Podcaster Accuses Steve Ballmer and Kawhi Leonard of Using a Shell Company to Circumvent the NBA Salary Cap

The NBA’s LA Clippers forward, Kawhi Leonard, and the team’s owner, Steve Ballmer, were facing serious allegations as of early September 2025, following some digging by investigative journalist Pablo Torre. Pablo called out the two on his podcast, Pablo Torre Finds Out, for allegedly plotting a scheme to “circumvent the salary cap.”

What is this elaborate plan, you ask? Well, it’s a clever workaround, if true, but one that could land both Kawhi and Steve in serious legal trouble.

According to Pablo, who spoke about this on his podcast, Steve reportedly created a fake shell company, a tree-planting business that’s now bankrupt, to secretly funnel money to Kawhi.

The claims are reportedly backed by bankruptcy documents and a statement from a former employee from the company’s finance department. Here’s what Pablo is alleging based on his “evidence” and how the Clippers have responded.

The LA Clippers’s Kawhi Leonard and team owner Steve Ballmer are being accused of using a fake tree-planting company to funnel money to Kawhi, allegedly as a way to secure him on the Clippers and as a work around the NBA’s salary cap.

According to Pablo Torre, whose accusations are now being taken seriously and are under investigation by the NBA, Steve invested $50 million in the tree-planting company, Aspiration. But in March 2025, Aspiration filed for bankruptcy. Pablo reportedly dug into the bankruptcy filings and found that Aspiration owed money to the Clippers, the Red Sox, and a company called KL2, which allegedly stands for Kawhi Leonard and the number 2 — his jersey number.

According to alleged contracts, Aspiration was required to pay KL2 (Kawhi) $28 million in cash between April 1, 2022, and March 21, 2026. Payments were to be made quarterly in arrears, $7 million per year, with the first installment going out in June 2022. All payments were reportedly to be wire-transferred to KL2’s account. One clause reportedly stated that if Kawhi retired or joined another team, he wouldn’t receive the money.

What’s raising even more red flags is speculation that Kawhi didn’t have to do any work for Aspiration in exchange for the payments, not even marketing, which is a common expectation in endorsement deals.

In short, Pablo is suggesting that Steve invested in Aspiration not only to land Kawhi on the Clippers but also to overstep the salary cap by issuing payments through a shell company. Adding to the drama is the fact that Aspiration’s co-founder, Joseph Sanberg, recently pleaded guilty to a $243 million fraud, according to a Clippers statement following Pablo’s podcast allegations.

In the Clippers’s statement, they called the allegations “absurd” and said they had no “knowledge of any improper activity by Aspiration or its co-founder until after the government initiated its investigation.” Speaking of investigations, the NBA has now opened one into the claims.

Kawhi’s net worth is pretty impressive, sitting at a whopping $120 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. What’s interesting, though, is that he signed a three-year, $149,505,800 contract with the LA Clippers, earning $49 million in the 2024-2025 season and $50 million the following two years, according to Spotrac.

That’s already a huge deal, so earning anything extra, like the alleged fake endorsement payments Pablo hinted at through Aspiration to circumvent the salary cap, would be downright greedy, especially with fans noting that Kawhi doesn’t play as often as they’d expect for his pay.