Best of NBA News Part 1: Kawhi Leonard on HOLD + OVER spend on Austin Reaves? + Rui Hachimura SIGNS with Clippers + Tyler Herro SALTY over Giannis trade

**Shannon Sharpe** (0:00)
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The Clippers and the Toronto Raptors trade, centered on Kawhi Leonard, will not be complete until the NBA investigation, where the Clippers circumvented the salary cap, is completed. The Clippers and the Raptors agreed to a trade on June 30th that would send the NBA, the all NBA forward, to Toronto for Brandon Ingram, Grady Ick, to protect the first-round draft pick in 2031, 2033 and a 27 first-round pick swap in two second-round picks. The NBA's investigation to the Clippers is focused on whether they circumvented the salary cap by funneling money to Kawhi through a $28 million endorsement deal with a Green Banking Company, Aspiration, which also had 300 million 23-year endorsement deal with the team. Team owner Steve Barmer, who invested $60 million in Aspiration, has denied he had any knowledge of Kawhi's deal. The Clippers on Thursday said they did not funnel money to Kawhi Leonard through Aspiration and there were victims of fraud initiated by Aspiration's, Aspiration, excuse me, co-founder Joe Sandberg. Sandberg was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Joe, the NBA loves the billionaires until they found out how they really do business. What do you make of this situation? Pablo Torre, he has a podcast. He was at ESPN and he did an M-Depth deep dive. He had documentation of saying, okay, this is what they were doing. He had a $28 million endorsement deal in which he didn't have to show up. He had other perks that he didn't have to do anything and he just received those perks. Now, it is noted, he went, him and his uncle Dennis approached the Toronto Raptors about a very, very similar situation. They wanted part of the team and they wanted this and they wanted that, and the upper management told him, that's illegal, we can't do that. We're circumventing the salary cap and the league found this out basically in a long story short, they're going to punish just severely. It was reported that they brought the same thing to the Lakers. In the Lakers, in Jeannie Buss, we can't do that. Lo and behold, the one team didn't sign with Toronto, he didn't sign with the Lakers. The one team that seemingly, what it looks like, allegedly, he signed with. But this is what's being reported. And they say they're not going to let this thing go through until they do their deep dive investigation. In order to sign the Clippers, Kawhi reportedly sought assurances that they would extend far beyond the basketball floor. According to the athletic Kawhi's advisor, Uncle Dennis requested ownership staking companies, corporate sponsorship and no show endorsement deals that allow Kawhi to collect millions in revenue without doing any actual work. Pablo Torre found that Kawhi and his employees divide the foolproof system to secure Kawhi an additional $28 million in funding. Additionally, Pablo Torre investigating found that Aspiration offered Kawhi an additional $20 million on top of the $28 million nest egg, meaning he was due to collect $48 million. The mechanism for Kawhi collect said resources with KL2 and Spy LLC, a company owned by Kawhi and Uncle Dennis, if I'm not mistaken, the Kawhi partner with Steve Barmer-led Aspiration, a tree planting company that went bust in March of 2025 Joe, what are you making of this?
I can hold you over my honest opinion.
Yeah, they probably did happen. If you're just going to be, I'm saying listen, because y'all know how billionaires move, bro. They are friends. We always going to be a little uneven. You know what I mean? But I think to get Kawhi to commit, hell man, this probably was an under the table deal, bro. Hey, we're going to take care of you. We're going to make sure you make plenty of money off the court. Hey, they just mess around and got caught. Now the NBA is going to do a deep dive. I know they rescinded the Chris Paul deal back when he was with the Hornets. They didn't let that deal go through. You remember what they did to Joe Smith? When he had that deal, he signed that deal with Minnesota. It put Minnesota in hell for the foreseeable future. It took their draft picks for the next three years. They said, no, you cannot re-sign Joe Johnson. Excuse me, Joe Smith. And so he had a big time deal on the table. That it was, hey, we're going to go ahead and sign this thing soon as the season old.
And somebody got mad and they went to the league office and told the league office and David Stern did not play that foolishness. And he hammered him.