The Buss family has agreed to sell its remaining 17.8% of the Lakers to the team's incoming owners, Josh Kushner and Bob Iger, a story broken by ESPN’s Shams Charania and since confirmed by multiple sources.
When the Buss family first sold its majority stake to Mark Walter last year, the family retained that 17.8%, enough for Jeanie Buss to remain on as Governor for the next five years, something written into the sales agreement. Now, without the ownership stake required by the league, Buss will no longer serve that role. Most likely, Iger will fill that role, he has been the face of the new ownership, although it could be Kushner.
There are six Buss family members in the trust — Jeanie Buss, Jim Buss, Johnny Buss, Janie Buss, Joey Buss, and Jesse Buss (all children of the late owner Jerry Buss) — and four of them had to vote to ask for this. The other five Buss family members approached Jeanie, asking to sell the remaining stake, reports Yaron Weitzman (who wrote a book on the Lakers). The family released this statement to ESPN.
"We have decided as a family to sell the remaining Buss Family Trust shares to the Bob Iger group as part of the ongoing transaction. We love the Lakers, Laker fans and will continue to support Los Angeles; but it is time to use this opportunity to move on and exit gracefully while we still can."
This is the real end of an era. Jerry Buss bought the Lakers — along with the Fabulous Forum, where the team played through the Showtime era, as well as the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL — in 1979. Jerry Buss was an innovative owner who realized long before others that the league was selling an entertainment product. That led to innovations like a dance team, the Laker Girls, as well as in-arena music during the games and breaks, and much more.
As everything around the league changed and evolved, the Buss family ownership of the Lakers did not — and the team thrived under their ownership. The team won 11 championships under 46 years of Buss ownership, appeared in many more NBA Finals, and evolved into an iconic brand, the biggest one in the sport.
They did that because of all the stars who came through under their watch: Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, up through LeBron James.
After all that stability, the Lakers have now been sold twice in 14 months. First to Mark Walter, who also owns the Los Angeles Dodgers. However, as Walter is staring down a federal and SEC investigation into potential fraud tied to insurance companies in his holdings — as well as the sports teams he owns and their valuations — he reportedly needed to pay down debt. Selling the Lakers may have been how he got that cash.
One thing to watch out for: Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka recently got a contract extension and isn't going anywhere soon, but Jeanie Buss was his friend and protector within the organization. With her gone, his safety net is gone.
Jeanie Buss watches Game 5 of the Lakers' first-round NBA playoff series against the Houston Rockets from the sideline at Crypto.com Arena. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
The end of an era.
The Buss Family Trust is selling its 17.8% stake of the Lakers, according to media reports Monday, giving its final shares of the team to new majority owners Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger, who bought the controlling ownership stake from Mark Walter last week for a record valuation of $12.5 billion. The sale ends a 47-year reign for the Buss family, which turned the Lakers into one of the most recognizable teams in the world.
“We have decided as a family to sell the remaining Buss Family Trust shares to the Bob Iger group as part of the ongoing transaction,” the Buss family said in a statement to ESPN, which first reported the news. “We love the Lakers, Laker fans and will continue to support Los Angeles; but it is time to use this opportunity to move on and exit gracefully while we still can.”
The transactions still need to be approved by the NBA board of governors. Jeanie Buss, who remained the Lakers governor even after Walter’s purchase of the team was approved last October, would no longer be eligible to serve on the board, which requires minority owners to have at least a 15% stake.
The Buss family has owned the team since 1979, when Jerry Buss bought the franchise for $67.5 million. The family patriarch leveraged Hollywood glamour with entertainment spectacle to elevate the team into an internationally recognized brand. When Buss died in 2013, the team was passed to a trust for his six children: Jeanie, Jim, Johnny, Janie, Joey and Jesse.
Despite being one of the most recognizable franchises in the world, the Lakers remained a family-run business. Soon, the booming sports business caught up. The team started falling behind in resources and revenue compared to other organizations that controlled their own arenas and media deals. The Buss family voted to relinquish a majority ownership of the team in 2025, bringing in Walter, who also owns the Dodgers.
Jeanie was to remain the governor of the team for five years under Walter, but the investment mogul who is under federal investigation for unpaid loans shockingly sold his stake in the Lakers last week to Kushner and Iger. Kushner, a co-founder of a venture capital firm Thrive Capital and the permanent holdings company Thrive Eternal, will have to divest a minority stake in the Miami Heat before the Lakers purchase can be approved. Iger is the longtime Disney chief executive who already owns Angel City FC and previously flirted with NFL ownership by trying to build an NFL stadium in Carson before the project ultimately went to Stan Kroenke-led SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
When the duo agreed to buy Walter’s share last week, Kushner and Iger released a statement that in part praised the Buss family’s work with the Lakers.
“We have immense respect for the leadership and vision of Jerry and Jeanie Buss,” the statement read. “Our long-term commitment is to build on that foundation, compete at the highest level, and serve this extraordinary team, its fans, and the city of Los Angeles.”
“We have decided as a family to sell the remaining Buss Family Trust shares to the Bob Iger group as part of the ongoing transaction,” the Buss family said Monday in a statement. “We love the Lakers, Laker fans and will continue to support Los Angeles; but it is time to use this opportunity to move on and exit gracefully while we still can.”
The Busses had retained a minority position after the June 2025 sale to Walter. According to ESPN, the six children of late Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss held a vote as part of the Buss family trust to consider the sale of the remaining shares to Kushner and Iger’s group. The deal required four of six votes.
Monday’s decision now ends the family’s memorable 47-year run with the franchise.
Jerry Buss bought the Lakers in May 1979 for $67.5 million, in a deal that also included the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings and the arena where both franchises played, the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, California.
Under the Buss family’s direction, the Lakers ushered in the “Showtime” era and oversaw a stretch of consistent competitiveness. The Lakers won 11 championships during the family’s reign as majority owners.
Under the Busses, the Lakers recorded just 10 seasons with a win percentage below .500 and missed the playoffs only nine times. In fact, Los Angeles clinched postseason berths in the first 14 years of Buss's ownership of the team. A number of franchise icons and eventual Hall of Fame players — names like Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant — starred with the Lakers under the Buss family.
With Monday’s decision, Jeanie Buss can no longer serve as governor of the Lakers. When Walter first bought the majority stake of the franchise in June 2025, he had agreed to allow Jeanie, the daughter of Jerry, to serve as governor of the Lakers through the 2030 season. On Wednesday, Iger had told the California Post that he and Kushner had “every intention to honor” the agreement that Jeanie Buss had made with Walter to remain on as governor.
Yet, NBA rules mandate that a person must retain at least a 15% ownership stake in a franchise to act as governor.
It is unclear who will serve in that role moving forward. With their addition of the 17.8% stake that had belonged to the Buss family, the Kushner and Iger group will now control north of 82% of the franchise.
The sale to the Kushner and Iger group will still need approval from the NBA’s board of governors. The next session will be held in September in New York, though a vote on the transfer of ownership may not take place then.
Whenever it does, approval will require 75%, or at least 23 of the 30 owners.
Clippers owner Steve Ballmer congratulates Kawhi Leonard after he scored 55 points durin ga win over the Pistons in December at Intuit Dome. (Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images)
The NBA investigation into whether payments from Clippers team sponsors to star player Kawhi Leonard were a prohibited attempt to circumvent the salary cap has moved to a contentious discussion phase between the team and the league, people with knowledge of the case not authorized to discuss it publicly confirmed to The Times on Monday.
