NBA investigation – The NBA’s nine-month investigation into whether the Los Angeles Clippers helped steer a side deal involving Aspiration toward Kawhi Leonard and investors drew nearer to a conclusion after Joseph Sanberg was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison. The league i
When Joseph Sanberg walked through the federal system after pleading guilty last October. the case that has hovered over the Clippers’ offseason finally moved from allegations to a measurable consequence. On Monday. Sanberg—the co-founder of Aspiration—was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison. a development that brings the NBA closer to wrapping up its nine-month investigation into whether the Clippers allegedly circled around the salary cap.
Sanberg pleaded guilty in October to federal charges of conspiring to bilk investors out of $248 million by presenting Aspiration. now defunct. as a “socially-conscious and sustainable banking services and investment products” firm. The league’s focus. however. has landed on how the Aspiration relationship intersected with Clippers basketball operations—and what that could mean under league rules.
The NBA has declined to comment on the status of the investigation centered on $60 million invested in Aspiration by Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and a $28-million contract Kawhi Leonard signed with Aspiration for endorsement and marketing work that Leonard never delivered.
Players can take part in separate endorsement and business ventures. but the probe hinges on whether the Clippers participated in arranging a side deal beyond simply connecting Aspiration executives to Leonard. The alleged conduct would be a violation of Article 13 of the NBA collective bargaining agreement. If the league finds wrongdoing. the punishment spelled out in the agreement includes a $4.5-million fine. the loss of a first-round draft pick. and the voiding of Leonard’s contract.
Those potential stakes have a clear calendar. The NBA Draft takes place June 23-24, and the Clippers have three picks, including the fifth overall selection. The league is not expected to release its findings until after the NBA Finals. which begin Wednesday between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs.
Clippers officials haven’t commented on the investigation. Leonard. though. publicly signaled confidence after the Clippers’ season-ending game April 15. telling The Athletic that. “I think we’re going to be in the clear. I’m not stressing.” Leonard has one year left on a three-year. $149.5 million contract that will pay him $50.3 million next season.
As the league waits to make its decision, the public record around the probe has been unusually sharp—because Ballmer and the lawyers connected to both sides have used Sanberg’s credibility as their battlefield.
In letters submitted to federal court judge Stephen V. Wilson ahead of Sanberg’s sentencing. the defense and the NBA-appointed legal process portrayed very different images of what mattered most. Dave Anders of Wachtell Lipton wrote that Sanberg provided documentation and information helpful to the NBA investigation during two in-person interviews.
“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. ” Anders wrote. “Mr. Sanberg’s cooperation substantially assisted our investigation, including our ability to develop a more complete understanding of key events.”.
Ballmer’s side asked for a stiffer sentence. In a five-page Victim Impact Statement posted on social media by Ballmer’s lawyer, David N. Kelley, Ballmer argued that Sanberg exploited him while supplying information to the NBA. Kelley wrote that “Sanberg continues to exploit his fraud of Mr. Ballmer for his benefit. providing information to the NBA in return for a sentencing letter that the league submitted on his behalf.” Kelley also contended 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.”.
Before handing down the sentence, Wilson made it plain that he viewed Sanberg’s story as compromised. “He portrays himself as a do-gooder who was in business to help the world, but he did personally gain from his fraud,” Wilson said, later adding, “I would put the grade of his fraud at the zenith.”
Ballmer, a former longtime CEO of Microsoft who has owned the Clippers since 2014, has maintained that he was targeted through his public interest in environmental sustainability and that Sanberg exaggerated their relationship to convince others to invest. Ballmer said he met Sanberg only once.
The timeline Ballmer’s side points to begins with investments and public moves around Aspiration. Ballmer invested $50 million in Aspiration in September 2021. A month later, the Clippers announced a $300 million sponsorship deal with the company. Ballmer nearly granted Aspiration naming rights to the team’s new $2 billion venue, but instead chose financial services firm Intuit. Ballmer then made an additional $10 million investment in Aspiration on March 9, 2023.
In November, Ballmer was added as a defendant in a civil lawsuit against Sanberg and several others associated with Aspiration. Eleven investors accused Sanberg and the other defendants of fraud and aiding and abetting fraud, seeking at least $50 million in damages.
Kelley argued Ballmer was added as a defendant because of “visibility and resources. ” and portrayed the Clippers owner as a victim. He wrote that “Mr. Ballmer’s losses are not measured solely, or even primarily, on a balance sheet. They are measured in the reputational damage that will take years to remediate. and in the chilling effect on future endeavors intended to do good.”.
For the NBA itself, the commissioner’s comments have offered a glimpse of how unsettled the process has been. The lone public comment about the investigation from NBA Commissioner Adam Silver came during All-Star Weekend in February at the Intuit Dome. where he described the issue as “enormously complex.”.
“You have a company in bankruptcy, you have thousands of documents, multiple witnesses that needed to be interviewed,” Silver said. The probe was triggered by reports from podcaster Pablo Torre that Leonard’s sponsorship deal with Aspiration was to circumvent the salary cap. Torre and the staff of “Pablo Torre Finds Out” won a Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting for their efforts.
The sequence has now turned tighter. Sanberg’s 14-year sentence provides the legal endpoint for the man at the center of the fraud case. But for the NBA. and for the Clippers waiting to learn whether Article 13 applies to their alleged role in arranging the endorsement deal. the real question is still unresolved: what. exactly. the team did—or didn’t do—when a side deal involving Leonard intersected with an investment story that later collapsed.
With the Draft set for June 23-24 and possible penalties extending to the voiding of Leonard’s contract and the loss of a first-round pick. the league’s final decision can’t arrive soon enough for teams trying to plan past the Finals. When it does come. the NBA’s investigation will carry a different weight than it did when the allegations first surfaced: it will be measured against a federal sentence. a contested record of cooperation. and a contract with a $28 million endorsement deal that Leonard reportedly never performed.
NBA investigation Steve Ballmer Kawhi Leonard Clippers Aspiration fraud Joseph Sanberg salary cap Article 13 NBA Draft June 23-24