The reported trade between the Raptors and Clippers that would send Kawhi Leonard back to Toronto is now on hold and will not be completed until the NBA’s investigation into Leonard’s sponsorship agreement with Aspiration is completed, the two sides announced Thursday.
“Regarding our planned trade with the LA Clippers for Kawhi Leonard, the NBA league office informed us that as a result of the ongoing investigation involving the Clippers, we would assume the risk of any potential outcome of the investigation impacting Kawhi,” the Raptors said in a statement. “In light of this, we will wait until the league’s investigation is complete. The Raptors remain eager to bring Kawhi back to Toronto and look forward to a swift resolution for our players, our organization, and our fans.”
The Raptors agreed to a blockbuster trade with the Clippers to bring back Leonard, who led Toronto to the 2019 NBA title, on June 30. The Clippers are set to receive Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, unprotected first-round picks in 2031 and 2033, a pick swap in 2027 and two second-rounders (2030 and 2033) if the deal goes through.
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The NBA’s investigation began last offseason, when Pablo Torre released a series of podcast episodes alleging that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer illegally circumvented the salary cap in order to pay Leonard through the now-bankrupt company Aspiration. The Clippers have repeatedly denied the allegations, and Leonard even attended Kyle Lowry’s retirement press conference in Toronto earlier this week.
Depending on the outcome of the league’s investigation, Leonard’s contract could potentially be voided. Had the Raptors finalized the acquisition of Leonard before the situation was settled, they would have been taking on the risk of losing him. Therefore, they have chosen to wait until the situation is resolved before moving forward with the trade. For now, that means Leonard will remain a Clipper and Ingram and Dick remain in Toronto. Should the investigation yield no discipline, the trade will seemingly proceed as scheduled.
“On June 30, we reached an agreement in principle to trade Kawhi Leonard to the Toronto Raptors,” the Clippers said in a statement. “We have since been informed that the trade can only be finalized if the Raptors’ ownership group assumes the risk of penalties related to Kawhi’s contract that could theoretically result from the ongoing investigation. The investigation is ongoing, and we expect the trade to be finalized following its conclusion.”
An NBA spokesman said Thursday that the league does “not have a specific timeline for the conclusion of the investigation,” but expects the law firm conducting the probe to “finalize its work in the coming weeks.”
Before Game 1 of the NBA Finals last month, NBA commissioner Adam Silver indicated that the league hoped the investigation would soon conclude.
“The investigation has been conducted by a law firm independent of the NBA,” Silver said. “Yes, ultimately we’re paying their bills, but they are doing the work independent of the league office, and my instruction to them is we can’t be investigating forever, but at some point, we have to wrap it up. But at the same time, the most important thing is that we get it right.
“I think it’s clear they’re far along. I think those reports are reading all the time from people who are being interviewed by them, and I think they understand that you can keep going on and on. But I think we’re close to the point now where I think we need to wrap this up because you also need finality. Their team has to understand what the situation is they’re going to be operating under, and so do the other 29 teams.”
The Clippers said they have “fully cooperated” with the investigation by “participating in dozens of interviews, providing tens of thousands of documents, and facilitating access to our staff.”
“While the process has been challenging, we have remained committed to transparency,” the team said.
The delayed resolution here means that the Clippers, Raptors and the rest of the NBA moved through this offseason assuming that Leonard would indeed play for Toronto next season. If the investigation results in the Raptors not acquiring Leonard, it throws a bit of a wrench into the rest of the league’s plans. Most of the league’s cap space has dried up, for instance, so if Leonard’s contract were voided and he were to become a free agent, very few teams would have the resources to pay him a salary at all commensurate with his production.
“We recognize the uncertainty this has created and the impact it has had on our team, our fans, the Raptors organization, their fans, and the players whose futures remain affected while this process continues,” the Clippers said.
Sportsnet reported Thursday that unless Leonard’s contract is voided, the deal is expected to ultimately go through. The hope is that a resolution will be reached by next Tuesday’s Board of Governors meeting in Las Vegas. For now, let’s cover the allegations and the possible discipline that could follow if the Clippers are found guilty:
What are Leonard and the Clippers accused of?
When Leonard was a free agent in 2019, separate reports indicated that Leonard’s uncle, Dennis Robertson, asked both the Raptors and the Los Angeles Lakers for illegal benefits. The Athletic reported in 2019 that Robertson asked the Lakers for use of a private plane, a house, part ownership of the team and a guaranteed amount of off-court endorsement money. The Lakers, according to The Athletic, made it clear such benefits were illegal.
