Clippers' Ballmer details affiliation with Aspiration in wake of Kawhi Leonard report - ESPN

LA Clippers owner Steve Ballmer told ESPN that he would «want the league to investigate» if another owner and another team were accused of circumventing the NBA's salary cap, as the Clippers were in a podcast by Pablo Torre on Wednesday.

«I'd want the league to investigate, take it seriously,» Ballmer said Thursday in his first interview since Torre's report.

The NBA has since said it will launch an investigation into whether Ballmer and the Clippers violated league rules because Kawhi Leonard accepted a $28 million endorsement from Aspiration, a now-bankrupt green banking company in which Ballmer had invested.

«Salary cap circumvention rules are important to the league, and I'd want the league to investigate,» Ballmer said.

Ballmer said Aspiration asked him to introduce it to Leonard, but denied he had knowledge of the endorsement contract the sides eventually signed, or that he directed the company to do so.

Ballmer said that introduction came in November 2021, three months after the Clippers had agreed to a four-year, $173 million extension with Leonard, who had torn a knee ligament during the team's first Western Conference finals run earlier that year, leading him to miss the next season.

Two months earlier, in September 2021, the Clippers announced a $300 million partnership with Aspiration, which included sponsorship in the team's new arena and on its jersey patch. Ballmer added that Aspiration also had wanted the naming rights to the arena and even offered more than Intuit, which was eventually selected.

«We were done. We were done with Kawhi, we were done with Aspiration. The deals were all locked and loaded,» Ballmer said. «Then, they did request to be introduced to Kawhi, and under the rules, we can introduce