ESPN reported that the probe conducted on behalf of the NBA by high-powered New York law firm Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz has found no evidence establishing that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer funneled money through Aspiration Partners, Daktronics or other team sponsors to pay Leonard millions of dollars in excess of his player contract.
However, the NBA issued a statement that read: “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.”
The Clippers’ stance has not changed since it was reported on Pablo Torre’s podcast 11 months ago that Ballmer invested $60 million in Aspiration, a self-described “socially-conscious and sustainable banking services” firm that in turn promised Leonard $28 million in an endorsement deal.
“The Clippers introduced players, including Kawhi Leonard, to companies with which we had business relationships,” the Clippers said Monday in a statement to The 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 did not negotiate or dictate the terms of Kawhi’s endorsement agreements or determine what he would be paid.”
There is no evidence that Leonard did endorsement work for Aspiration, which went bankrupt and saw its co-founder Joseph Sanberg sentenced to 14 years in prison in June for defrauding investors and lenders of over $248 million.
ESPN reported that the NBA probe has shifted from Ballmer’s involvement to whether the Clippers’ introduction of Leonard to team sponsors was done in an acceptable manner. The outlet reported the two sides met recently to discuss the probe’s preliminary findings as well as a resolution, but no agreement has been reached. The Clippers can request arbitration if they oppose the findings.
The Clippers contend they did nothing different than numerous other teams across the sports landscape do by introducing a player to a potential sponsor. The difference, they say, was that Leonard’s Aspiration deal was made public when the company filed for bankruptcy.
“The fact that a player has an endorsement relationship with a company that also does business with his team is not evidence of salary-cap circumvention,” the Clippers said in their statement. “After nearly a year of scrutiny, the central fact remains true and unchanged: 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.”
Over time, the case has added layers of complexity. Torre reported on his podcast Aug. 6 that Leonard had a second lucrative undisclosed sponsorship agreement with a company doing business with the team. Scoreboard manufacturer Daktronics, which built the $100-million video board at the Clippers’ Intuit Dome, hired Leonard to a multimillion-dollar endorsement deal for which he did no work, according to Torre.
The topic was raised on the podcast by a person identified as an “anonymous high-level source under contract for Intuit Dome.” The person alleged in an interview that the sponsorship deal was “1,000% a way to circumvent the salary cap. It was funneling money from the Clippers through Daktronics back to Kawhi.”
The endorsement deal with Daktronics raised suspicion because the company doesn’t do business with the general public and doesn’t need prominent athletes or celebrities to pitch its products.
Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO and one of the wealthiest people in the world, was added as a defendant in a civil lawsuit against Sanberg and others associated with Aspiration — renamed Catona Climate in 2025 just before the bankruptcy filing — brought by 11 investors in the company. Ballmer and other defendants are accused of fraud and aiding and abetting fraud, with the plaintiffs seeking at least $50 million in damages.
“Ballmer was the perfect deep-pocket partner to fund Catona’s flagging operations and lend legitimacy to Catona’s carbon credit business,” says the amended complaint viewed by The Times. “Since Ballmer had publicly promoted himself as an advocate for sustainability, Catona was an ideal vehicle for Ballmer to secretly circumvent the NBA salary cap while purporting to support the company as a legitimate environmentalist investor.”
Leonard was traded by the Clippers to the Toronto Raptors on June 30, but the teams put the deal on hold pending the outcome of the investigation after the NBA stated the Raptors would inherit any sanctions on Leonard triggered by the probe if it finalized the trade. NBA commissioner Adam Silver is pressing for the case to be wrapped up before the regular season begins in October.
The salary cap limits what teams can spend on player payroll to ensure parity and prevent the wealthiest teams from outspending smaller-market teams to acquire the best players. Silver has called attempts to circumvent it a “cardinal sin.”
Salary-cap circumvention allegations first surfaced with Leonard during his free agency in 2019 after he led the Raptors to the NBA championship and was being courted by the Lakers and Clippers.
Negotiations with the Lakers ceased when Leonard’s uncle, Dennis Robertson, requested a house, the use of private aircraft, guaranteed off-court earnings and an ownership stake in the team, according to the Athletic. The Lakers informed Leonard’s representatives that those requests violated the NBA collective bargaining agreement and Leonard eventually signed with the Clippers, where he played the past seven seasons.
Kawhi Leonard is a seven-time All-Star.Photograph: Matt Slocum/AP
The NBA has disputed an ESPN report on the league’s investigation into possible salary cap circumvention by the Los Angeles Clippers.
On Monday, ESPN reported that, after an 11-month investigation, the NBA was not able to show proof that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer funneled money to Kawhi Leonard via team sponsorships to bypass the salary cap. The outlet also said the two sides have been “negotiating a resolution to the investigation”.
“ESPN’s article regarding the LA Clippers investigation – for which the NBA declined to cooperate – contains numerous and significant inaccuracies,” league spokesperson Mike Bass said in a statement released Monday afternoon. “The results in this matter will be made clear once the investigation is concluded.”
The league did not clarify which parts of ESPN’s reporting it was disputing.
Per the ESPN report, the NBA is looking into whether introducing Leonard to team sponsors violates the league’s rules against salary cap circumvention, and if the Clippers committed a “failure to supervise” regarding their employees. What rule the organization may have violated or the potential punishment is not yet known.
The allegations first came to light last September in a report by journalist Pablo Torre. The Clippers were accused of feeding $28m to Leonard in the form of a “no-show” endorsement deal with Aspiration, a green-banking firm partly funded by Ballmer that went bankrupt last year.
Aspiration and three other companies that also signed sponsorship deals with the Clippers have been involved in the investigation, per the ESPN report. Aspiration’s co-founder wound up in prison after pleading guilty to fraud charges involving $248m.
According to ESPN, the league presented its initial findings late last month and has recently been in the process of resolving the investigation, which began last September.
In a statement to ESPN, the Clippers said the team “introduced players, including Kawhi Leonard, to companies with which we had business relationships. Making introductions between players and team partners is both an ordinary practice by NBA teams and a common request of players and representatives.“
According to the statement, the Clippers did not “negotiate or dictate” the terms of Leonard’s endorsement deals and added that a player-company business relationship does not prove any salary-cap circumvention.
The Toronto Raptors, who lost Leonard in free agency after winning the 2019 NBA championship, agreed in principle at the end of June to bring him back. The deal hasn’t been completed, and the NBA made it clear Toronto “would assume the risk of any potential outcome of the investigation impacting Kawhi”.
“In light of this,” the Raptors stated, “we will wait until the league’s investigation is complete.”
The Clippers, who have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing related to Leonard’s contract, also confirmed the deal was on hold. Ballmer has also denied the allegations.
Leonard, 35, is a two-time NBA Finals MVP, having won the award in title runs with the San Antonio Spurs (2014) and Toronto. He averaged 27.9 points, 6.4 rebounds and 3.6 assists in 65 games for the Clippers last season. A seven-time All-Star and two-time Defensive Player of the Year, he has made the NBA’s All-Defensive Team seven times.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said last month that he hoped the investigation would be complete by the end of the summer. Training camps open on 29 September.
The investigation into whether the LA Clippers and owner Steve Ballmer circumvented the NBA salary cap using sponsors to funnel money to Kawhi Leonard "found no evidence" to prove the allegations, according to a new report at ESPN. The league office quickly pushed back hard on that report.
The investigation and report from the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz are essentially done, both the Clippers and the league office have them, and the sides had started settlement talks, a league source told NBC Sports, something published in the ESPN report.
