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The Clippers just keep winning, despite the looming and ongoing Aspiration investigation.
On Monday, the Clippers beat the Knicks 126–118 to move to 32–32 on the season, which currently has them eighth in the Western Conference standings. It’s the first time the team’s record is .500 since Nov. 3, when the team was 3–3.
After a 6–21 start, the Clippers have gone 26–11 since December, which ranks among the NBA’s best records in that period. The team hasn’t fallen despite trading James Harden to Cleveland at the trade deadline and is in the mix for the Play-In. With 18 games remaining, the Clippers have the fourth-easiest remaining schedule, according to Tankathon.
The team’s success has continued while it—along with the rest of the NBA—awaits the outcome of the league’s investigation into the relationship between the Clippers, failed startup Aspiration, and Kawhi Leonard. Podcaster Pablo Torre has reported Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and co-owner Dennis Wong continued to invest in Aspiration despite its financial struggles; the company had a four-year, $28 million endorsement deal with the player that required no comments from Leonard.
In February, commissioner Adam Silver said the investigation is ongoing and that he hadn’t “come to any decisions whatsoever” on the situation.The league is using New York-based law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, for its investigation, as it has over the years for its biggest scandals.
“It’s enormously complex,” Silver said then. “You have a company in bankruptcy. You have thousands of documents, multiple witnesses that have been needed to be interviewed.”
Little seems to have changed since Silver addressed the media at All-Star weekend on Feb. 14. Multiple sources told Front Office Sports the league’s investigation remains ongoing. It’s unknown when the investigation will end, but over the years, the NBA has released the results to the public, including its investigation into former referee Tim Donaghy and former Suns owner Robert Sarver’s toxic workplace behavior.
“We’re all still waiting,” a league source told FOS about the investigation. A week ago at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston, Torre, who first broke the story of Leonard’s “no-show job” with Aspiration, reported in a live podcast taping that in 2023 a whistleblower complained to the SEC and accused Aspiration of illegally misusing funds to assist the Clippers in cap circumvention and pay Leonard “an incentivized bonus.”
Torre’s podcast showed screenshots of the complaint; it’s unclear how the SEC viewed the whistleblower’s comments. The SEC is still investigating Aspiration, according to Torre’s podcast. Aspiration co-founded Joseph Sandberg pleaded guilty to two counts of defrauding Aspiration investors in October and is set to be sentenced in April.
The SEC declined to comment.
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