Adam Silver on Clippers-Aspiration investigation: ‘We need to wrap this up’

SAN ANTONIO — NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday that it was “close to the point now where I think we need to wrap this up,” regarding the league’s investigation into whether the LA Clippers circumvented the salary cap.

“You … need finality,” Silver said during his annual news conference at the outset of the NBA Finals.

The league, through white-shoe law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, has been investigating since September whether the Clippers arranged a no-work, multi-million dollar endorsement deal for star player Kawhi Leonard through a team sponsor.

In May, journalist Pablo Torre was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for uncovering the links between the Clippers, Leonard, and now-bankrupt environmental company Aspiration, while earlier this week, Aspiration co-founder Joseph Sanberg was sentenced to 14 years in prison for defrauding investors, including Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and his team.

In September, Torre’s podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out” found seven anonymous former employees for San Francisco-based Aspiration, an environmental start-up company partly funded by a $50 million investment from Ballmer, who said the four-year, $28 million endorsement deal Leonard received in 2022 was for a “no-show job” intended to “circumvent the (NBA) salary cap.”

There is no publicly available evidence that Leonard ever did any work for Aspiration. Also, according to the Torre podcast, Clippers minority owner Dennis J. Wong made a $2 million investment in Aspiration, which was already running out of money. The company turned around and paid Leonard $1.75 million — as required through his endorsement contract with the environmental company.

The Clippers, Ballmer, and Leonard have repeatedly said they did nothing wrong.

“The most important thing is that we get it right,” Silver said Wednesday. “I certainly hear many things all the time about the perception of what really happened or didn’t happen here. I wouldn’t be doing my job if, ultimately, I issue (his) determination based on perception. My job is to follow the facts.”

Silver said the Wachtell Lipton law firm would produce a report of its months-long investigation, and then it’s up to Silver to decide if there should be any punishment issued. He declined to set a specific date for when Wachtell’s report might be delivered.

It is against league rules for a team to pay players additional salary outside of their league-approved contracts. If the NBA determines that Leonard’s deal with Aspiration was a form of cap circumvention, Silver could punish the Clippers by fining them millions, stripping away future draft picks or even voiding Leonard’s contract with the team.

“The team has to understand what situation they are going to be operating under, and so do the 29 other teams,” Silver said.

“We can’t be investigating forever.”

In other business, Silver said the NBA and its players’ union need to decide whether current NBA players can be investors in NBA Europe franchises. Silver’s office is in the final stages of negotiating with current and new European franchises to form a new league overseas, which is expected to launch in 2027.

As The Athletic first reported,  Lakers star Luka Dončić is part of an investor group headed by former Dallas Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson that is seeking to bring a team to Rome as part of NBA Europe, but players are currently prohibited from owning portions of NBA teams.

This week, Silver’s office confirmed that it has had discussions with Dončić about his interest in NBA Europe, but insisted there has been no determination yet whether players can invest in NBA Europe teams.