The NBA has found no evidence showing LA Clippers owner Steve Ballmer funneled money through team sponsors to pay Kawhi Leonard in order to circumvent the salary cap... Instead, the NBA is focused on whether the team's introduction of Leonard to team sponsors constitutes a violation of the league's rules prohibiting salary cap circumvention, two of the sources said. The league is examining whether the Clippers are guilty of "failure to supervise" employees, though it's unclear what specific rule the team would have violated or what the penalties would be, two of the sources said.
The league office pushed back fast and hard on this.
At the very least, there is a mountain of oddly timed, circumstantial evidence — plus comments from employees at Aspiration — about the questionable endorsement deals. In practice, the contracts appear to be no-shows Leonard had with multiple endorsers who also had ties to the Clippers.
The Clippers and Ballmer have vehemently denied any wrongdoing from the start.
It started with Aspiration, a former Clippers sponsor and green bank company that has since gone bankrupt, something made public on the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast (which has continued to push and drive this story). Aspiration's founder, Joe Sanberg, was convicted of defrauding investors and sentenced to 14 months in prison. Clippers owner Ballmer made a $50 million investment in Aspiration not long before Leonard signed a $28 million endorsement deal with the company (Ballmer and other Clippers executives made investments in the company, again, some oddly timed). Multiple former Aspiration employees told Torre this was a "no-show" endorsement designed to funnel more money to Leonard and circumvent the NBA salary cap. There is no evidence Leonard did any promotional work for the company.
"At the heart of this investigation are Joe Sanberg and Aspiration. We did not funnel money to Kawhi Leonard through Aspiration," the Clippers said in a statement to NBC Sports recently. "Like many sophisticated investors, financial institutions, and business partners, we were victims of a fraud initiated by Sanberg, who has been convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison."
The Aspiration part of the discussion was followed up by a report from Pablo Torre Finds Out that Leonard had an endorsement deal with Daktronics, the makers of the Halo board inside the Inuit Dome. This was odd because Daktronics does not do consumer-facing advertising and had never had a celebrity endorser previously.
ESPN's report says "at least three other companies that also had deals with the Clippers."
However, the report also says, "the league has presented no evidence that Ballmer funneled money to Leonard."
Which begs the question: how are we defining "evidence?"
Ballmer is too smart to have signed a memo or said something on record implicating himself. If the bar is that kind of "smoking gun" evidence, then nobody's going to have it.
However, the section of the Collective Bargaining Agreement dealing with salary cap circumvention allows for Silver to find a team "guilty" (or worthy of some punishments) based on having enough circumstantial evidence to prove the case. To many, that feels like the situation here: There are too many companies, too many odd coincidences, too many lower-level people who told Pablo Torre that that's what was happening to dismiss it.
Any punishment that Silver might hand down would have to go before a neutral arbitrator, who would review the evidence and decide if the consequences and punishments involved fit that evidence. Any decision by the arbitrator can — and almost certainly would be — appealed. That is why reports say this situation could drag out into 2027.
All that while, a proposed trade of Kawhi Leonard to Toronto for Brandon Ingram and Gradey Dick sits on hold waiting for a resolution. If there isn't one before training camp starts, this gets messy.
Which is why talk of a settlement has increased in recent weeks, it would not be up for arbitration because all the parties would agree.
Is a settlement coming?
"This [investigation] needs to be wrapped up before the beginning of next season," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said a month ago in Las Vegas. "It's going on longer than I would have hoped, there's no question about that."
ESPN's latest report confirms that settlement talks are taking place.
In recent days, both sides have been negotiating a resolution to the investigation, the people said... at times [those talks] have been "spirited," one source said.
What could be under negotiation?
• Fine for Clippers. While this is almost certainly part of any final deal, what fine could the league give that would make Ballmer — the ninth-richest person in the world, worth an estimated $148 billion, according to Forbes — even blink? • Suspension for Ballmer. This is likely where Ballmer and the Clippers would push back on the evidence, saying there is no direct link. • Clippers lose draft picks. This also seems almost certain to be part of any punishment by the league or in a settlement. It likely would be multiple first-round picks, and it's not a coincidence that in trading players like James Harden in the past year, the Clippers sought out other teams' first-round picks, ones the league can't take away (because they're not the Clippers' own picks). • Fine and/or suspension for Leonard. The possibility of this suspension is what is holding up the Leonard-to-Toronto trade. The NBPA (players' union) would likely push back hard on any punishment for Leonard, especially if it costs him games. He may end up just needing to pay back some of the money he got from these endorsements.
As for when all this wraps up? Who knows. NBA training camps start to open at the end of September and that would be the first big deadline, because by then something has to happen with the Leonard trade. Either it goes through or is called off. A lot of other league business, for example a potential Bennedict Mathurin extension in Los Angeles, also feels held up by this trade being on hold. Things need to happen.
One thing is certain: Whatever ultimately is the end product of the investigation — especially if there is a settlement, like many around the league suspect will happen — there will be a lot of people unhappy. People inside and outside the league who feel the Clippers got off easy and that this sets a bad precedent. There may not be the pound of flesh many want to see.
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SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS - JUNE 13: Jalen Brunson #11 of the New York Knicks lifts the Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award trophy after defeating the San Antonio Spurs in Game Five of the 2026 NBA Finals at Frost Bank Center on June 13, 2026 in San Antonio, Texas. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) | Getty Images
The Knicks are NBA champions.
That’s true now; it’ll be true when the season opens against Philly in October, it’ll be true in the Finals rematch against the Spurs on Christmas, and it’ll be true all the way until next June, when history suggests that a ninth NBA champion in nine years will be crowned.
The last team to go back-to-back was the 2017 and 2018 Warriors. Since then, most of the champions have thought they could turn what they have into a dynasty.
The Lakers saw no reason why they couldn’t do it again in 2021, but they didn’t.
The Bucks saw no reason why they couldn’t do it again in 2022, but they didn’t.
The Nuggets saw no reason why they couldn’t do it again in 2024, but they didn’t.
The Celtics saw no reason why they couldn’t do it again in 2025, but they didn’t.
The Thunder saw no reason why they couldn’t do it again in 2026, but they didn’t.
The Knicks right now see no reason why they can’t win another one in 2027, but the flow of the NBA suggests someone new will take the mantle.
But nobody ever said that ultimate parity would continue forever and ever.
The Knicks won it all 65 days ago; they open their season 64 days from now. We are closer to raising the championship banner than we were to raising the Larry O’Brien Trophy. As we head into the second half of this offseason of celebration, there’s one big question.
Why not us? Why can’t the Knicks go back-to-back?
The History
There have been 13 separate instances of a team winning a championship in back-to-back seasons in NBA history, but a good chunk of those were part of larger three-peats (or an eight-peat in the Celtics’ case). As much as we’ve talked about the last eight years being a stretch of unprecedented parity, there have only been three sets of back-to-back champions since 2003, after six of them from 1987-2002.
Those teams who’ve done it have all had legends of the game:
1949-50 Lakers: George Mikan
1952-54 Lakers: George Mikan
1959-66 Celtics: Bill Russell
1968-69 Celtics: Bill Russell
1987-88 Lakers: Magic Johnson & Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
1989-90 Pistons: Isiah Thomas
1991-93 Bulls: Michael Jordan
1994-95 Rockets: Hakeem Olajuwon
1996-98 Bulls: Michael Jordan
2000-02 Lakers: Kobe Bryant & Shaquille O’Neal
2009-10: Kobe Bryant
2012-13 Heat: LeBron James
2017-18 Warriors: Kevin Durant & Stephen Curry
Were these players immortalized partially because of these championships? Absolutely. The inroads for the Knicks are likely to be those Bad Boys Pistons teams, a collection of guys who’ll likely never be called top-50 players of all time, but who got it done. Brunson would undoubtedly be one of the greatest point guards ever with another ring, as I.T. is.