The Toronto Star reported in 2025 that Robertson made similar requests of the Raptors. Regarding sponsorship money, when the Raptors reportedly told Robertson that several Toronto-based companies would love to have Leonard as a pitchman, Robertson responded, “We don’t want to do anything.” The NBA reportedly investigated these allegations at the time and found no evidence indicating that the Clippers granted any illegal requests.
In 2025, bankruptcy filings obtained by the podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out showed that Aspiration, a company that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer had previously invested $50 million into, listed KL2 Aspire LLC, a corporation that listed Leonard as its manager, as a creditor to whom it still owed money. Leonard never appeared in any ads for Aspiration or acknowledged the company on any of his social media accounts.
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In 2023, an SEC Whistleblower Complaint was filed by two former Aspiration employees under penalty of perjury that accused the company of paying Leonard “an incentivized bonus to circumvent the NBA’s salary cap, disguised as an organic marketing sponsorship agreement.” A former employee in Aspiration’s finance department appeared on Pablo Torre Finds Out and said they were told not to question Leonard’s sponsorship agreement because “it was to circumvent the salary cap.”
Documents obtained by Torre showed that Leonard was to be paid $28 million in cash over four years between 2022 and 2025 as long as he played for the Clippers. The Boston Sports Journal would later report that Aspiration had a separate side deal worth another $20 million with Leonard. Clippers co-owner Dennis Wong also invested $1.99 million into Aspiration nine days before a $1.75 million payment was made to Leonard. In 2023, Ballmer made an additional $10 million investment, bringing his total to $60 million.
Aspiration founder Joe Sanberg pled guilty to two counts of wire fraud for his role in a scheme that prosecutors say defrauded investors out of at least $248 million. He was recently sentenced to 14 years in prison, but in April, the NBA sent a letter to Judge Stephen V. Wilson stating that Sanberg had cooperated with their investigation.
“In all our dealings with Mr. Sanberg, both directly and through his counsel, he provided information that was consistent with our review of contemporaneous documents and other evidence,” wrote David Anders, the Wachtell Lipton attorney leading the NBA’s investigation. “Mr. Sanberg’s cooperation substantially assisted our investigation, including our ability to develop a more complete understanding of key events. At no time during our dealings with Mr. Sanberg and his counsel did they seek, nor did we make, any promises in exchange for his cooperation.”
Ballmer’s attorney would also send a letter to the judge in which he argued that “the reliability of Sanberg’s information is suspect given that he has pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges, and the Government has made its own determination that he is not credible.”
The Clippers have maintained their innocence throughout the investigation, including in their Thursday statement.
“At the heart of this investigation are Joe Sanberg and Aspiration. We did not funnel money to Kawhi Leonard through Aspiration. Like many sophisticated investors, financial institutions, and business partners, we were victims of a fraud initiated by Sanberg, who has been convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison,” the team said.
“We remain confident that, when the facts are evaluated fairly and thoroughly, the NBA will confirm exactly what we have said from the beginning: We have not done what we are accused of doing.”
What are possible punishments for Clippers and Leonard?
Should the NBA determine that Leonard and the Clippers circumvented the salary cap, the collective bargaining agreement calls for the following allowable punishments:
- A fine of up to $7.5 million.
- A suspension of up to one year for any team personnel found to be willfully engaged in rules violations.
- Contracts or transactions that violate league rules can be voided.
- The forfeiture of draft picks.
For Toronto’s purposes, the possibility that Leonard’s contract could be voided is the punishment that matters here. By moving forward with the trade, the Raptors would be assuming that risk. Therefore, the deal is on hold until the situation is resolved, as Toronto would not want to give up assets essentially for nothing.
As for the specific draft picks that could be stripped, the precedent the NBA established in 1999 with Joe Smith and the Timberwolves was the loss of five first-round picks, two of which were eventually returned. The Clippers currently have unencumbered control over five first-round picks within the seven-year tradable window: their own from 2030-33, plus the Indiana Pacers’ 2029 pick from the Ivica Zubac trade.
Additionally, they will make first-round picks in 2027 and 2029, but owe swap rights on those picks to the Oklahoma City Thunder and Philadelphia 76ers, respectively. The Clippers also gained control of the No. 5 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft through the Zubac trade, but have already used it to select Illinois guard Keaton Wagler.