“Nobody did anything wrong”
NBA superstar reacts to allegations of fraud
Updated on September 30, 2025 – 2:43 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
In the American basketball league NBA, clubs are only allowed to issue a fixed amount for player salaries. However, a club is said to have violated it. Those affected defend themselves.
Three weeks before the start of the season, Kawhi Leonard first publicly commented on the allegations related to his payment at the Los Angeles Clippers. The star player of the NBA club rejected any misconduct.
“The NBA will do its job. None of us did something wrong, that’s it,” said Leonard at the first media appointment of the season preparation. A distraction for him or the team will not be the topic, the 32-year-old continued.
At the beginning of September, US media reported that the Clippers had made additional payments to Leonard through a sponsorship business and thus violated the league’s salary rules. There is a suspicion in the room that club owners Steve Ballmer is said to have invested in a start-up that transferred seven million US dollars to Leonard for over four years-without any recognizable consideration. The company is now insolvent, and a former employee publicly brought up the case in a podcast for the first time.
Leonard said that because of the bankruptcy he had not received the entire sum. He rejected the allegation of not doing any consideration: “I don’t think that is true.”
Leonard has been under contract with the Clippers since 2019. During this period, the two-time NBA champion earned around $ 244 million. Club President Lawrence Frank described speculation as “disappointing and annoying”. One could only hope that the truth will come to light. “We expect the investigations to show that all of these accusations are wrong,” said Frank.
The NBA sees a central instrument in its salary limit to protect equal opportunities. Clubs are only allowed to issue a fixed amount for player salaries. Anyone who goes beyond that must expect penalty payments. The upper limit is linked to the league revenue and is adjusted annually.