But by and large, securing two consecutive titles requires an inner-circle Hall of Famer. Magical runs can happen with really good players and rosters, but dynasties happen with legends.
But didn’t people say you needed an MVP candidate to even win one title? The Knicks pulled a rarity, winning a title without a single player receiving an MVP vote, something not done since the 1978 Bullets and only done twice in total. If any team can defy the odds, it’d be the Knicks.
The Age of Parity
As we’ve all heard more than enough, the Knicks are the eighth consecutive different team to lift the Larry O’Brien Trophy since 2019. Why didn’t those previous seven teams go back-to-back.
2019-20 Raptors
Win Difference from Title Year: +2 (60-win pace, shortened season due to COVID-19) Playoff Outcome: Lost in 7 in ECSF vs. Celtics Major Hangup: Losing Kawhi Leonard
All told, the 2020 Raptors were tremendously successful. They’re the only team in the 21st century to lose their leading scorer directly after winning the championship and are the first to do so since the MJ retirements in 1993 and 1998. Nobody expected them to win as many games, let alone go back-to-back, but they finished with the No. 2 seed with a 53-19 record in the bubble.
They did it by committee. 25-year-old Pascal Siakam took another step forward to evolve into the perennial all-star he is now; Kyle Lowry continued his steady presence as the lead guard; Fred VanVleet took a leap into being a borderline all-star; and OG Anunoby joined the starting lineup in his second season as a defensive presence. Add in Norman Powell’s microwave scoring and returning much of their role players, they masqueraded as strong defending champions deep into August.
Here’s the problem. As Joe Mazzulla’s Celtics showed this past season, a team that plays better than the sum of its parts can rack up regular-season wins, but playoff games are won with high-end performance by the superstars. Without said superstar, the Raptors were vulnerable. Kawhi averaged 30.5 points on 49/38/88 in the 2019 postseason, something no Raptor was capable of.
Their elite defense was enough to smother the shorthanded Brooklyn Nets, but they didn’t have enough offense to get past Boston. In a highly competitive series that went seven games, the Raptors had two chances to tie the game in the final 40 seconds that they squandered. If they won that, could they have beaten Miami and got to the Finals? Sure, but they just didn’t have enough to beat that Lakers team.
2020-21 Lakers
Win Difference from Title Year: -12 (adjusting for 82-game pace) Playoff Outcome: Lost in 6 in West 1st Round vs. Suns Major Hangup: Injuries
Heading into the 2020-21 season, the Lakers didn’t have the feeling of pure inevitability, unlike some of the teams we still have coming up, but they were still considered solid favorites, especially in the Western Conference. They were the only West team in the top six teams in championship odds before the season.
The team’s regression had nothing to do with losing pieces. They spent the offseason acquiring the likes of Montrezl Harrell and Dennis Schroder to bolster the bench. Sure, they regressed offensively across the board, but they surrounded a fearsome dynamic duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis with the best defense in basketball. If anything, their lack of shooting would’ve done them in come playoff time.
But that wasn’t what took them down; it was injuries. The usually durable LeBron had his ankle rolled up by Solomon Hill in late March, causing him to miss 26 of the team’s final 30 games. The start of the downfall of Davis’ durability came that season as well, missing 30 consecutive games from February to April with a calf/Achilles injury.
In total, the two stars missed 63 games combined, only suiting up together in 27 games, and played 500 fewer minutes together than they did the season before. For much of the second half of the season, the Lakers relied on Kyle Kuzma first-option lineups to keep them afloat, which didn’t go well. They went 19-8 with both stars in the lineup and 23-22 in every other game.
A hyper-competitive West pushed them down to the No. 7 seed, where they matched up with the up-and-coming Phoenix Suns. With both stars returning from injury a week before the postseason, the Lakers were picked as a popular upset pick, but the wear and tear did them in.
In the three games that Davis played start-to-finish, the Lakers went 2-1. He then played 25 total minutes across the next three games, as Phoenix ran the table and went on to come within two wins of their first championship, losing to…
2021-22 Bucks
Win Difference from Title Year: -1 (adjusting for 82-game pace) Playoff Outcome: Lost in 7 in ECSF vs. Celtics Major Hangup: Poorly timed injuries
Remember when it felt like Giannis completed basketball? He was an MVP, a champion, a Finals MVP, a perennial All-NBA First Team talent, and Defensive Player of the Year. By the time he won it all in 2021, he was already a top-five power forward in history by the age of 26. Who knows how high he could’ve climbed?
Outside of the inevitability of Giannis, the Bucks are the best comparison to our current bunch for a few reasons. For one, their offseason was similar, running back an identical core. Milwaukee returned their entire starting lineup, with only Bryn Forbes not returning from their top-eight scorers. They even added a shooting threat in Grayson Allen via trade.
The other thing that makes this team extremely similar is the fact that their championship wasn’t viewed as “impressive” by the basketball world. They “got lucky” that Kevin Durant’s foot was on the line. Injuries took out a lot of their competition. They ran into a young and inexperienced Suns team in the NBA Finals. They entered the following season third in championship odds behind two “superteams” that they had proven they were better than the season prior. Sound familiar?
There was no reason to think they couldn’t do it again in the regular season. Both conference favorites (Nets and Lakers) fizzled out due to injuries and poor team chemistry, while the Bucks went on to win 51 games. They did it on the back of more Giannis dominance, along with All-Star-caliber production from Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton. To make things better, all three played at least 65 games, keeping them upright into the postseason.
There were certainly warts. Their defense slipped to the middle of the pack. Their only in-season response to a season full of going through the motions was trading Donte DiVincenzo for veteran forward Serge Ibaka. They were in contention for the No. 1 seed late in the season, but settled for third behind Miami and Boston. In the first round, they made quick work of a Bulls team that was in a death spiral since January, but it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.
In Game 2, the only one the Bucks lost due to a 41-point masterpiece by DeMar DeRozan, Middleton slipped on a wet spot and sprained his MCL, missing the remainder of a series they didn’t need him to win. The problem was that the injury was severe enough to hold him out for several weeks, a death knell against a hungry Celtics team in the second round.
Despite going up 3-2 with Giannis averaging 34 a night and Holiday stepping up as a second option, the Celtics stole Game 6 in Milwaukee before blowing them to smithereens in Game 7 at TD Garden. Without Middleton’s offense, the Bucks scored under 105 points in five of the seven games, including three where they were held to 95 or fewer. It’s the kind of freak accident that could happen to anyone.
2022-23 Warriors
Win Difference from Title Year: -9 Playoff Outcome: Lost in 6 in WCSF vs. Lakers Major Hangup: Injuries/Age
The Warriors were probably the team least likely to repeat, just due to the finality of things. It was the last dance of a Big 3 that had defined the late 2010s, and while they were optimistic about some of the young guys on their roster, most accepted that it would take a lot to get them back to this point.
In the offseason, they essentially just replaced the outgoing Gary Payton II with DiVincenzo, who at this point had a depressed stock after injuries and underperformance in Sacramento. Still, they were one of five teams with 7-1 or better odds when the season began.
