions, but that he would only do so if the investigation of the League confirms the commission of crimes.
