Kawhi Leonard Declines to Reopen the Aspiration Scandal at Raptors Media Day: 'I Already Was a Distraction for the Past 70 Days'
Kawhi Leonard made his first public comments since the NBA's punishment in the Clippers–Aspiration salary-cap circumvention case, opening Toronto's media day on Monday, Sept. 28, by shutting the subject down: "I know why some of you guys came. You wanna hear about the investigation but talking with the NBA and the [NBA] PA, I think the best decision is to move forward and focus on my time being a Toronto Raptor." And on his absence from the team all summer: "I already was a distraction for the past 70 days, and I wasn't able to meet my teammates, do any of that minicamp stuff with them. So moving forward, I just wanna talk about the Toronto Raptors today."
The scale of the punishment he declined to discuss, per Complex: the Clippers received "the harshest punishment in league history" — stripped of five first-round picks, a season-long ban of governor Steve Ballmer, and a $30 million fine — while Leonard was fined $700,000 for his role in the $28M Aspiration endorsement scheme. The Clippers then traded Leonard back to Toronto, where he signed a two-year, $115M extension (Kawhi Leonard Declines to Reopen the Aspiration Scandal at Raptors Media Day: 'I Already Was a Distraction for the Past 70 Days' context: he signed $11M under the max). The LA Times framed the franchise's reset bluntly: "At media day, Clippers begin with an apology, then look to the future."
The precedent is already being applied elsewhere: The Athletic reported (Sept. 23) that the NBA is now investigating Gary Trent Jr.'s deal with the Bucks as a potential Kawhi-style structure — "The NBA needs to learn if the Bucks and Trent purposefully agreed to enter into cheaper contracts with a plan to reward Trent in the future." The DOJ's criminal investigation into the Clippers remains a separate, live thread.