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Even in an NBA world that thrives on juicy stories, this one is a hell of a squeeze: According to journalist Pablo Torre, the Clippers allegedly funneled $28 million to star Kawhi Leonard through a team sponsor to circumvent the salary cap.

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer invested $50 million in Aspiration, Aspiration signed Leonard to a $28 million no-show contract, and now, thanks to the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast, we have ourselves a major scandal.

But do we, really?

I’m dubious.

I won’t question Torre’s intentions, just his conclusions.

The NBA is buzzing about this, understandably. The allegations sparked comparisons to the Timberwolves’ salary-cap violations from a generation ago. Then-NBA commissioner David Stern docked the Wolves five first-round picks (one was later restored) for an illegal agreement with forward Joe Smith.

But if you are going to use the comparison as a basis for possible penalties, you should also compare the alleged crimes.

Minnesota circumvented the cap to sign a player they never would have otherwise been able to sign. Smith signed ridiculously below-market salaries with the promise the Wolves would make it up to him down the road.

The Clippers signed their own free agent to an extension, for more money than anybody else could offer him.

In the summer of 2021, Leonard could have picked up his $36 million player option for the 2021–22 season. Instead, he opted out, which made him a free agent. Any team with enough cap space could have tried to sign him. The starting salary would have been $39.34 million, the same number the Clippers offered. But because the NBA’s 2017 collective bargaining agreement was designed to incentivize players to stay with their current teams, the Clippers could offer larger annual increases than any other team.

The Clippers signed Leonard to a four-year, $176.3 million deal, which was more than $7 million more than any other team could offer him. That included a $48.78 million player option in the last year—which was, of course, to Leonard’s benefit.

Leonard is a Southern California native. He had just torn his ACL, and he had a significant history of injuries and of coming back from those injuries on his own timetable, regardless of what his employer wanted. (That was one reason his relationship with the Spurs deteriorated.) Leonard ended up missing the first year of his new contract, which was predictable. This meant that over the first three years of the deal, the Clippers paid Leonard $127 million for only two seasons of play. After that, he could opt out—which he did.

Leonard’s first Clippers deal, in 2019, was a three-year max deal with an opt out after two years. There is no evidence he gave the Clippers any kind of wink-wink discount at any point. Until this week, the common criticism of Leonard’s Clippers tenure was that he got paid too much for playing too little.

In 1998, the Timberwolves signed Joe Smith to a one-year, $1.75 million contract with an illegal promise of $86 million down the road.

These two situations are just not comparable.

Now, if the Clippers funneled money to their star through another company, it would still be a salary-cap violation, even if doing so gained them no real advantage. If that happened, NBA commissioner Adam Silver should absolutely penalize the Clippers. Not five first-round picks. But there should be penalties.

There is, after all, still the matter of Leonard signing a four-year, $28 million contract with Aspiration that allowed him to do basically nothing. The contract, as Torre reported, was only valid for as long as he remained a Clipper.

We will see what Silver finds. I am skeptical he will find much, though.

Consider the parties involved here.

I’ve covered sports long enough to understand that sometimes highly competitive people cheat. As we just covered, the Clippers had limited incentive to do so. But let’s imagine that Ballmer is so committed to pleasing his stars that he wanted to funnel an extra $28 million to Leonard, on top of the $176 million he already promised him.

If Ballmer wanted to do that, why would he do it like this?

Ballmer invested $50 million in Aspiration. Torre reported Leonard received $28 million. Later, Boston Sports Journal reported Leonard received an additional $20 million in a side deal with Aspiration. Those numbers almost add up. But that doesn’t mean the story does.

If Ballmer committed salary-cap violations, he would presumably want plausible deniability. This, in theory, is why Ballmer directed the money through Aspiration rather than just write Leonard a $28 million (or $48 million) check. But in 2021, the Clippers announced a $300 million deal with Aspiration, which included putting the company’s logo on Clippers jerseys. If you were circumventing the salary cap, would you do it through a company whose logo was on your team jerseys?

As longtime Mavericks owner Mark Cuban pointed out this week, if Ballmer violated rules, he would worry about being caught, and he would have rescued Aspiration to avoid public scrutiny. Ballmer obviously has the money to do it. Instead, the company failed.

Joseph Sanberg, the company’s founder, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud. His plea agreement says he defrauded victims of $248 million. The criminal complaint says Sanberg convinced companies to loan him money, with his stakes in Aspiration as collateral. If Sanberg defaulted on the loans, his co-conspirator Ibrahim Ameen AlHusseini would buy those stakes to repay the loans. But AlHusseini didn’t have the money to do that. He and Sanberg falsified documents to make it look like he did.

