Alright, I know some of you guys are tired of hearing about Kawhi Leonard on this site, but if any of the viral rumors exploding on the internet today are true, it’s hard not to feel just a twinge of justification if you’re a Spurs fan. Here’s the lowdown. It all started when sports podcaster Pablo Torre reported on his podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out that Leonard “signed a $28M endorsement deal for a ‘no-show job’ with a fraudulent tree-planting company funded by $50M from Clippers owner Steve Ballmer,”
and he has the documents to back it up.
This reportedly occurred in relationship to his multi-year contract signed in 2021 and, according to insiders, was a means to circumvent salary cap restrictions. Of course, Balmer and Clippers are denying the allegations, but it may bring about an investigation from the NBA, and if the claims are true, then severe punishment such as fines, suspensions and loss of draft picks could be in order.
What is this fraudulent company?
According to Torre, the company was called Aspiration, Inc, which went bankrupt in 2025 after its co-founder, Joe Sanberg, was arrested on fraud charges. Among the list of creditors in Aspiration’s bankruptcy filings is an LLC under the name “KL2 Aspire LLC”, which according to the documents, is managed by Kawhi Leonard. Leonard reportedly signed the endorsement deal with Aspiration in April 2022, but there is no evidence that he ever did anything to sponsor them and justify the contract, which is reportedly pay $7 million per year across four years.
Who is Pablo Torre, and is he trustworthy?
Torre is a credible news reporter who’s career has focused on sports investigations, such as gambling and fraud. After graduating from Harvard, he began his career with Sports Illustrated, where he wrote an award winning article in 2009 called Why Athletes Go Broke, which spurred an investigation into a company called Triton Financial for defrauding investors. Torre later joined ESPN in 2012, where he was a senior writer and appeared on several shows, both as a guest and sometimes a substitute host. Finally, he joined Meadowlark Media in 2023, which is when he started Pablo Torre Finds Out.
What does this have to do with the Spurs?
Honestly, nothing (as far as we know) considering it did not happen while Leonard was still with the Spurs. However, by the time the 2017-18 season rolled around and all of his and his uncle Dennis Robertson’s shenanigans began (such as sitting out most of the season, staying away from the team, hiding in a closet from Spurs’ doctors, and claiming they misdiagnosed him), it was known he was vying for a trade to one of the Los Angeles teams, preferably the Clippers, but the Spurs weren’t going to fulfill his wishes. (It’s too bad it worked out in Toronto for that one season, but we digress.)
While that was long enough ago that most say it’s time to move on, the fact is to this day, it still feels like the majority take Leonard’s side on that debacle while blaming the Spurs for mishandling the situation and misdiagnosing Leonard despite there being more than enough evidence out there proving that 1. they were right about his knee, and 2. it was all a ruse to get to his preferred destination without burning his reputation for demanding a trade or leaving the “perfect” franchise that had turned him into the star player he became and was built to contend.
While the Spurs have finally — hopefully — completed the rebuild that was triggered by the Leonard debacle and have their new star in Victor Wembanyama, there’s no denying that fans still feel the sting of that betrayal, and the more talking heads bring it up and keep blaming the Spurs for it, the harder it is to officially put it in the review mirror. Of course, we should also all remember that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and if Leonard and the Clippers are innocent in all this, then it will come to light.
However, if they are guilty, while it won’t make up for the seven years in purgatory Leonard put the Spurs through, it will feel like some sort of justification for a franchise and fanbase that got slandered by their star and his uncle for no reason other than greed. Perhaps someday, everyone will finally see what we have known for a long time: the Spurs were right, not Kawhi and Uncle Dennis.
