ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith says Kawhi Leonard walked away from the Los Angeles Clippers’ salary cap scandal with barely a scratch, while the team he left behind absorbed the harshest penalty in NBA history.
The NBA fined the Clippers $30 million, stripped the team of five first-round draft picks, and suspended owner Steve Ballmer for one year. Investigators found that sponsors including Aspiration and Daktronics had been used to funnel millions of dollars in improper payments to Leonard and his uncle, Dennis Robertson. The scheme has also drawn federal and SEC scrutiny, and Robertson received a five-year ban from the league.
Leonard, by comparison, was ordered to pay $700,000 in restitution, faced no suspension, and has since been traded back to the Toronto Raptors, where he began his career.
On First Take, Smith argued the punishment did not fit the star’s role in the scandal.
“For him to cause all the trouble that he’s caused for this organization and to walk away with nothing more than having to surrender $700,000 worth of restitution is a crime. Kawhi Leonard … he’s a gangster.”
Smith said Leonard let the organization take responsibility for a scheme that benefited him directly.
“He broke the rules, got caught, pointed the finger at somebody else, threw the organization under the bus, got his money and left the country. I mean, [expletive], how much better can it get than that?”
Leonard earns close to $50 million a year, making the $700,000 penalty a small fraction of his salary. As part of the trade to Toronto, he also waived a $7.45 million trade kicker to complete the move.
While the Clippers absorbed the financial and draft-pick losses and Ballmer sat out a year, Leonard has denied knowledge of the improper payments, pointed to his inner circle, and relocated to Toronto without missing a game.
