'They're done building around him': Inside the tumultuous Kawhi Leonard era in Los Angeles

ON AUG. 18, 2014, Steve Ballmer shouted, chest-bumped and high-fived his way through a frenzied crowd of 4,500 fans inside Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. Eminem's "Lose Yourself" thumped overhead. The former Microsoft CEO had just paid a then-record $2 billion for the LA Clippers, at once rescuing the team, the city of Los Angeles and the NBA from one of its darkest eras.

"We're going to be bold. Bold means taking chances," Ballmer thundered into the microphone after taking the stage. "We're going to be optimistic. We're going to be hardcore. Nothing gets in our way -- boom! The hardcore Clippers. That's us."

Ballmer took questions from season-ticket holders, including one who was 26 and wanted to know how the next 26 years of the franchise would be different after the 33-year tenure of former owner Donald Sterling.

"I'll boldly say the Clippers will win many, many more Larrys in the next 26 years than they did in the last 26," he said, referring to the Larry O'Brien Trophy.

Ballmer possessed unmatched monetary resources and ambition to construct a dynasty from the smoldering ruins of Sterling's disgraced tenure. Ballmer was competitive and innovative, unafraid to dig into some of the deepest pockets on Earth, driven to bring his championship aspirations to life.

Eleven years later, Ballmer's biggest and most ambitious bet to deliver that championship -- or even the franchise's first NBA Finals appearance -- has failed on the court, where, during the six seasons since the Clippers' blockbuster 2019 acquisition of superstar Kawhi Leonard, the team has won just three playoff series and Leonard has only played in 42% of their games.

But that failure extends further, because from nearly since the moment Leonard signed in Los Angeles, Ballmer and the team have also drawn unprecedented and serious scrutiny from the NBA league office and the rest of the NBA.

Since 2019, the Clippers have faced two separate lawsuits alleging tampering violations involving Leonard, one of which remains ongoing. They've been fined at least twice by the NBA for violations of league rules involving Leonard. There have also been at least three NBA investigations -- the latest of which just began -- into the Clippers involving Leonard.

The shadow of this latest one -- which will examine allegations that the Clippers circumvented the salary cap, with Leonard receiving a $28 million sponsorship deal from a now-bankrupt company that Ballmer invested $50 million in -- will hover over the team entering training camp. And it could continue into the season, following a summer in which the Clippers tried to bolster a roster that won 50 games last season before losing in the first round to Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets. They reunited with 40-year-old point guard Chris Paul for his 21st NBA season. They added 32-year-old shooting guard Bradley Beal after his tumultuous stint in Phoenix. They re-signed 36-year-old shooting guard James Harden to a two-year deal. They added 27-year-old forward John Collins and 37-year-old center Brook Lopez to strengthen a front line anchored by blossoming 28-year-old center Ivica Zubac.

But the team's centerpiece remains Leonard, who will be paid $50 million next season and is eligible for an extension next summer.

Several rival executives said the Clippers' initial investment in Leonard -- though it came at what was then deemed a steep cost -- was a smart move that any team would've made at the time, especially one with the Clippers' long track record.

But now those same executives all judge that investment's return in the same way.

"Looking back, the deal was a f---ing disaster," one rival GM told ESPN.

Interviews with nearly two dozen team sources, former staffers, rival executives, agents and others across the league convey the same. They reveal how a team desperate for a star -- and relevance -- capitulated to Leonard and those around him, seeking to keep him happy and healthy, even as the organization's culture devolved into an internal mixture of fear and secrecy and an external stream of legal battles and allegations of misconduct.

"This last investigation is different," a former Clippers staffer says of the league's inquiry into a sponsorship deal with a company that Ballmer invested in. "This one directly calls into question Steve Ballmer's character.

"At some point, Steve has got to get out of the Kawhi business."

AS THE NIGHT grew long on July 5, 2019, Clippers executives sat together in a conference room on a high floor of a Regus coworking space in El Segundo, California.

