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The LA Clippers and Kawhi Leonard, who are currently under investigation for violations related to payments outside of the league’s salary cap, also received millions in a second undisclosed sponsorship deal, according to a report by the podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out.”
The podcast, citing multiple anonymous sources inside the Clippers and the Intuit Dome project, reported that Leonard had a previously unknown deal with Daktronics, the company that manufactured the Intuit Dome’s Halo video screen and others in the sports world.
The Clippers have been under investigation by the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, with a focus on a $28 million endorsement deal given to Leonard by Aspiration, a now-bankrupt environmental company and former Clippers sponsor, since September. Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has maintained that he was defrauded by Aspiration and its co-founder, Joe Sanberg.
Sanberg was sentenced this past June to 14 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud.
Kawhi Leonard had a sponsorship with Clippers’ scoreboard operator
Torre’s latest podcast, released Thursday night, cites multiple sources who said that Leonard was a Clippers spokesperson for Daktronics. It’s unclear when the contract began and ended. One anonymous source told Torre that the contract was for “millions of dollars.”
When the podcast asked the company to confirm if Leonard had an endorsement deal, it referred them to a spokesperson for a crisis management firm who said, “My understanding is Daktronics doesn’t have a deal with Kawhi right now.” When asked for clarification, the spokesman said, “I don’t know what the company wants to say, or can say, given the Wachtell investigation and all that.”
According to Daktronics’ website, the company produces video boards for several NBA arenas, including for the Phoenix Suns, Charlotte Hornets, Milwaukee Bucks, Detroit Pistons, Memphis Grizzlies and Brooklyn Nets. A search for “Kawhi Leonard” returned no results on the company’s website.
A spokesperson for the NBA didn’t respond to The Athletic’s request for comment on the latest allegations. The Clippers have also not responded to a request for comment.
The investigation into the Clippers and Leonard has dragged on since last fall. As part of the investigation, the law firm is examining if Leonard had a previously unreported endorsement deal with another company, according to multiple sources who spoke to The Athletic on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely.
The results of that investigation are currently holding up a trade that would send Leonard from the Clippers to the Toronto Raptors, the team he left in free agency in 2019.
“The league did not pause the trade,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in July of the Clippers-Raptors deal. “The parties to the trade made a decision not to go forward given that the investigation remained open, and any possible impact on Kawhi or his contract was yet to be known. And so, they chose not to live with that uncertainty, but that was well-known before the trade was proposed. I don’t think there was any reason for people to believe that the status of Kawhi Leonard would change merely because he was traded. The investigation needs to run its course.”
Silver said earlier this summer that the investigation “can be wrapped up — and needs to be wrapped up — before next season.” If the NBA finds there was a violation of the CBA, it can fine the Clippers millions of dollars, strip them of first-round picks, penalize Ballmer and even void Leonard’s contract.
When Leonard became a free agent in 2019, his representatives, including his uncle Dennis Robertson, asked the Los Angeles Lakers for several impermissible benefits, according to multiple league sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could candidly discuss the situation. Those included the use of private aircraft, a home, guaranteed off-court earnings and even an ownership stake in the team. The Lakers, according to those sources, informed Leonard’s team that those requests violated the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement and amounted to salary cap circumvention.