Add The New York Post on Google Documents have been released and bombshell text messages have been revealed in the Kawhi Leonard salary cap circumvention scandal involving billionaire Clippers owner Steve Ballmer.
The Clippers were fined $30 million, Ballmer was suspended for one year and the team was docked five first-round draft picks in a poison-pill punishment for what the league believes proves the team’s guilt.
According to documents released by law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, notes from Clippers president Lawrence Frank dated April 2020 reveal that Leonard’s then-manager, the infamous “Uncle Dennis” Robertson, expressed frustration with the team for what he perceived as a lack of effort by the Clippers to make good on promised off-court business opportunities.
Robertson reportedly complained to Ballmer about president of business operations Gillian Zucker making “introductions” for “bulls-t deals.”
“I can’t wait on [Ms. Zucker],” Robertson said, according to notes from Frank included in the documents published by the law firm. “I have to get paid.”
Balmer allegedly responded by telling Robertson that Clippers personnel were all “collective workers to try to help Leonard achieve his financial goals.”
Leonard entered free agency nine months before those conversations, so Robertson was presumably getting frustrated by the lack of movement after he signed.
Leonard inked a three-year deal with a player option for the third year in 2021.
The documents also reveal that Aspiration, the sustainability tree-planting company indicted on wire fraud and conspiracy charges in October 2025, agreed to pay Leonard $48 million in cash and stock ($12 million per year for four years) as part of his Clippers contract.
In return, Aspiration allegedly dangled business contract opportunities with the Clippers’ arena, The Forum.
Ballmer bought the Forum in 2020, and Aspiration was expecting a deal with the Arena.
Aspiration founder Joe Sanberg sent an ultimatum to an unnamed business agent under retainer with the Clippers who appears to be one of the whistleblowers in the scheme.
“Kawhi deal is not happening without this Forum deal,” Sanberg said in texts to the unknown business agent. “ZERO CHANCE there is a Kawhi deal if this isn’t fixed. You know that right? I told Scott Sonnenberg [Clippers Chief Commercial Officer] that I’ll need to break the deal with Kawhi and explain why, which is that we got f–ked by the Clippers. Scott asked me not to do that.”
The closest that the documents come to implicating Balmer’s direct knowledge is Leonard’s willingness to stay with the Clippers, which comes from former CFO Eric Chan in an email on March 31, 2022.
“Steve knows that when this deal blows up, Joe is calling Kawhi and telling him his $12M deal is no longer because of Clippers management, right? I think so, but just double-checking,” Chan said.
Ballmer told investigators he was aware of Sanderg’s ongoing threats to blow up the endorsement deal with Leonard if the Forum Agreement was not executed in a timely manner.
The Clippers formally approved the execution of the Forum Agreement in April 2022, which investigators called an act of facilitation that violates the NBA’s circumvention rules.
The Forum Agreement was worth at least $28 million, and it was estimated that this sum was needed to offset the team’s carbon emissions, though the documents make it unclear whether that was the contract’s true value.
Ballmer previously said in a statement that the initial reports of the illegal tactics, reported by Pablo Torre on his podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” were “provably false.”
This latest bombshell report hasn’t stopped the former Microsoft CEO from pleading innocence despite the evidence presented.
“We vehemently reject the NBA’s findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence,” Ballmer said in a statement.
“We intend to vigorously challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available to us and look forward to an ethical and impartial arbitration process.”
Leonard received a relatively light punishment of just a $700,000 fine and he was not suspended by the league.
“A credible witness with direct knowledge told investigators that the consulting agreement one company signed with the Clippers was in fact a ruse,” the law firm’s document stated, “designed and intended to be a vehicle for the team to provide the company with funds to be paid to Mr. Leonard.”