The walls were thin and the anxiety was high. For days, everyone had worried that the superstar free agent that they'd been chasing for years, the player they believed could instantly transform their franchise, would, at the very last minute, scorn them for their hated cross-city rival, the Los Angeles Lakers.

They'd met with Leonard four days earlier, and after learning that he'd sign with the Clippers only if they'd acquired Paul George from Oklahoma City, they'd spent almost the entire time since working to hammer out a deal with the Thunder.

The ultimate framework: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, forward Danilo Gallinari, a then-unprecedented five first-round picks and two first-round pick swaps for George.

Ballmer was concerned by the number of draft picks the team was giving up, then-Clippers head coach Doc Rivers later told reporters in September 2019, and he wasn't the only one to feel that way.

Some staffers feared the deal would have similar ramifications to the infamous 2013 Boston-Brooklyn swap, when the Celtics acquired three first-round draft picks and a first-round pick swap in return for two aging stars in Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. That trade ultimately set up the Celtics' for the next decade, yielding them foundational stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who led them to the 2024 title.

The Nets, meanwhile, went nowhere, and the deal became a cautionary tale.

The Clippers were also nervous about trading Gilgeous-Alexander, a dynamic young guard who had just been named to the NBA All-Rookie second team.

But just weeks earlier, Leonard had won a title with the Toronto Raptors; he was uninterested in waiting on a young player to develop.

Acquiring George was one of several requests made by Leonard and his camp, led by Leonard's uncle, Dennis Robertson, who outlined a series of asks for the Clippers in the days leading up to July 5.

Those requests included part ownership of the team, access to a private plane, a house and guaranteed off-court endorsement money, one source with direct knowledge of the talks said. They were the same requests that, according to The Athletic, Robertson made of the Lakers and the Raptors. The Toronto Star reported on Sept. 9 that Robertson also asked the Raptors for ownership stakes in outside companies and corporate sponsorship deals in which Leonard wouldn't have to do anything in return for the money. Robertson did not respond to requests for comment for either story.

These verbal requests fell outside the boundaries of the league's collective bargaining agreement, and while the Clippers didn't say yes to them, they did say yes to others.

Robertson, who did not respond to a request for comment for this story, wanted Leonard to be able to initially live in San Diego rather than in Los Angeles. (Leonard would commute via helicopter. He later moved to Los Angeles.) The Clippers agreed. He wanted Leonard to be able to skip some media obligations and team community events. The Clippers agreed. He wanted the team to promise to market Leonard individually. The Clippers agreed. He wanted Leonard to be able to bring some of his own people into the organization. The Clippers agreed. (A team source disputes the existence of some of these requests and the tone of some others.)

Perhaps most importantly, Robertson said there would need to be a strict protocol about how to talk about Leonard publicly -- and that was to say nothing unless absolutely necessary.

Rival head coaches told ESPN that the last request is not unusual for stars, and the Clippers, seeking to establish themselves as a star-friendly organization, again agreed. They badly wanted Leonard. They had even fired one of their own broadcasters, Bruce Bowen, in 2018, after he made what they viewed as negative comments about Leonard on the air.

By 8:19 p.m. PT on July 5, 2019, as the outlines of the deal with Oklahoma City took shape, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck in Ridgecrest, California, about 150 miles north from where the Clippers brain trust had gathered. It was the largest earthquake to hit Southern California in nearly two decades, and was felt as far away as Las Vegas, where the NBA world was gathered for summer league.

As the building shook, dust from ceiling tiles fell on the heads of Clippers staffers, who quickly ducked into a nearby stairwell. Unscathed but rattled, they emerged and worked to hammer out the deal, one they were desperate to close.

Nearly three hours later, at 10:54 p.m. PT, Leonard had informed teams of his decision to sign with the Clippers. One minute later, the news of the Clippers' trade for George broke too.

Among the LA staff, there was jubilation.

Four days later, Leonard signed a three-year, $103.1 million deal that included a player option for the final season.

