NBA Says Ballmer Wasn't Cleared. ESPN Says Its Reporting Stands. Kawhi Trade Stays Frozen.

The NBA and ESPN are now publicly feuding over what the league's own investigation into the Clippers actually found.

ESPN's Don Van Natta Jr., Baxter Holmes and Ramona Shelburne reported Monday that the NBA has found no evidence Clippers owner Steve Ballmer funneled money to Kawhi Leonard through team sponsors to get around the salary cap. Citing three unnamed sources, ESPN said lawyers for the league and the team have been negotiating a resolution after the NBA presented preliminary findings from law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in late July, according to the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register.

The NBA didn't let that stand. Spokesman Mike Bass put out a statement Monday afternoon: "ESPN's article regarding the LA Clippers investigation — for which the NBA declined to cooperate — contains numerous and significant inaccuracies. The results in this matter will be made clear once the investigation is concluded."

Bass did not say what ESPN got wrong. ESPN didn't back down either. "We stand by our reporting, which included numerous attempts by ESPN to get comment from the NBA," an ESPN spokesperson told The Athletic.

One side says the league cleared Ballmer of the core allegation. The league says that's not accurate. Neither side will get specific.

How we got here. Podcaster Pablo Torre broke the story last September, alleging Leonard signed a $28 million no-show endorsement deal with Aspiration, a self-described "socially conscious" green banking firm that Ballmer had personally invested in. The theory: Aspiration was a pass-through for the Clippers to pay Leonard above his contract, which would violate salary cap rules if proven.

Aspiration went bankrupt. Co-founder Joseph Sanberg pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges and was sentenced in June to 14 years in prison for defrauding investors and lenders of more than $248 million, according to the Guardian and the LA Times. Ballmer has said publicly he was a victim of that fraud, not a co-conspirator in a cap dodge.

Torre kept digging. He reported that Clippers minority owner Dennis Wong put nearly $2 million into Aspiration around the time Aspiration made a payment to Leonard for a similar amount, according to Defector. Torre also reported a separate arrangement between Leonard and scoreboard maker Daktronics, and the investigation has since expanded to at least three additional companies with Clippers ties, including Boingo Wireless, per ESPN and Hoops Rumors.

Where the probe stands now. According to ESPN's sourcing, the NBA has not found evidence Ballmer personally funneled money to Leonard. But the league has reportedly shifted its focus to a narrower question: did the Clippers violate rules by introducing Leonard to sponsors in the first place, and did the team fail to properly supervise employees involved in those relationships. What rule that would be, and what the penalty would look like, isn't clear even in ESPN's own reporting.

The Clippers have held the same line since Torre's original report. "The Clippers introduced players, including Kawhi Leonard, to companies with which we had business relationships," the team said in a statement to the LA Times. "Making introductions between players and team partners is both an ordinary practice by NBA teams and a common request of players and representatives. From there, Kawhi and his representatives handled their own negotiations."

The Clippers also told The Athletic directly: "the Clippers did not funnel money to Kawhi Leonard, arrange for others to compensate him on our behalf, or otherwise provide him with undisclosed compensation outside of his NBA contract."

That's a fair defense to state plainly. If the league's own findings, even filtered through a disputed ESPN report, show no direct evidence of Ballmer funneling money, then the team introducing a player to a sponsor, standard practice across the league according to multiple outlets, isn't automatically proof of a scheme. The Clippers are right that an endorsement deal alone doesn't prove cap circumvention.

But Defector's reporting highlights a key point. Proving intent in something like a legal proceeding is a much higher bar than laying out a pattern that "seems beyond doubt" journalistically. Torre's reporting on Wong's suspiciously timed investment and the Daktronics arrangement hasn't been knocked down by anyone, including the NBA. The league disputing ESPN's characterization of its findings is not the same as the league clearing the Clippers of everything Torre has reported.

What's actually on hold. The Toronto Raptors agreed in principle in late June to acquire Leonard for Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick and draft picks, according to the Orange County Register. The trade has been frozen because the NBA told Toronto it would "assume the risk of any potential outcome of the investigation impacting Kawhi," per the Guardian, prompting the Raptors to say they'll wait for a final resolution.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver said last month he hoped for results by the end of summer, with training camps opening in roughly six weeks, according to the New York Times. National Basketball Players Association executive director David Kelly said last month he doesn't "think that there's a 'there' there," but the union has a stated interest in how this resolves and will try to have input in the process.

No charges, no league discipline, and no finalized findings exist as of Monday. Whatever the NBA's actual conclusion turns out to be, it hasn't been made public, only disputed in fragments by two outlets that can't agree on what the investigation found.