The Warriors battled a few things in their championship push. It’s hard to ask an aging core, one that was older than any defending champion since the 2014-15 Spurs, to be able to run that gauntlet again, but the main culprit was injuries.
Steph Curry has always been the straw that stirs the drink in Golden State, so the team was fortunate to be able to tread water in the 26 games he missed due to various ailments. Andrew Wiggins was an incredibly vital part of their championship run, but he was held to just 37 games in 2022-23 due to an adductor strain in December and a personal issue that held him out for the team’s final 22 regular-season games. Add in load management and minor ailments for Klay and Draymond, and you get a 44-win season that’s only good enough for the No. 6 seed in the West.
Fortunately for the Warriors, they weren’t really underdogs running into the “Light the Beam” Kings in the first round, feasting on their inexperience and asking a healthy Curry to carry them to the tune of 34 points a night in the first round and a 50-burger in Game 7 in hostile territory. The problems arose when they went toe-to-toe with the 2020 champion Lakers.
The Warriors, at this point, just weren’t good enough. Curry shot pretty inefficiently by his standards, while Klay had some ghastly shooting performances. A healthy Lakers squad that season was pretty good and took down the defending champions in six games before getting swept by the eventual champion Nuggets. There isn’t always a reason behind these things, just that some other team puts it together.
2023-24 Nuggets
Win Difference from Title Year: +4 Playoff Outcome: Lost in 7 in WCSF vs. T-Wolves Major Hangup: Bad Playoff Matchup
Nobody really saw the Nuggets coming in 2023, but when you have the best player in the world, you always have a chance to do something special. That Nuggets team is also regarded as having a pretty weak title run, as the league itself lacked an alpha, and by the time Denver got through the West, all that was left was for them to pick the bones of a scrappy No. 8 seed that had already expended so much energy to get there.
Their offseason eerily mirrors what the Knicks went through. They lost a key role player due to the champion tax and an inability to match the contract, as Bruce Brown signed a $45 million deal in Indiana. They were unable to adequately replace him, hoping Julian Strawther and internal replacements could do the job. They entered the following season as co-favorites to repeat with the eventual champion Celtics.
Everything looked normal throughout the regular season, as Nikola Jokic went on to win another MVP, their role players continued to provide him with countless opportunities to share the love, and they stayed healthy aside from a 23-game absence of Jamal Murray. The Nuggets won 57 games, an improvement on their championship season, and only missed out on the No. 1 seed by a tiebreaker with the up-and-coming Thunder.
Denver made quick work of a rematch with LeBron and the Lakers in the first round, but they had to deal with a rising Minnesota team that was a lot more mature than they were in the playoffs the year before. As we saw this past season, this T-Wolves team can give Denver stylistic fits.
Jokic was still great this series, but Rudy Gobert limits his potential to go into god mode. Meanwhile, Karl-Anthony Towns has the ability to torment his defensive limits, something that made him an excellent co-star in this series for Anthony Edwards, who went nuclear. Losing Bruce Brown softened them up in the wing defense department, giving the Ant-Man assignment to the likes of KCP or MPJ, neither of whom could slow him down.
A seven-game series went Minnesota’s way. A slugfest in Game 7 saw the issues that have plagued the Nuggets in the years since. Murray and Jokic scored 69 of the team’s 90 points. They can get theirs, but what happens when they don’t have the ball?
2024-25 Celtics
Win Difference from Title Year: -3 Playoff Outcome: Lost in 6 in ECSF vs. Knicks Major Hangup: Murphy’s Law
I firmly believe that the 2024 Celtics were, perhaps, the best team the league has seen since the dynasty Warriors. No team had the straight inevitability that they did, dominating the regular season and an admittedly light playoff run with some of the most complete team basketball in recent memory. It was a starting five who could all score, shoot, and defend, with unlimited depth. The second apron always loomed over them, but they felt as much of a lock to repeat as anyone.
In the offseason, they were able to keep things together. They returned essentially their entire roster by extending everyone under the sun. It never felt sustainable in the modern NBA, but it ensured that they would be as dominant a force as they were the year before. Entering 2024-25, they were heavy favorites to win it all.
The regular season showed no reason to believe anything different. Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum remained the NBA’s best duo; Payton Pritchard won Sixth Man of the Year, and they had the depth across the board to make up for any minor ailment. The rise of the Cavs and Thunder made things seem like not such a walk in the park, but they were fully healthy come playoff time, so what went wrong?
As we all know, the Knicks were built specifically to topple the Celtics, but that was just one of the multiple reasons they went down. Murphy’s Law dictates that what can go wrong, must go wrong, and that’s what happened to Boston in that series.
Mazzulla ball relies on taking and making an ungodly number of threes. Such reliance carried them to a title in 2024, but also proved to be their downfall. Ugly shooting percentages allowed the Knicks to come back in multiple games, bringing them to the brink. Their stubborness, coupled with the Knicks’ ability to match them on both ends due to careful roster building, made them extremely vulnerable.
But what ultimately rang the death knell was the injuries. Jaylen Brown battled a knee injury. Kristaps Porzingis suffered from a mysterious illness. Al Horford was old. Jayson Tatum tore his Achilles towards the end of Game 4, and although most reasonable fans will conclude that the series was firmly in NYK’s favor, some still hold onto that single moment as the reason Boston didn’t go back-to-back.
2025-26 Thunder
Win Difference from Title Year: -4 Playoff Outcome: Lost in 7 in WCF vs. Spurs Major Hangup: Injuries/Bad Playoff Matchup
As stylistically perfect as the 2024 Celtics were, the award for the most inevitable goes to the Thunder, whose expert roster-building made them seemingly immune to the second apron with quick-fix restocking due to Sam Presti’s years of careful work stockpiling assets. After finishing as the No. 1 seed and falling short in 2024, they were a buzzsaw in 2025, even when looking mortal against Denver and Indiana in seven-game sets.
Just like the Celtics the year before, OKC was brilliantly equipped to retain their entire championship roster, only cycling through end-of-roster depth with their billions of draft picks. They entered this past season as the largest favorites to win the title since the 2019 Warriors. 25 games into the season, they were 24-1. This was a coronation.
Until it wasn’t. There was one team that had their number all season, and it was one that popped up out of nowhere. The freakish alien known as Victor Wembanyama feasted on their usually stout center rotation of Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein, while their role players and co-stars made SGA’s life hell defensively in all 12 matchups. Sometimes with these teams, another team is just built to beat you, and that’s what happened with San Antonio.
But even then, let’s be honest here. Long-term injuries to Jalen Williams, Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso, and Ajay Mitchell ate away at them in the regular season, and by the time that grueling Western Conference Finals commenced, both Mitchell and Williams broke under the fatigue of the deep playoff run the year before. Missing two key players in a Game 7 is a death sentence.
The Trends
What are the biggest culprits behind an unsuccessful title defense?
There are three that stick out from our study of these seven teams. Injuries, bad matchups, and roster holes opening up from the championship tax.
Almost all of these teams suffered crippling injuries in their championship defense, either tanking their regular-season seeding or leaving them shorthanded for an opportunistic team to feast in the playoffs. The Bucks lost Middleton, the Celtics lost Tatum, the Thunder lost JDub; it’s all connected.
Especially recently, the forced parity of the second apron has allowed for new teams to come about every year via creative means. The teams that took down Boston and OKC weren’t together the year before, but stacked up perfectly when the time mattered. The fact that superteams are never that super means there are so many stars across the league capable of great things.
There were also cases of losing key players during the season that damage your odds of repeating. The last two champs didn’t have that problem, but the Nuggets really missed Bruce Brown, the Warriors missed GPII, and the Raptors really missed Kawhi.