Excitement swept over the Clippers franchise. But multiple sources also say a separate emotion began creeping its way into the organization, one that would become deeply entrenched in the days, weeks and years ahead. It ultimately defined the culture as much as the team's aspirations to win a title with its new superstar forward aboard.

That feeling, they say, was fear.

NBA TEAMS HAVE long lived in fear of upsetting their stars, a sentiment that predates Leonard's arrival in Los Angeles and has been prevalent across the league. Given the Clippers' past, and the future they hoped to forge, that dynamic was compounded.

The Clippers were desperate to prove that they knew how to accommodate star players, according to team sources and agents with close ties to the team, and that they were far removed from the scandal-plagued, loss-filled era under Sterling.

Just eight games into Leonard's first season, one of the Clippers' first promises -- to be silent when it came to matters of Leonard's health -- was tested.

It was Nov. 6, 2019, and the Clippers hosted the Bucks on the first night of a back-to-back. Leonard sat out that game for "load management" of an undisclosed left knee injury. He had done the same on an earlier back-to-back set in the young season, sitting out the first of the two games for the same stated reason.

It wasn't unusual for Leonard to sit out a game as he managed his health. He'd famously done so during prior stops in San Antonio and Toronto, and the Clippers were under no illusion that he'd be playing in every game for them.

Before the game, Rivers was asked about Leonard's health. The then-Clippers' coach said that Leonard "feels great" and that there was no reason to be concerned.

Soon after, one source with direct knowledge of the interaction said, the Clippers received a call from a reporter seeking comment after learning that Leonard's health wasn't as "great" as the team was saying publicly. Then the reporter contacted the league office to see if NBA officials had any clarity on the situation. Soon, the NBA began its own inquiry.

"The league office looked into it, and [the reporter] was right," the source said. "The severity of Kawhi's injury was more significant than the team was letting on."

The following afternoon, on Nov. 7, the league announced it was fining the Clippers $50,000 for comments made by Rivers that "were inconsistent" with Leonard's health, along with specifics about Leonard's health.

That the league had publicly revealed such particulars -- that he was suffering from an ongoing injury to his patellar tendon -- sent shivers through the organization, multiple sources said.

The Clippers had watched from afar how Leonard's tenure with the Spurs had ended because of a rift over how best to manage Leonard's health following a March 2016 lower-body injury that the team declared was quadriceps tendinopathy in 2017. ESPN's Michael Wright and Ramona Shelburne reported in 2018 that a key part of that divide was whether Leonard's issues were, as the Spurs believed after consulting with medical experts, degenerative and irreversible, and would need to be managed indefinitely. Leonard's camp, including Robertson, disagreed.

Ultimately, Leonard requested a trade in the summer of 2018, with two years left on the max deal he'd signed in 2015. Even before the Clippers signed Leonard, they knew that if he could lose trust and dismantle a seven-season relationship with Spurs for such a reason, then he easily could do the same to them.

"The Spurs were maybe the most respected, most revered pro sports team in America," one former staffer said. "It was like if this guy is willing to tell those people to go f--- themselves, he can't possibly be afraid to tell us to go f--- ourselves. ... Everybody was afraid of Kawhi leaving." That sentiment was echoed by multiple team and league sources.

To the team's surprise and relief, Leonard and his camp believed the franchise had held up their end, even if it had cost them $50,000.

"That was a feather in our cap, for sure," the former team staffer said.

Instead, Leonard directed his ire toward the league office.

"[The NBA's news release] was shocking, but it doesn't matter to me," Leonard said after scoring a game-high 27 points and grabbing 13 rebounds in a 107-101 win over the Trail Blazers later that night. "I'm not a guy who reads the media anyway. We're going to manage it the best way we can to keep me healthy. ... [The fine] was just disappointing. It feels like they want players to play if they're not ready."

The NBA did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Rivers found himself in a complicated position: having to straddle the line between protecting Leonard's request for intense secrecy regarding his health, and respecting the league's mandate for transparency.

