LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer was suspended for one year by the NBA, and the team was ordered to forfeit five first-round draft picks and pay a $30 million fine Wednesday for violating salary cap circumvention rules in a case involving Kawhi Leonard.

Also, president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank has been banned for six months and team president of business operations Gillian Zucker was suspended for one year. Leonard was hit with a $700,000 penalty.

The league came down hard on the organization after a nearly year-long investigation led by an outside law firm.

The Clippers had said multiple times that they had done nothing wrong and expected to be exonerated.

The team maintained that stance after the league’s announcement.

“We vehemently reject the NBA’s findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence,” the team said in a statement. “What the league told us privately differs from what it announced today publicly, and they have not held themselves close to the standard Commissioner (Adam) Silver set at the start of this investigation to ensure it’s fairness and accuracy.”

The Clippers said they will “now fight just as hard to demonstrate our innocence. We intend to vigorously challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available to us and look forward to an ethical and impartial arbitration process.”

Los Angeles Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard warms up before an NBA basketball game April 10, 2026, in Portland, Ore.

Jenny Kane/AP

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Jenny Kane/AP

The NBA opened the investigation in September 2025 into whether a $28 million endorsement contract between Leonard and Aspiration Fund Adviser LLC — a company that filed for bankruptcy last year — broke league rules, following a report by podcast journalist Pablo Torre. Earlier this year, Aspiration co-founder Joseph Sanberg was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to defrauding investors and lenders of at least $248 million.