I’m just spitballing here: If Leonard’s $28 million no-show endorsement deal was a fraud, do you think maybe we should blame the fraudsters who signed him to it?

It would be a big mistake to view all parties in this situation as equally responsible, equally rational actors. They aren’t.

When Ballmer says he had no idea how Aspiration operated, he might sound like he is playing dumb. But if he did know how Aspiration operated, he wouldn’t have done business with them at all.

Leonard is a superstar who likes to get paid. It is quite easy to believe that if somebody offered him a sweetheart $28 million endorsement deal, with no real obligations, he would sign it. Most athletes would.

That deal is raising eyebrows now, because who pays a guy $7 million a year to do nothing? It’s fiscal insanity—but everything Sanberg and AlHusseini did was fiscal insanity.

Yes, you say, but in this case, they were ones paying, not the ones getting paid.

This is true. I don’t know exactly why they did it. Maybe they were paying for legitimacy: They could go to investors and say, “Hey, look, Kawhi Leonard is working with us.” If that was their motivation, they didn’t need Leonard to do anything; they just needed to show he was in business with them.

Maybe Ballmer was their target, not their co-conspirator. Instead of Ballmer trying to keep Leonard happy, Sanberg and AlHusseini were trying to keep Ballmer from asking too many questions. What better way to look like they really had money than to lavish some upon Ballmer’s most high-profile employee?

As for the clause that would void the contract if Leonard left for another team: That is not as strange as it sounds. I have not seen LeBron James’s Nike deal, but I can assure you that Nike thinks having James play for the Lakers is more lucrative than if he played for the Pelicans, and that James and his agent Rich Paul know how Nike feels.

Aspiration was not Nike, obviously. But if they were using Leonard for legitimacy with Ballmer, or with potential investors/suckers based in L.A., then of course they would want him wearing an L.A. jersey with the Aspiration logo.

Sure, former Aspiration employees told Torre this was all done to circumvent the salary cap. Well, they worked for a fraudulent company. Shifting the fraud onto anybody outside of the company is obviously in their best interests.

If Ballmer ever wanted to pay a superstar under the table, the time to do it would not have been in 2021, when he signed an injured Leonard for more money than anybody else could offer. It would have been under the NBA’s new CBA, which was signed in 2023 and has much harsher penalties for high payrolls.

In 2024, Clippers star Paul George wanted to stay in L.A., but the Clippers were wary of meeting his number because they wanted flexibility. Ballmer could have funneled money to George. Instead, the Clippers held firm and George signed with the 76ers.

Again: Silver has to investigate this thoroughly. He will have access to a ton of information, including contracts and legal filings. If Ballmer is guilty, this will be hard to cover up—and his public protests should only make Silver angrier.

We’ll see where this ends up. But if you think these two admitted felons were accomplices in Steve Ballmer’s scheme, I’ve got some shares in Aspiration I’d like to sell you.

More NBA on Sports Illustrated

KARACHI:

Fake it till you make it: is a horrid adage; it is confusing and permits a person to be inauthentic, even if it is to have a positive effect on one’s psyche.  

Boxer Usman Wazeer is a great example of living by the adage, except he is found faking it, and despite what looks like a success on his part, it is turning out to be a superficial one with a bunch of bogus titles.

The 25-year-old is also a recipient of the Presidential Award 2024  (Tamgha e Imtiaz), and that alone shows that no one in the government really cares about who they are honouring, either; their lack of diligence is exemplary.

Wazeer has found a reasonable following on social media too, where is boasts about the 17-0 undefeated record in professional boxing. 

Through his socail media, it is evident that he is advertising himself to be the sole winner of belts, that are won in Dubai (4), in differnt cities of Pakistan (5), in Philippines (2) but mostly in Bangkok (6), Thailand, that is notorious  for hosting fixed fights in boxing, Mixed Martial Arts and Muay Thai.

The gaps in awareness when it comes to boxing in Pakistan were on full display last week, when Wazeer claimed the World Boxing Council (WBC) Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation (OPBF) super welterweight silver title in Bangkok, Thailand, in a bout against a 44-year-old Indonesian boxer, judge, and promoter Stevie Ongen Ferdinandus.

As if that is not enough to raise eyebrows, the bouts for the said title, for which Wazeer is lauded so profusely, have only ever occurred twice before, once in 2017 and another in 2018, according to Boxrec.

And even then, it only says that the title is for the regional OPBF and now WBC. 

After that, Wazeer is the first person to take this title, which makes it questionable, as this is not the bout either promoted on the Japan-based OPBF website, and neither on the WBC website.

In fact, when The Express Tribune reached out to the OPBF to confirm Wazeer’s title win, they never replied or clarified.

Similarly, when one checked the WBC website and the posts from August, nowhere is Wazeer mentioned, nor is his bout promoted.

