NBA Punishes Clippers' Ballmer and Leonard; ESPN Faces Scrutiny Over Reporting

ESPN's reporting included an August 17 story that cited three unnamed sources who said the NBA had "no evidence" that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer funneled money through team sponsors to pay star Kawhi Leonard. The story also quoted an anonymous source who said an argument that sponsorship introductions amounted to salary-cap circumvention would be "dead on arrival. That ESPN story, published before the ruling came down, set up an industry narrative pitting ESPN against Pablo Torre, the investigative journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting about Leonard's ties to Clippers sponsors.

ESPN and Torre, a former ESPN employee whose podcast is distributed by The Athletic, were widely seen as presenting opposing narratives of the Clippers saga. Online, it was "ESPN vs Pablo. The NBA announced on Wednesday, after a nearly yearlong investigation, that it found the Clippers and Ballmer had broken league rules by facilitating sponsorship deals with Leonard. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver issued the team a $30 million fine, fined Leonard $700,000, and suspended Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO, from league activities for a year.