The next day, when asked about those two competing ideals after the NBA's fine, and whether there was some middle ground, Rivers' answer offered a window into the new dynamic forming across the organization.

"I'm scared to answer," he told reporters before the Clippers faced the Portland Trail Blazers on Nov. 7, 2019. "That's my answer. I just won't answer."

Across the organization, details about Leonard's health were considered sacred secrets, multiple sources say, and a schism between those who were in the know and those who weren't emerged early.

"He was very separate from [the Clippers'] staff," one source with knowledge of the situation said.

"It caused extreme angst within the medical department," another former staffer said. "It was like the Clippers' medical staff wasn't really allowed to touch Kawhi ever."

In an effort to placate Leonard, news releases, public statements and social media posts that mentioned him received intense scrutiny both from the Clippers' senior leadership and, where necessary, from Leonard's camp, multiple sources said. While a team source said it was and is common practice for the team to run potential public statements by those representing all Clippers players, some team staffers nonetheless feared the wrong word or term in anything related to Leonard could lead to Robertson calling management and igniting a Spurs-like war.

The constant secrecy and tension surrounding Leonard -- and his health -- grated some staffers who interacted with players on a daily basis.

"There was clearly a heightened sensitivity," one said.

"Everyone was so uptight," another said. "I'm telling you, when I say uptight, I mean uptight."

"Kawhi Leonard is an elite player and admired teammate who has made significant contributions to our organization," the Clippers wrote in a statement to ESPN. "We treat Kawhi with the same respect as we do all of our players and staff. Unfortunately, he's battled injuries, which have led to undue scrutiny and criticism, but we appreciate his resilience and relentless work ethic. We're grateful he is part of our team and look forward to the start of training camp."

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Stephen A.: Hard to stomach Steve Ballmer being 'duped'

Stephen A. Smith reacts to Steve Ballmer's interview with Ramona Shelburne in wake of the Kawhi Leonard report.

LEONARD ENTERED THE 2023-24 season eligible for a contract extension. As the Clippers considered their options, a former team staffer said some within the team had been fatigued by Leonard's injuries and lack of availability.

And because of that, the ex-staffer said, the Clippers could wield leverage. Leonard had been eligible for a four-year, $220 million max contract, but the team prioritized preserving salary cap flexibility -- especially because of second-apron restrictions -- in part because they were also in extension talks with George.

If Leonard, seeking a better deal, had threatened to test the free-agent market, any prospective team would want a thorough medical examination, including any information that Leonard and his camp had sought to keep private. That medical information could, in the hands of another team, be leaked, the ex-staffer pointed out.

Privately, the Clippers fully understood the ins and outs of Leonard's health. If this was what they were offering to pay him at this point in his career, then there was a good reason behind it.

As one team source told ESPN, "We know what's under the hood."

Still, while Clippers staffers feared agitating Leonard, they were quick to say teammates liked and admired him, a sentiment that remains. When he played, he played hard. When he worked out, his focus, determination and discipline received consistent praise.

In January 2024, he agreed to a three-year deal worth $153 million.

A few months after signing his extension, during a season in which Leonard played 68 regular-season games -- his most since 2016-17 -- the team seemed primed for another playoff run.

But on March 31, 2024, following a win in Charlotte, Leonard began to experience inflammation in his surgically repaired right knee. That inflammation forced him to miss the final eight games of the regular season, and Leonard played in just two games of the Clippers' six-game series loss to Dallas in the first round. It marked the fourth straight Clippers postseason marred by either a Leonard injury or his absence because of one.

After the postseason, Leonard had hoped to play for Team USA, which in mid-April had named him one of its 12 players for the Paris Olympics.

Team USA imagined Leonard as a powerful addition who could halt virtually any key international player it would face, including Serbia's Nikola Jokic. But given Leonard's knee inflammation, officials weren't sure whether Leonard would be healthy enough to play.

