The Clippers Wrote an Innocent Email After the Deal Was Already Done

On Nov. 5, 2021, Gillian Zucker, the Clippers president of business operations, sent a short, formal email introducing Kawhi Leonard's representatives to Joe Sandberg, who ran Aspiration, a tree-planting startup that did business with the team.

The day before, Zucker had gotten on the phone with Leonard's uncle, Dennis Robertson, who manages his business affairs, and Leonard's agent to tell them the email was coming. When investigators later asked why she would call to announce an email, she said that is what she always does before an introductory email.

That email became the team's shield. Steve Ballmer, the Clippers owner, cited it in a September interview as exculpatory evidence.

Investigators for the law firm Wachtell Lipton, hired by the NBA to examine whether the Clippers had secretly funneled pay to Leonard, found the email was staged for the record. The deal was already well underway.

In October 2021, Zucker had raised endorsement deals between team sponsors and players with Sandberg, using Leonard as an example. She told investigators she had told Sandberg that league rules prevented her from helping. The record showed she did the opposite. Rather than simply handing over contact information, which is all the rules allow, she promised to bring in a particular business agent to help Sandberg structure an agreement with Leonard. That agent had a paid deal to do work for the Clippers.

The timeline left little doubt. The introduction came nine days after Zucker promised to bring in that agent, eight days after she passed along the money details, and one day after she weighed in on the term sheet. Investigators for Wachtell Lipton concluded the Nov. 5 email "was drafted solely for record-making purposes and was not a genuine communication intended to kick off a deal-making process."

It fit a pattern. Emails about other sponsors were written to look as if the Clippers were responding to requests, often with a line about following up on a recent conversation, when the team had initiated everything. The paper trail was built to mislead anyone who looked later into thinking the rules had been followed, when other messages showed the opposite.

That finding turned a defense into evidence of intent. This was not a mistake about complicated salary cap rules, which Zucker and other executives said they knew. Zucker was suspended for one year without pay after investigators described her as "primarily and directly culpable" and for giving false and misleading statements.