Evidence against Clippers is more damning than previously reported

It was clear that Kawhi Leonard had questionable endorsement offers with two completely different Los Angeles Clippers sponsors earlier than the NBA introduced a draconian punishment in opposition to the group.

The official report exhibits there have been 4 completely different endorsement offers, and the Clippers’ conduct was much more egregious than beforehand imagined.

Clippers had a transparent quid professional quo with Kawhi Leonard’s endorsements

It was clear for the reason that NBA’s investigation started one 12 months in the past that Leonard’s cope with Clippers sponsor Aspiration was unusual. The deal, for 4 years and $28M, was far above what Aspiration paid its different movie star endorsers and did not require Leonard to do something in any respect to earn his huge payday.

That won’t have been probably the most blatant instance of the Clippers’ dishonest. According to the report from Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, Clippers president of enterprise operations Gillian Zucker initiated offers for Leonard with Boingo Wi-fi, Daktronics and Lipton Insurance coverage in the summertime of 2020, price $18M in whole. None of these offers was publicly introduced.

What makes the offers even shadier is that every of these corporations signed multi-million consulting agreements with the Clippers both simply earlier than or on the identical day as they made their offers with Leonard. Two of these corporations acquired $10M “consulting charges” up entrance — and not one of the three corporations usually charged for consulting companies.

In different phrases, the businesses paid Leonard and had been instantly compensated for doing so by the Clippers. Or it was an infinite, inconceivable coincidence.

Clippers acceded to Kawhi Leonard’s agent’s calls for

The report alleges that Dennis “Uncle Dennis” Robertson pressured the Clippers to offer unlawful off-court advantages in early 2020, requests that had been by no means reported to the NBA. As a substitute, Zucker made introductions to corporations at a extremely uncommon time — June 2020, in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the NBA shut down.

Not one of the three corporations had ever given a star endorser something similar to what they paid Leonard, who had “minimal efficiency obligations” with every firm. All he did was make a single go to to a army base and, on one different event, signal memorabilia. For that, he received $18M.

A Clippers govt specified that he wished Daktronics to offer Leonard a two-year endorsement deal for $6M so as to win the bid for the Intuit Dome’s scoreboard contract. Lower than a 12 months later, the Clippers knowledgeable Daktronics that they’d be spending extra on the scoreboard — and that Daktronics ought to pay Leonard $2M extra for the second 12 months consequently.

With Aspiration, the Clippers agreed to pay it $7M per 12 months for a “sustainability companies” contract with the Discussion board, bought by Ballmer in 2020. That is the identical quantity that Aspiration was paying Leonard in money every year, together with $5M yearly in fairness.

The Clippers are nonetheless proclaiming their innocence, however sooner or later they’re going to want to offer an inexpensive clarification for the mountain of proof the NBA uncovered about their monetary dealings with Leonard and their sponsors.

Till then, it is arduous to not see the Clippers’ actions as calculated, widespread and brazen. If what’s within the NBA’s unbiased report is not salary-cap circumvention, it is arduous to think about what’s.