New Suspicious Payments In Kawhi Leonard Investigation Revealed As Clippers Release Statement

More details on the alleged salary cap circumvention by the Los Angeles Clippers on Kawhi Leonard‘s contract emerged this week, with the team releasing its own statement amid an ongoing investigation.

Investigative journalist Pablo Torre spoke on the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast on Thursday, saying there were three prepaid carbon credit purchases from the Clippers between April and June 2022. These payments synced closely with Leonard completing his four-year, $28 million endorsement partnership with Aspiration.

Torre said the first carbon credits prepayment of $3 million was made on April 1, 2022. Another purchase, this time of $32 million, was made three days later, which was the same day Leonard signed his deal with Aspiration.

The Clippers released a statement following the recent discoveries, justifying the carbon credit payments as a way to go “far beyond” the offset requirements of the Intuit Dome.

“Our development agreements for the arena included mandates to buy carbon credits, but after studying the issue of neutrality, we went far beyond those requirements, exploring ways to address emissions from our fans and contracting with Aspiration to directly purchase carbon offsets, as well as broker the acquisition of additional offsets,” the statement said.

“Some of those commitments were built into the sponsorship deal with Aspiration – totally separate of the investment in the company – and we made payments to Aspiration until the company was unable to fulfill their responsibilities.”

Mark Cuban, who defended the Clippers on X, said purchasing carbon credits would’ve been “a lot easier and a lot safer” to circumvent the salary cap. One week later, Torre revealed his recent findings, which accused the franchise of purchasing carbon credits.

It is still unclear whether Torre’s new discoveries will prompt the NBA to take action on the Clippers. The team opens its regular season on Oct. 22 against the Utah Jazz.