The only mention of Wazeer on OPBF website is in their regional rating for August, where he is on fourth place in his weight category.

Wazeer, also known as Asian Boy, has to clarify details about his career, not only to the boxing fans and people who are being tricked into believing that he indeed is the only Pakistani boxer to win accolades in professional bouts, to the sponsors who have supported him.

When The Express Tribune reached out to Wazeer with obvious question, he never replied, either.
 

However, it has been reported in Pamir Times, where the publication incorrectly wrote that he won a WBC title, Wazeer hit back on the Pakistan Boxing Federation (affliated by the Pakistan Olympic Association and the International Olympic Committee, and is responsible for amateur boxers) and another promotional body Pakistan Pro-Green Boxing Federation (PGBF). 

In the local press in Gilgit-Baltistan, he dismissed the concerns as just ‘boxing politics’ upon his return from Thailand. And it can be that, but it can also be true that he has been taking on bouts that are carefully planned and are fought against the journeymen. 

Wazeer’s record is against weak boxers

If one starts to look at Wazeer’s 17 bouts and the opponents, it can be observed that his opponents are either ranked very poorly on reputed boxing resources like Boxrec or not rated at all.

For example, the rating of a boxer on Boxrec shows the quality of the opponents and the fights for each boxer.

Wazeer is rated two and a half stars.

His latest opponent Ferdinandus, is rated one star, and this is a title bout for the OPBF Super Welterweight.
Wazeer’s strongest opponent so far was Fikiri Salum Mohamed that he took on for the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) Youth Welterweight title defence in 2023 bout that took place in Pakistan, but the Tanzanian too is rated just two and a half stars, while the bout in which he won the title for was against Thailand’s Phatiphan Krungklang, who is rated a half star.

His three opponents from 2020 to 2021 in the Asian Boxing Federation welterweight title bouts, Boido Simanjuntak, Carlos Lopez, and Ramadhan Weriuw, are not even rated properly.

Absence of any national title

Wazeer’s name is not found in any of the four legitimate world boxing ratings, and when The Express Tribune tried to find his national record, the Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) gave details of only one bout.

“Wazeer has appeared in only one domestic event, which was in 2015, it was an inter-provincial championship, where he lost to a boxer from Sindh named Balach. 

“We have not been able to trace any other fights of Wazeer’s. He is not a great boxer because, had he been worth his salt, he would’ve won at some national championships. 

“Pakistan has a lot of raw talent in boxing, and the top pugilists are usually scouted by the Army and Wapda, and the departments really take them forward. But Wazeer does not even have enough talent to compete at an amateur level, how can he be claiming these professional titles?” said the PBF secretary, Major Irfan Younis.

And he is fair in questioning Wazeer’s credentials, as most of the quality boxers who turn pro go through the process of competing at amateur competitions that pave the way to the Olympics and other regional games.

In many ways, amateur boxing is considered to be more transparent but less lucrative than professional boxing.

“If you look at Muhammad Waseem’s example, you can see he was a champion, through and through, he won the gold at World Combat Games, he won gold at the Commonwealth Games and South Asian Games, and medals at the Asian Games before turning pro, you can see the journeys of other boxers too, and you will see that there are legitimate records where they perform at amateur level and then graduate to pro.

“It hurts the sport for other Pakistani boxers who are taking the legitimate routes, but they do not get even a penny from the government, while boxers like Wazeer, who are manufactured champions, get funded by the government. It is absolutely unfair. I have nothing against him personally, but it is wrong information to say he won a WBC title and claim these fights to be legitimate.”

Pakistan’s solitary Olympic medal winner, Shah Hussain, too, only turned pro after grabbing the bronze medal at the Seoul Games 1988.

But even he could not make much of his name in professional boxing,because at the elite level, the game is just that competitive and ruthless.

To put things into context, Wazeer’s record to remain undefeated for 17 bouts would actually make him out to be more impressive than Manny Pacquiao’s in his first 17 fights, but it is about the quality of those bouts that matters.

Recognition from the government 

On the back of the record of these 17 wins, with 12 knockouts Wazeer has often appealed to the government for support and he did recieve Rs one million in 2022, while in May 2025 the Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah also honoured Wazeer for defeating an Indian opponent Eswaran S, who has only appeared in six pro bouts and has a Boxrec rating of half a star.

Wazeer also received the Presidential Award in 2024. He has also managed to get sponsors, while the real talent who are winning and losing through legitimate bouts are ignored in the presence of fake success.

Legitimacy of Wazeer’s bouts and how the bouts are fixed

The boxing insiders, including a top coach from the United Kingdom, Danny Vaughan, alluded that titles such as Wazeer’s are often bought with money.

