Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer said Sunday night, Sept. 13, 2026, that the franchise will comply with the NBA’s salary-cap circumvention penalties — a public U-turn after the team initially vowed to challenge what it called a “heavily biased investigation.”

In a statement first reported by ESPN, the Associated Press, and local outlets, Ballmer apologized to fans, employees, and fellow owners, said the team has already paid the league’s $30 million fine, and framed the move as ending a distraction ahead of owners’ meetings.

“This has been a very difficult time for everybody associated with the Clippers, and for that, I have sincere regrets,” Ballmer wrote. “I want to apologize to our fans, employees, and my fellow NBA team owners for the distraction and distress this matter has caused, for which I accept responsibility as principal owner.”

“We are committing to put this chapter behind us. We have communicated to the NBA that we are complying with the penalties assessed by the league, have paid the fine, and are moving forward,” the statement continued. He added that “while there are still disagreements concerning the findings in the report, this is not where I want to focus. Team owners should support, not distract.”

The NBA announced the sanctions on Sept. 2 after a near-yearlong independent probe by Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz into off-court income arrangements tied to star forward Kawhi Leonard and companies that also did business with the team, including bankrupt fintech Aspiration. Penalties include Ballmer’s one-year suspension from all league and team activities; forfeiture of first-round draft picks in 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032, and 2033; a one-year unpaid suspension for president of business operations Gillian Zucker; a six-month unpaid suspension for president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank; a five-year compliance-monitoring program; a $700,000 payment from Leonard; and a five-year ban on former Leonard business manager Dennis Robertson dealing with NBA teams.

Commissioner Adam Silver said when the penalties landed that the league was “deeply disappointed by the flagrant violations” and by “the Clippers’ institutional and leadership failures,” and that the severity reflected the seriousness of the violations. After those findings, the Clippers said they “vehemently” rejected the report; Ballmer’s attorney, David Kelley, called the probe a “witch hunt” and the penalties a “gross injustice” in a letter to Silver. Sunday’s statement abandons that fight track without withdrawing Ballmer’s stated disagreements with the findings.

The compliance note landed one day before NBA Board of Governors meetings in New York and days after reporting that federal investigators have opened an inquiry into the Clippers’ Leonard-related deals — a separate track from the league’s already-final CBA penalties. Ballmer closed by pledging to keep building the roster and community presence: “The challenges ahead of us are significant, but so is our resolve.”

League power still wrote the last line on the court-side process: once the NBA and NBPA locked the sanctions as final, the owner’s remaining leverage was optics and distraction management — and on Sunday night Ballmer chose compliance over another public war with the commissioner’s office.

Sources