Aspiration Investors Sue Steve Ballmer Over Kawhi Leonard Deal

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has been sued by 11 former Aspiration investors for using the company to pay Kawhi Leonard and “circumvent the salary cap.”

The 133-page lawsuit, obtained by Front Office Sports, was originally filed in Los Angeles back on July 9, two months before the journalist Pablo Torre first reported on Leonard’s $28 million “no-show job” with Aspiration. Ballmer was not named as a defendant in the initial lawsuit, but was added Monday in light of Torre’s reporting: “Ballmer’s scheme to pay Leonard through Catona to evade the NBA’s salary cap was only later revealed in 2025, by journalist Pablo Torre.” Torre was first to report the amended complaint Monday.

“It served Ballmer’s interest in getting extra money to Leonard so he could circumvent the salary cap, beat out the competition and re-sign his team’s superstar player,” the lawsuit alleges. “Ballmer was complicit in and aided and abetted Sanberg’s fraud for his own self-serving purpose. Ballmer publicly endorsed Catona and infused over $50 million into the company. Absent Ballmer’s support, Catona could not have sustained the frauds set forth herein.”

The NBA launched an investigation into the Clippers and Aspiration that is still ongoing. When asked about it onstage in September at the FOS Tuned In summit, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said the league will “get to the bottom of it.”

“We will bring whatever resources we need to bear on this investigation. I don’t know anything more yet,” Silver said. “I believe in due process. I believe in fairness. And so we will be thorough, but we will begin with a presumption of innocence, not a presumption of guilt.”

The NBA and the Clippers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the last two weeks, the NBA has been hammered with two major gambling indictments after the arrests of three current and former NBA players and coaches, including Heat guard Terry Rozier and Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups.