The Kawhi Leonard saga has picked up another wrinkle, and this one points back to the Los Angeles Clippers’ long-running salary cap investigation.
The NBA has been looking into Leonard and the Clippers for almost a year now, and the reporting around it has only piled up. Sports journalist Pablo Torre and his staff have kept building out the case, pointing to a paper trail, testimony, and a string of alleged side arrangements that they say show Clippers owner Steve Ballmer circumvented the salary cap to pay Leonard for no-show jobs.
Torre’s latest reporting added another possible connection, this time involving Daktronics. But a spokesman for the company pushed back hard on any link to Leonard.
“My understanding is Daktronics doesn’t have a deal with Kawhi right now,” a spokesman told Torre, “I don’t know what the company wants to say, or can say, given the Wachtell investigation and all that.”
That reference is to the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, which is still handling the investigation into the matter.
For now, NBA commissioner Adam Silver is still saying there isn’t enough evidence to make a final call on whether the Clippers and Leonard crossed the line on salary cap rules. The uncertainty has already had ripple effects, too. The Toronto Raptors paused the trade that would have sent Leonard back to Canada while they wait for the situation to be resolved, and that resolution could still stretch into the season.
Ballmer’s role only adds more attention to the situation. He isn’t just the league’s wealthiest owner; he also serves as chair of the NBA’s audit committee on the Board of Governors.
Whether that changes anything behind the scenes isn’t something to settle here, but it’s hard to miss how bad this looks for the Clippers. And with independent reporting still pressing forward, the story doesn’t appear close to going away.
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