It wasn't until the end of June that they learned that Leonard had undergone a procedure on that knee two months earlier, in early May, which wouldn't become public for several months.

Team USA officials were shocked to learn about the procedure after the fact, especially with training camp slated to open in early July in Las Vegas.

During camp, Leonard looked "slow and laboring," one source who watched him said.

Clippers coach Tyronn Lue, who took over for Rivers in October 2020 and was a member of Steve Kerr's coaching staff, stressed to Team USA officials that Leonard knew his body, and that if he wasn't healthy, he wouldn't play -- but Lue emphasized that Leonard wanted to play.

Lawrence Frank, the Clippers' president of basketball operations, stressed the same. But Team USA officials were unconvinced.

"I think he thought that he could come and rehab for three weeks with [Team USA] and then he'd be ready to play in the Olympics," one source close to the process said. Team USA couldn't do that, sources said. Celtics guard Derrick White replaced Leonard on the roster and went on to win the gold medal at the Paris Olympics.

While sources say Team USA officials regret how the situation played out, those same officials also recognize that Leonard's camp hadn't been forthcoming about the knee procedure or about his recovery.

All of it had been shrouded in secrecy.

On July 15, 2024, Frank addressed reporters about Team USA's decision, saying he was "very disappointed" by it, that Leonard wanted to play and that, when he was there, Leonard looked healthy. Frank was asked if Leonard had undergone any type of procedures or treatment to his right knee before camp.

He declined to comment, saying he wasn't going to get into specifics.

THREE MONTHS LATER, on Oct. 10, 2024, specifics about Leonard's health again made headlines, when Randy Shelton, a former Clippers strength and conditioning coach, filed a lawsuit against the team and Frank.

Shelton alleged that the team had tampered to acquire Leonard, and wrongfully terminated him, in part, for raising issues about how the team managed Leonard's health. He even alleged that Leonard had suffered at least one injury -- two torn ligaments in his right ankle in 2022 -- that the team appears to have never disclosed publicly.

Later, Shelton alleged that Robertson negotiated Shelton's contract as an unlicensed agent in California, which, Shelton's lawyers noted, could violate state laws. Shelton's lawyers added that Shelton received a "direct threat" from Robertson during the process: Either Shelton pay Robertson 10% of his Clippers salary or he couldn't join the Clippers.

"This coercion, coupled with Robertson's widely reported control over the Clippers' organization through his relationship with Kawhi Leonard, raises significant concerns of duress and undue influence," Shelton's attorneys wrote in a subsequent court filing.

The Clippers denied Shelton's allegations, believing the suit to be an extortion attempt for millions. They sought to settle the matter through arbitration.

The team had fired Shelton in July 2023 when, the team stated in court filings, "it became apparent that [Shelton] was not willing to perform the job for which the Clippers had hired him. Instead, [Shelton] took it upon himself to render advice to those who had not sought it and that he was not qualified to give. For example, he recommended medical procedures, such as blood-flow restriction, without having any medical training, knowing the players' condition, or consulting with his supervisors or the team doctors. His unauthorized conduct disrupted relationships between the players, their trainers, and the team, and put the players' health and well-being at risk.

"And when the Clippers investigated [Shelton's] accusations of 'retaliation, discrimination, segregation, and bullying,' [Shelton] admitted to 'creating drama' by approaching players with his advice without knowing their medical history. In short, [Shelton] refused to limit himself to the job for which he was hired, creating problems for the team and its players and personnel."

When news of Shelton's lawsuit began to spread across the league, one team source with direct knowledge of the situation said many of Shelton's claims were untrue -- but not all.

Shelton's allegation that the team increasingly excluded him from meetings and information about Leonard's health was true, the team source says, adding that there was concern in Shelton's first season that he was taking incomplete information about Leonard's health to unqualified medical officials around the country -- "witch doctors and quasi clinicians," the source says.

By the midpoint of that first season, the team source says, the team could've fired Shelton -- and yet decided instead to change the organizational structure of the department to isolate Shelton and limit the flow of information that he received.