More than anything? It might just be championship fatigue that causes it. You put so much more mileage on your body in a playoff run, have a shorter offseason than anyone else, and have to rediscover the hunger that got you to the mountaintop in the first place. That’s not to say complacency sets in, but it causes teams to go through the motions.
The Knicks are not immune to any of these.
Injuries and fatigue are not something you can predict, but they’re certainly possible after a long season. But hey, maybe Tom Thibodeau’s parting gift to the franchise was working these guys so damn hard that postseason fatigue feels like nothing. After all, most of the starting five played fewer total minutes this year than last:
2024-25 vs. 2025-26: Brunson: 2,981 vs. 3,292 (+311) Hart: 3,539 vs. 2,608 (-931) Bridges: 3,742 vs. 3,300 (-442) Anunoby: 3,411 vs. 2,810 (-601) Towns: 3,156 vs. 2,900 (-256)
The biggest threat might just be opposing teams. Let’s meet ‘em.
The Opposition
Detroit Pistons
2025-26 Record: 60-22 H2H Record: 0-3 (-84 PD) What Makes Them A Threat: Last Season
The Pistons are the red-headed stepchild of the 2026-27 Eastern Conference. Despite winning 60 games and looking like the next big thing last season, they fell on their faces come playoff time due to offensive inconsistency and their reliance on Cade Cunningham, who, despite trying to do his best 2024 Jalen Brunson impression, turns it over too much.
It’d be foolish to overlook them still, even with the fact that they made only marginal moves in the offseason. Assuming they get Jalen Duren back, he’s going to be their X-factor for postseason success.
Why should the Knicks be worried about them? Some of these other defending champions didn’t lose to the best team, but lost to a team built to stifle them. We saw Detroit pummel the Knicks in every regular-season meeting, and although we now know that was a different team, they’ll also go into any matchup with us with bad memories from 2024.
Boston Celtics
2025-26 Record: 56-26 H2H Record: 3-1 (+32 PD) What Makes Them A Threat: Mazzulla ball
There’s no doubt that the Celtics are weaker than they’ve been over the past several years after the second apron deconstructed their 2024 championship core and a rather controversial Jaylen Brown trade, but this is a team that stumbled into 56 wins in a perceived “gap year”. They’re always a threat.
I do truly believe that, even if healthy, the Knicks would have smacked the Celtics in Round 2 last year if they had moved on. They were hopelessly overmatched on the interior, relied on too many young shooters to make a lot of shots, and had the Tatum question coming off an Achilles tear. What could change this upcoming season?
I firmly believe that Boston will be a top-four seed again because of Mazzulla’s regular-season philosophy that maximizes his roster; the question is going to be if they can make enough shots come playoff time. Could Baylor Scheierman leap forward? Will the man they kept out of Giannis talks show why? There’s a lot of ifs, but they have the right coach to squeeze it out of.
Cleveland Cavaliers
2025-26 Record: 52-30 H2H Record: 6-1 (+72 PD, incl. playoffs) What Makes Them A Threat: Anything is possible
Remember how I said Detroit was the red-headed stepchild? Well, if that doesn’t fit Cleveland, they might just be the conjoined twin that got locked in the basement, à la The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror.
It’s quite sad to be a team that entered the second apron last season and will likely be above the first this season and be considered not even a top-five threat to win your own conference, but that seems to be the case in Cleveland. They were co-favorites to win the conference last year after a 64-win season went up in smoke against Indiana, but they disappointed all season long. When they got James Harden, there was renewed hope, only for them to struggle to even reach the Eastern Conference Finals, where they were obliterated and embarrassed.
They spent their offseason praying for LeBron, and he never came. The only reason they could be a threat is the theory that “everything needs time.” The Knicks needed a year to coalesce; why not them?
Toronto Raptors
2025-26 Record: 46-36 H2H Record: 5-0 (+98 PD) What Makes Them A Threat: Kawhi(?)
I almost didn’t want to put the Raptors on the list, but you have to respect a team that nearly upset the second-best team in the East in the first round and should be adding a top-flight player in Kawhi Leonard, assuming the investigation doesn’t hold this trade off much longer.
The Knicks eviscerated the Raptors in all five regular-season meetings, winning by an average of almost 20 per game. Toronto’s defensive identity rang hollow because they didn’t have an alpha scorer. If Brandon Ingram wasn’t going nuclear, what the hell did they have to offer? Kawhi could give them that, but I’m still wary because of that center rotation.
Philadelphia 76ers
2025-26 Record: 45-37 H2H Record: 6-2 (+111 PD, incl. postseason) What Makes Them A Threat: High-end talent
The Knicks outscored the Sixers by 131 points in their final six combined meetings last season. Just think about that for a quick second.
The Sixers are a threat, simply because of the talent they added in the offseason. When VJ Edgecombe goes from your clear third option (really second option due to Embiid’s knees) to a corner sitter, that’s legit.
The hang-up with them is the start of this blurb. They have to overcome that gap. They certainly added two guys and some depth that can chip away, but is it enough to turn 6-0 and +131 into 3-4?
Miami Heat
2025-26 Record: 43-39 H2H Record: 2-2 (+2 PD) What Makes Them A Threat: Giannis and a hellacious defense
Never take an Erik Spoelstra team lightly. Even though Miami was the No. 10 seed and missed the playoffs in 2025-26, adding Giannis for a sum of its parts is great business by a normally comatose Pat Riley and will make them a threat, even if they did seem to lose too much scoring ability this offseason.
Miami’s path to knocking off the champs is based on smothering defense and playing a 2000s-style game. They will likely be starting a quintet that includes Davion Mitchell, Andrew Wiggins, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Bam Adebayo. That’s matchup hell for opposing offenses. They hope the small signings like OAKAAK Tim Hardaway Jr. can supplement the shooting, but their path to a title is purely defensive.
Indiana Pacers
2025-26 Record: 19-63 H2H Record: 3-1 (+33 PD) What Makes Them A Threat: Ghost of Knicksmas Past
The only team in the last three seasons to send the Knicks home wasn’t present for the festivities in 2025-26 due to a gap year caused by Tyrese Haliburton’s torn Achilles in the NBA Finals. While their shameless tanking wound up backfiring, they’ll still return a theoretically stronger unit in 2026-27 than they had last time we saw them.
They don’t scare you anymore because you’re a Larry and they don’t, but it works like a WWE feud, which Brunson and Haliburton know all too well. I don’t care what you’ve accomplished while I’m not around, you can’t beat me.
Will the Knicks “story” ever truly be complete without proving that they’ve moved past Indiana?
The West
No NBA champion has returned to the NBA Finals since 2019, but if the Knicks can do it, they’ll certainly have some opponents to face.
Oklahoma City siphoned off a bunch of depth to get below the second apron, but they were arguably the best team in basketball when fully healthy. Do the Finals go different if JDub and Ajay Mitchell stay healthy long enough to make it Thunder-Knicks instead?
As young as San Antonio looked last year, it’d be utterly foolish not to believe in their chances this year. That Big 3 is only getting better, and you have to assume De’Aaron Fox’s leash will be shorter when Dylan Harper looks like a stud. There’s a chance these guys win multiple titles in the next five years.
The field has some intriguing teams, at least. The Lakers spent the LeBron bucks on filling out a rather complete roster, but can Luka lead them to glory? LaMelo Ball gives Minnesota a true star point guard for the first time, perhaps ever, but do they have enough to get past the giants? Can someone like Houston or Denver buck the recent trend of constant disappointment to go on a run?
