If there were an Olympic event for staying quiet, Kawhi Leonard would probably win the gold medal without saying a single word.
But this week, the silent superstar is making noise for reasons that have nothing to do with basketball.
The LA Clippers star has reportedly landed in hot water over another sponsorship deal, and this one has people asking plenty of questions. According to former ESPN contributor Pablo Torre on his podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out, Leonard allegedly had an undisclosed sponsorship agreement worth millions of dollars with Daktronics, the company that designed the massive videoboard inside the Clippers’ flashy Intuit Dome.
Yes, the giant screen that fans stare at while waiting for Kawhi to hit another mid-range jumper.
The reported deal comes while Leonard is already facing scrutiny over a separate sponsorship involving a now-bankrupt green banking company. That agreement is reportedly at the center of an NBA investigation, making this latest revelation feel like someone adding extra toppings to an already overloaded pizza.
Torre interviewed someone identified as an “anonymous high-level source under contract for Intuit Dome” who alleged that the sponsorship deal “was 1,000% a way to circumvent the salary cap. It was funneling money from the Clippers through Daktronics back to Kawhi.”
Torre also cited an anonymous former Clippers official who said they knew that Leonard had a sponsorship deal with Daktronics, the South Dakota-based company that designed “The Halo Board” — the largest double-sided halo display built in an arena — inside the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, the Clippers’ $2 billion venue that opened in August 2024.
At this point, Kawhi probably wishes people would go back to debating his jump shot instead.
Though it is unclear when Leonard reportedly began his sponsorship deal with Daktronics, or what the alleged terms for the pact included, a spokesperson who represented Daktronics told Hunterbrook Media, which collaborated with Torre, that Leonard doesn’t have an active contract with the company.
The spokesperson also told Hunterbrook Media, “I don’t know what the company wants to say, or can say, given the Wachtell investigation and all that,” a reference to Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, the law firm leading the NBA’s investigation into Leonard’s April 2022 sponsorship deal with Aspiration, a company that also had a sponsorship pact with the Clippers that was announced in September 2021. In mid-July, The Athletic reported that the NBA’s investigators had examined “a previously unreported endorsement deal with another company.”
The reported Daktronics agreement has raised eyebrows because it was allegedly never disclosed. That is where the controversy begins.
The NBA launched its investigation into the Clippers and Leonard in September after numerous podcasts from Torre, who cited internal documents that showed that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer invested $50 million in Aspiration through his personal LLC in September 2021. That month, the Clippers signed a 23-year, $300 million deal with Aspiration, making the company the “first founding partner” of the Intuit Dome.
Six months later, Aspiration signed its $28 million endorsement deal with Leonard. An unnamed employee who purportedly worked for the banking company told Torre that Leonard’s sponsorship deal “was to circumvent the salary cap.”
The Clippers have repeatedly denied that they funneled money through Aspiration to compensate Leonard.
One thing is certain: Kawhi Leonard usually lets his game do the talking. This time, however, it is the paperwork getting all the attention.