The reason was simple: Creating a rift with Shelton could risk creating a rift with Leonard.

In Shelton's suit, he also alleged that the Clippers "leapt well beyond the bounds of the NBA constitution" with respect to potential tampering violations in their pursuit of Leonard.

"He's not wrong about that," the team source says.

In his lawsuit, Shelton, who had a working relationship with Leonard dating back to Leonard's days at San Diego State more than a decade earlier, said the Clippers first contacted him in 2017 after Leonard, who was then under contract with the Spurs, suffered a severe ankle injury in Game 1 of the 2017 Western Conference finals against the Golden State Warriors.

Shelton said a Clippers executive, assistant general manager Mark Hughes, contacted him to seek "private health information" about Leonard and expressed the need for "discretion."

The two spoke approximately 15 times on the phone and had at least seven meetings, according to the suit, as the Clippers sought to learn more about Leonard's contractual obligations with the Spurs and his medical situation.

When asked if the team violated tampering rules in its pursuit of Leonard, one former Clippers staffer who was closely involved said, simply, "Everybody tampers."

Another former Clippers employee said Shelton's lawsuit presents a new set of problems for the team, especially if depositions and internal communications become public. Frank sat for a deposition in the lawsuit on September 16.

"The team cannot possibly want the NBA opening up its cupboards again," the former employee said. "I'm telling you -- that is bad."

ON DEC. 7, 2024, reporters gathered at the Clippers' new practice facility in Inglewood and spotted Leonard working out on the other side of the court. Team officials lingered nearby.

Leonard hadn't played all season because of inflammation in his right knee that had plagued him the season before. The question of when the star forward would return to action hovered over the team.

Some reporters immediately raised their cellphone cameras and started filming.

As they did, Leonard dribbled the ball and began to go into a shooting motion, raising the ball in front of him and then over his head. Then Leonard spotted the media gaggle and hesitated.

Robertson stood next to him, arms crossed in a white hat, white hoodie and white shorts. Lue approached him to check in. Lue then looked over toward the media on the far side of the court and he pointed to them.

"Yo!" Robertson yelled from across the court.

He raised his arms and moved them across his body, akin to a director calling "cut."

Team officials then told the media to stop filming.

"He wants to control the environment," one former staffer says. "He doesn't mind being filmed. What he minds is moments that he thinks are supposed to be private. If the Clippers say, 'Yes, we will make it private,' he expects them to live up to it."

Soon after Leonard arrived, reporters found that even when they privately asked the Clippers about Leonard's health, seeking to confirm details they'd uncovered, they would often be directed to ask Leonard's camp, which meant contacting Robertson.

Robertson has long served as Leonard's spokesperson. His role in Leonard's life became more pronounced after Leonard's father, Mark, was killed on Jan. 18, 2008, in Compton, California. Mark was 43, Leonard 16.

Leonard would later tell the San Antonio Express-News, "With my dad passing away, there aren't too many men in the family and [Robertson] is a great guy to just talk to that has been through my experiences at my age."

Robertson played college basketball at the University of Idaho, then spent nearly three decades as a banking executive. He worked with American Express, Carver Federal Savings Bank and JP Morgan Chase.

When the Raptors won the 2019 championship against the Golden State Warriors in Oakland, a celebratory team photo was taken on the court of players and staff.

Robertson stood in a back row. He was, one Raptors source said, the only family member in the photo.

AT 8:30 p.m. ET on Jan. 3, 2025, the league released an injury report, which it does continually throughout the day.

That night, the Clippers had listed Leonard as out (Injury/Illness -- Right Knee; Injury Recovery) for the team's game the next day against the Atlanta Hawks. On the league's next injury report that night, at 9:30 p.m. ET, Leonard's status remained the same.