The Verdict
Odds are, the Knicks aren’t going back-to-back.
That’s not any expert analysis; that’s just how statistics work. You’re never inherently likely to win it all.
Only one of the past seven champions has made the Conference Finals in their repeat season, something that we seem to think is guaranteed. Everyone found a slip-up somewhere, whether it was injuries, fatigue, or a new rising power. There’s no telling whether a specific team can avoid it.
The Knicks have the willpower and focus to do whatever they set their minds to. After what this group showed me, I’m not conceding anything. See you in October.
LOS ANGELES, CA - MARCH 31: James Harden #1 of the Cleveland Cavaliers looks on during the game against the Los Angeles Lakers on March 31, 2026 at Crypto.Com Arena in Los Angeles, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2026 NBAE (Photo by Adam Pantozzi/NBAE via Getty Images) | NBAE via Getty Images
Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NBA. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Cavaliers fans and fans across the country.
The next NBA season will be here soon. Before the fun begins, we want Fear the Sword to weigh in on the Cleveland Cavaliers’ expected win total for the upcoming season.
FanDuel currently has the Cavs over/under listed at 47.5. Do you think that number is fair? Too high, too low?
Let us know in our poll below. All you need to do to vote is sign in or create a free account. Thank you in advance.
The Cavs have won over 50 games in each of the last two seasons. They won 52 last season despite an injury-riddled campaign, and they won 64 the year before in a historically strong season.
Cleveland won 48 games in 2023-24 and 51 games in 2021-22, Mitchell’s first year as a Cavalier.
It’s been four seasons since the Cavs last finished below 48 wins. Meaning FanDuel expects the Cavs to take a slide down the Eastern Conference this year.
This might have more to do with the rise of other teams rather than a decline in Cleveland.
The East has upgraded. Multiple teams have seemingly leapfrogged the Cavaliers through their offseason additions. The Philadelphia 76ers and Toronto Raptors come to mind. Other teams, like the Miami Heat, have simply gotten stronger and can provide more of an obstacle to the conference.
In other words, it won’t be as easy to rack up wins in the East. It might be harder than ever.
Cleveland has continuity on their side. The core of this squad, aside from James Harden, has been together for years. They’ve proven they can win in the regular season even when things aren’t going to plan. They should be expected to be a regular-season force once again next year.
The only question is, do you believe they can stay above 47 wins? Or is this the year they fall back down? Let us know!
As the Kawhi Leonard saga drags on, now approaching a full year, a new wrinkle sheds light on where the investigation stands. A new report has drawn pushback from the NBA on what it alleges are "significant inaccuracies."
According to ESPN, the NBA has found no evidence linking Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer to an alleged scheme to funnel money to Leonard during the franchise’s courtship of the star forward during the 2019 offseason.
ESPN also reported that the league’s investigation is now focused on the Clippers introducing Leonard to corporate sponsors, and whether that classifies as violations of the NBA’s rules against salary cap circumvention. As part of that focus, the NBA is assessing whether the alleged actions constitute “failure to supervise” employees, though ESPN noted it’s unclear which rules violations would have taken place.
In response, the NBA pushed back against the content in the report.
“ESPN’s article regarding the LA Clippers investigation — for which the NBA declined to cooperate — contains numerous and significant inaccuracies,” NBA chief communications officer Mike Bass said on Monday, Aug. 17 in a statement. “The results in this matter will be made clear once the investigation is concluded.”
For its part, ESPN defended its article.
“We stand by our reporting, which included numerous attempts by ESPN to get comment from the NBA,” the company said Monday in a statement.
The Clippers also issued a statement Monday, defending their practices throughout Leonard’s courtship and employment.
“The Clippers introduced players, including Kawhi Leonard, to companies with which we had business relationships,” the statement reads. “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 did not negotiate or dictate the terms of Kawhi’s endorsement agreements or determine what he would be paid.”
The Clippers, who have denied any wrongdoing since the beginning of the matter, also said they “did not overpay any vendor or provide any sponsor, vendor, or business partner with discounts or other favorable terms in order to funnel money to Kawhi.”
The NBA outsourced its investigation into Leonard, which began in September 2025, to the New York-based law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. The inquiry examined a four-year, $28 million contract that Leonard signed to market and endorse a now-bankrupt "green" financial services company called Aspiration, which had previously received a significant investment from Ballmer.
Earlier in August, another possible endorsement deal between Leonard and a Clippers corporate sponsor emerged, though it had previously been undisclosed. This one was with Daktronics, the company that designed the Clippers' video board inside the Intuit Dome where they play home games.
“The fact that a player has an endorsement relationship with a company that also does business with his team is not evidence of salary-cap circumvention,” the Clippers added Monday in their statement.
Per ESPN, the NBA presented the findings of the investigation to the Clippers in July, and both sides are negotiating a resolution to the matter. Those discussions, according to the report, are being led by David N. Kelley, a lawyer from O'Melveny & Myers who is representing Ballmer and the Clippers and NBA general counsel and chief compliance officer Rick Buchanan. ESPN said, citing an unnamed source, that those discussions have been “spirited.”
On June 30, the Clippers agreed to trade Leonard to the Toronto Raptors in exchange for Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two first-round picks, one pick swap and two second-round picks. That deal, however, has been held up as the investigation is ongoing; both the Clippers and the Raptors have issued statements indicating that they are waiting for the full findings — and any discipline that may arise from the investigation — before completing the transaction.
In September 2025, just as the investigation was getting underway, NBA commissioner Adam Silver stressed that the burden of proof would fall on the league and its investigators to determine whether any wrongdoing had occurred.
“I would be reluctant to act if there was a mere appearance of impropriety,” Silver said then.
TORONTO, ON - AUGUST 14: Heliot Ramos #34 of the New York Yankees bats during a game against the New York Yankees at Rogers Centre on August 14, 2026 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Yankees fans and fans across the country.
There are quite a few factors the Yankees need to address to keep their AL campaign on track.
It’s impossible to ignore the hole that Judge, Bellinger, and Stanton left in the offense since they landed on the IL. Barely dodging the sweep last weekend, the Yankees recorded 15 hits, six runs, and 26 strikeouts in the three-game series against the Blue Jays.
New acquisitions Luis García Jr. and Heliot Ramos still have a lot to prove, especially after their questionable performance against Toronto. García Jr. committed an egregious double fielding error that brought in Vladmir Guerrero Jr. for the game-tying run in the series opener and has a .664 OPS since joining the Pinstripes. Ramos recorded a double in the extra-inning win on Sunday night, but he is maintaining a 26.2 strikeout percentage since arriving in the Bronx.
The Yankees remain 6.5 games back from the Rays as they head to Camden Park for a three-game series against the Orioles. If you had to choose, what would you argue is the biggest setback keeping the Yankees from securing the American League?
Test captaincy came too soon for 27-year-old but Pakistan series is latest chapter in year that could be the making of him
You have to hand it to Bazball. Even when seemingly killed off, and the England team it left behind is thousands of miles away, preparing for a series against Pakistan, it has still managed to muscle its way into the fallout from Bangladesh’s seismic victory over Australia in Darwin. Talk about main character energy.
By definition, that nine-wicket victory for Bangladesh was no fluke. Najmul Hossain Shanto’s men didn’t jag a tight one but rather dominated their hosts over four days. And in doing so, they also managed to unite Ashes rivals by demonstrating what a golden opportunity England blew against Australia’s greybeards last winter.
