NBA Commissioner Adam Silver revealed Wednesday that the league is handling its investigation into potential salary cap circumvention by the Los Angeles Clippers, owner Steve Ballmer, and star Kawhi Leonard outside of league offices. Following the annual Board of Governors meeting, Silver publicly addressed the matter for the first time.
“I've been around the league long enough and different permutations of allegations and accusations,” Silver said. “I'm a big believer in due process and fairness, and you need to now let the investigation run its course.”
With much uncertainty still surrounding the situation, Bill Simmons has a theory that would clear Leonard of any wrongdoing.
“What if Kawhi just never knew about any of this?” Simmons asked on the Bill Simmons podcast. “The smoking gun for this theory is Kawhi doesn't want to do any work. He doesn't want to have to do anything. Flip this around. Why would they be so determined to not have Kawhi do any work? Like, it's actually easy to go film an ad for an hour. It's easy to do five tweets a year. This is more like Kawhi is not going to do anything.”
Simmons suggests, as Pablo Torre reported, that Leonard was paid for the “no-show job,” though the star forward didn't know about it.
“I wonder if maybe they constructed it that way so that Kawhi never knew about the money,” Simmons said.
The theory surfaced less than a day after accusations against Clippers minority owner Dennis Wong. Torre's latest podcast reveals that Wong invested nearly $2 million in Aspiration nine days before Leonard received $1.75 million. According to Torre, the payment to Leonard, officially sent on December 15, 2022, was “running late.”
Outside of Ballmer, only Wong holds a limited partnership in the ownership group. It's another piece to the puzzle that people inside the NBA are trying to solve. So much remains uncertain that the matter allows for any possibility, including that Leonard knew nothing at all.