Then, less than three hours later, at 11:27 p.m. ET, NBA reporter Chris Haynes tweeted, citing information he'd just received, that Leonard was expected to make his debut against the Hawks. Three minutes later, the Clippers' PR account posted an update on X: Leonard had been upgraded to questionable.

The next night, Lue sat on a dais in the depths of the Intuit Dome, facing a larger than usual crowd of media that had assembled to watch Leonard make his season debut.

One of the first questions centered on the events of the previous evening -- Leonard being listed out, then suddenly available.

"Nothing changed," Lue said. "He was in [the whole time], but I didn't want to hear from all these [media] guys, so I tried to protect myself as long as I could."

Lue announced that Leonard would be on a minutes restriction, but when asked what that restriction would be, Lue smiled and rubbed his chin with one hand.

"I can't remember," he smirked, then laughed.

That response had become a customary go-to for Lue not long after he replaced Rivers. And it continued to serve the purpose: protecting any information about the star forward, while avoiding the pitfall that led to the prior $50,000 fine under Rivers.

As his minutes increased, Leonard returned to form. From the All-Star break and to the end of the regular season, he averaged 25.0 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.5 assists on 52-44-81 shooting splits. His team won 50 games -- its second-most since 2016-17 -- for the second consecutive year. In Game 2 against the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs, he scored 39 points on a blistering 15-of-19 shooting. And yet the Clippers fell to the Nuggets in seven games. It marked the third straight year the team failed to advance beyond the first round.

The furthest the Clippers have advanced is the Western Conference finals in 2021 -- a series that Leonard missed because of injury.

Meanwhile, Gilgeous-Alexander, who turned 27 on July 12, led the NBA in scoring last season while leading Oklahoma City to its first championship, then signed a four-year, $285 million super maximum contract extension through the 2030-31 season. He will also be featured on the cover of the NBA 2K26 video game.

Today, the Clippers are in a precarious place again. On Sept. 3, the Clippers found themselves in yet another scandal involving Leonard. Podcaster and journalist Pablo Torre reported about Leonard's sponsorship deal at a now-bankrupt company called Aspiration that Ballmer had previously invested in.

Hours later, the NBA announced it was launching an investigation. The next day, in an interview with ESPN's Ramona Shelburne, Ballmer denied that he had any knowledge of Leonard's endorsement contract or that he directed the company to offer it.

"The allegations have not been true," Ballmer told Shelburne. "But what's most important to me is we've done the right thing in all those interactions. Kawhi's business is Kawhi's business. But we've always done the right thing."

The New York-based law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz will lead the NBA's investigation into the Clippers and the sponsorship deal with Aspiration. The firm also investigated following a 2020 suit against the team by a man named Johnny Wilkes, who alleged Jerry West, a team consultant at the time, owed him $2.5 million in an oral agreement made for helping the Clippers sign Leonard. That lawsuit was ultimately dismissed, and the Clippers were cleared of any wrongdoing.

Then, on Sept. 11, just days into the NBA's investigation, Torre reported that Clippers minority owner Dennis Wong, Ballmer's former college roommate at Harvard, invested $1.99 million in Aspiration in December of 2022, just nine days before the company made a $1.75 million payment to Leonard. The payment to Leonard was late, according to the payment schedule, as the company was reportedly having financial troubles before ultimately declaring bankruptcy.

For now, Leonard remains under contract for two more seasons. The Clippers don't control their first-round pick in the next four years. Their unprotected first-round pick in 2026 will go to the Thunder, who have the right to swap first-round picks with the Clippers in 2027. That will help the Thunder sustain a potential dynastic run built around the player the Clippers gave up in the hopes of building their own dynasty.

In the meantime, every new accolade for Oklahoma City -- and any further championships -- will add another layer to the 2019 deal that has haunted the Clippers more and more in the years since.

Multiple GMs and other league executives said they expect Leonard to play out his contract with the Clippers, which is set to end after the 2026-27 season.

But even then, one former staffer said, the organization's focus has shifted. "They're done building around [Kawhi]," he said.

"They know that and he knows that."