“These boxers win versions of different titles that are useless, and these boxers are not even in the top 50 or 100 on the official ratings; most of these fights are fixed and don’t hold any worth,” Vaughan told The Express Tribune.

Vaughan’s pupil since 2018, Waseem, who has an extensive experience in amateur boxing and then in professional boxing, being the WBC Flyweight Silver Champion in 2016 and the current World Boxing Assocaiton Gold World Champion, added that as corrupt the boxing world is, there are bouts that are fixed with weaker opponents often and the organiser recieves money from the boxers to hold those fights.

“At the end of it all, it is a vanity project for such boxers, because they know they are not genuine, and their opponents are often weak, and they pay money for these bouts in Thailand and elsewhere. This kind of activity used to happen in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, but now they have banned it,” said Waseem.

“If you are to ask these smaller bodies about the fights, they would never admit or deny anything, because they take money for these bouts.

“But then there are real boxers who really put their lives on the line for this game. We really work hard and go against all the odds to actually win fairly and squarely, and I feel it is unfair to us. It is also unfair to the boxers who are honest. And this kind of trend in Pakistan is also corrupting the aspiring boxers, because they think this is an easy way to get fame and money, without actually fighting in highly competitive bouts. 

“There are many boxers who are following Wazeer’s example now, and all of this would have been great if it were not fake,” added the Quetta-born boxer who has extensively trained abroad, including a peroid with Floyd Mayweather’s uncle Jeff Mayweather at their gym.

Some education on boxing bodies

“These titles hold no clout; they are mocking the game of boxing,” said Vaughan on the phone when asked about his expert opinion on the title that Wazeer has won. 

Vaughan is deeply connected to the game and business of boxing, with a long line of boxers and boxing coaches in the family, including his father and brother.

Vaughan claims to be from a boxing heritage that goes back to the 1800s.

The Liverpudlian has been a boxing coach who is responsible for training world, Commonwealth, and Olympic champions alongside his father.

He says in his experience spanning over 35 years, he has never seen these titles to be worth any recognition. 

He is also the coach of the first Pakistani boxer to claim a WBC title, Waseem, who was dually recognised and ranked by WBC on their monthly rating over the years, and his bouts were featured on their main news section on their website for claiming and defending the WBC Silver Flyweight title in 2016.

Vaughan was side by side when Waseem fought the International Boxing Federation (IBF) World Champion Sunny Edwards for the WBC Flyweight World Championship title.

Since then, he fought legitimate bouts and has claimed the World Boxing Association’s Gold Bantamweight World title in May 2025 with a pro record of 16 bouts, 10 wins through Knockouts out of 14 and only two losses, including the one against Edwards in 2022.

“Waseem is a superstar, people respect him, he is known all over the world, and I feel these people are benefiting from what he did. But he is doing his best to educate people in Pakistan about it, on the government level as well.

“It is frustrating to see that these boxers are getting fake titles in Thailand and then claiming that they are champions so that they can get the money from the government. They are cheating the game, the fans, and the government.

“There are four main boxing bodies in the world: the WBC, the IBF, the WBA, and the WBO. These are the bodies that sanction fights, and they are recognised; the rest do not matter, those belts are bogus,” explained Vaughan.

“The WBC and other bodies don’t even know these boxers who claim to have these belts.”
Vaughan further elaborated that this kind of corruption and fake titles cannot be tolerated in the UK, as there is a British Boxing Board of Control that regulates and governs the professional boxers, and if any boxer tried to pull this off, they would get caught immediately.

Bad treatment and lack of support for athletes

Pakistan has a record of not valuing its boxers and other non-cricket-playing athletes, and in a country where basic sports facilities are not available, and a boxing federation that has a history of infighting among the officials and a strong propensity for favouritism, discrimination, and nepotism, it is no surprise that aspiring boxers take shortcuts. After all, who would not want to change their life through the sport they love?

The practices these boxers are adopting are a symptom of a deeper systemic, institutional, and cultural problem where athletes are treated as labourers or often less than.

The only way to stop the corruption in boxing, for starters, is to have transparency and accountability, to form a national regulatory body for the professional game, and to form a proper pathway that can provide opportunities for boxers to pursue careers in amateur and pro boxing.

There are many boxers who want to improve their lives through the sport, and often they end up doing wrong things because they are a product of a very broken system that allows them to be manipulated and fall prey to corrupt elements, be it what Wazeer is doing, or the example of Aliya Soomro, who fought in a fight in Thailand and returned to Karachi claiming she is the first Pakistani woman to win and international title, or legitimate talent ike Asian bronze medallist Zohaib Rasheed, who disappeared in Italy while participating at the Paris Olympics qualifiers.