The Kawhi Leonard-Aspiration saga has shook the NBA community in recent days. The accusation is simple.
The LA Clippers are being suspected of circumventing the NBA’s salary cap rules after Kawhi Leonard was reported to have been paid $28 million for a ‘no-show’ job for Aspiration, a now bankrupt company. Franchise owner Steve Ballmer was previously known to have invested $50 million in Aspiration, with the NBA subsequently launching an investigation.
For one reason or another, Bill Simmons believes the situation has a lot in common with the infamous O.J. Simpson trial.
“You only need to kind of think something happened and have enough evidence to be like, I think that happened, so we're doing this. The question isn't an actual trial where like we are proving this indisputably that you did this,” Simmons explained on The Bill Simmons podcast.
Simmons effectively believes that while the league may not be able to find actual evidence that is incriminating enough to prove that something untoward happened, they will still end up punishing Leonard and the Clippers.
“I don't think they have to do that for the league to crack down and be like, dude, something smells with this. You gave 50 million to these guys. He's getting 28 million to do nothing. Like you can say there's no smoking gun, but something happened here and we're punishing you. And I think that's how this plays out,” Simmons said.
While O.J. Simpson was acquitted in the criminal trial for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, he was held liable to pay compensation to the victims’ families for the wrongful deaths. Ballmer himself only recently encouraged investigation into the situation.
He acknowledged introducing Leonard to the company but denied any involvement in the contract or knowledge of its terms, insisting the deal occurred independently after the Clippers had already signed Leonard to a four-year, $176 million extension in 2021. While the NBA has launched an investigation, Ballmer maintained that he owned less than 3% of Aspiration, had no control over its operations, and was himself defrauded by the company’s founders, per ESPN.
Hence, as things stand, much depends on what the NBA’s findings prove to be.
