Owner Steve Ballmer of the Los Angeles Clippers looks on during the game against the Detroit Pistons at Intuit Dome on Dec. 28, 2025 in Inglewood, California.
Katelyn Mulcahy | Getty Images
The NBA on Wednesday said it had suspended Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer for one year as part of a broad array of sanctions on the basketball team for violating the league’s salary cap circumvention rules related to star player Kawhi Leonard.
The NBA said that Leonard “violated the circumvention rules by pressuring the Clippers to assist him in obtaining off-court income opportunities, successfully obtaining those opportunities, and failing to reimburse payments by the Clippers for personal expenses.”
Ballmer “knowingly” sought to help Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities, and approved a business deal that “that he knew was a precondition for Aspiration to enter into an endorsement agreement with Mr. Leonard, and for his failure to create conditions under which his organization abided by the NBA’s circumvention rules,” the NBA said.
As part of the sanctions issued Wednesday, the Clippers are fined $30 million and “shall forfeit five first-round draft picks, one in each of the 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032, and 2033 NBA Drafts,” the league said.
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