MINNEAPOLIS, MN - AUGUST 26: A general view of a rainbow and a lightning strike during a rain delay in the second inning between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves on August 26, 2024 at Target Field in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Brace Hemmelgarn/Minnesota Twins/Getty Images) | Getty Images
I’m writing this from Kiawah Island, SC, where the heat index is an absurd triple-digit number like 113 or something. The Braves finished up a heat dome-esque homestand at 3-3 on Sunday, and now they’ll head to the relatively tolerable temperatures of the North Star state to kick off a wild four-city road trip that involves a makeup game on Chicago’s South Side, and a Sunday visit to Williamsport, PA.
But, before all that, it’s three with the Twins. As the Phillies played the Minnesota crew over the weekend, I found myself thinking, “Hey, have the Braves played the Twins yet?” Turns out the answer is, “No, they’re playing them next.” How are the Twins doing? It’s been another uneven season so far, with continuing tension amid the preferred paths forward of the Front Office and ownership. The Twins last made the playoffs in 2023; they won 82 games in 2024 and 70 last year. This year, they’re 60-65, but that means they’re just 1.5 games out of a Wild Card spot because the AL vis-a-vis the current playoff system is a farce. The Twins went on a heater with a 15-9 July, actually crawling above .500 on the month’s final day… before smashing right back to earth with a 4-10 August that was already problematic before the Phillies swept ‘em over the weekend.
Still, the Twins are in it. They’re actually a top-ten team by wRC+, though that’s the result of a top-ten xwOBA overperformance (they’re bottom ten by xwOBA). Where they’ve had issues is run prevention, as both their defense and pitching rank pretty poorly. Some guys (Joe Ryan, Andrew Morris) are having nice pitching seasons, but there’s not too much to talk about otherwise, so this will be a bit of a test on whether the Braves can actually outshoot the Twins.
For the opener, the Braves will throw out Martin Perez, who spent a season in the Twin Cities back in 2019. Also, insert my lamentation about how I cover nearly every Perez start and little else here. I’m shaking my fist at the universe, you just can’t see it. On the season, Perez’ line is 71/102/100 (ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-). The Braves have gotten what they paid for and much more, even if the end result is more generic than exciting. Perhaps emblematic of his season, Perez is riding a three-start scoreless streak, even though his line during the streak is 0/69/94 with an 11/6 K/BB ratio in 16 innings. His most recent start against the Mets was one of his most Houdini-esque, with a 2/3 K/BB ratio but zero runs charged. Once aspect of his scoreless streak that deviates from his earlier performance is a sky-high grounder rate. Two of his top four starts by grounder rate have come in these most recent three outings.
The Twins will counter with Bailey Ober, who has a very consistent, below league average-y line through 18 starts and 99 innings so far: 111/115/118, with an xERA right in that range as well. Like most of his teammates, Ober pitched considerably better in July, but has hit the skids in August. He was blasted by the Orioles in his most recent outing, and had a bizarre six-inning outing with zero walks or strikeouts the turn before that. He has a 137/125/133 line over his last four outings. Ober was an above-average starter until his velocity seriously dipped in 2025, and it’s collapsed further this year. If the Braves are going to stay frosty offensively, he’s a good guy to start the road trip against.
ST LOUIS, MISSOURI - AUGUST 8: The Colorado Rockies celebrate after beating the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium on August 8, 2026 in St Louis, Missouri. (Photo by Joe Puetz/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Rockies fans and fans across the country.
As we enter the waning weeks of the 2026 season, one of the biggest questions remaining is if the Rockies will avoid 100 losses for the fourth straight year. There are 38 games left and the Rockies are 50-74, but they play the following teams:
Los Angeles Dodgers (74-51, 3 games)
Cleveland Guardians (60-65, 3 games)
Washington Nationals (60-66, 4 games)
Atlanta Braves (74-50, 3 games)
Baltimore Orioles (61-63, 3 games)
St. Louis Cardinals (63-61, 3 games)
New York Yankees (69-55, 3 games)
Detroit Tigers (60-64, 3 games)
San Diego Padres (67-58, 4 games)
Seattle Mariners (59-66, 3 games)
Arizona Diamondbacks (66-59, 3 games)
Chicago White Sox (65-58, 3 games)
With that remaining schedule, what do you think? Can the Rockies pick up 13 more wins? Let us know!
PHOENIX, AZ - MAY 25: The Arizona Diamondbacks mascot carries an Arizona Diamondbacks flag before the MLB baseball game between the Miami Marlins and the Arizona Diamondbacks on May 25, 2024 at Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Kevin Abele/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) | Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
The Red Sox have now lost three straight series. They went 2-5 on the road trip. The starters struggled. The offense struggled. Garrett Whitlock and Justin Slaten hit the IL (although Aroldis Chapman and Erik Miller looked good). Now it’s time for the Arizona Diamondbacks to come to Boston. The DBacks had been in second place in the AL West behind the Dodgers but a hot Padres team has surpassed them recently. They’re also out of a Wild Card right now, sitting a game behind the Padres and Phillies. This series is big for them.
Mitch Bratt is a a southpaw in his rookie year. He’s made seven starts on the season and over 33.2 innings has allowed 28 hits, 5 homers, 19 walks, 14 runs, and has compiled 25 strikeouts. His FIP might paint a better picture as both righties (.214/.353/.369) and lefties (.263/.300/.553) have had some success reaching base or slugging against him. Brayan Bello and Alex Gamboa will both be available for game 1 after an opener. The plan, per Alex Speier of the Globe, is to give Jake Bennett extra rest with the bullpen start Monday and the off day on Thursday.
Merrill Kelly returned to Arizona after half a season on the Texas Rangers in 2025. Back where he belongs. Although things haven’t been great after the reunion. He’s put up an ERA north of 5.00 across 22 starts. One of those was, of course, a complete game. Last time out he allowed 6 runs in 5.0 innings. Skip a start back it was 5 runs in 5.0. He’s gone about 5.0 innings in each of his last five starts and in the other three appearances he allowed a combined 4 runs. Which Kelly shows up on Tuesday is anyone’s guess. With 82 Ks and 53 BBs across 125 innings he hasn’t helped himself much. Kelly will face Ranger Suarez. The Sox big free agent acquisition had an OK outing last time out against the Jays, showing progress in recovery from injury. He made it through 5 innings, allowed 1 run, but watched his team fall 6-4 as the bullpen took on a few innings. His last start of more than 5.0 innings was June 29th. Hopefully he’s turning the corner after his injury in July. Unlike a lot of the rotation he’s in fine shape regarding his innings as he’s in his 9th major league season. He’s been good overall but hasn’t always gone deep and has battled injuries.
Brandon Pfaadt is somewhere in between Bratt and Kelly: this is his fourth major league season. And it’s been something off a breakout. He doesn’t strike out many guys, just 61 in 92.2 innings. But he also only has allowed 24 walks, a much better rate than the Ks. A righty, he’s allowed a .697 OPS to lefty bats but just .581 to same-handed hitters. He’s opposed by the number two to Sonny Gray’s number one in the rotation: Payton Tolle. Tolle saved the series against the Jays and the bullpen last time out. Tossing 8.0 shutout innings after his 14 K start the time before what more can you possibly say about this guy? He’s dragging the Red Sox to the finish line.
Ketel Marte is hitting .251/.315/.448 with 21 homers.
Corbin Carroll had a tough July (.611 OPS) but has rallied in August (.976).
Their other big slugger, Nolan Arenado, is headed for an MRI. Take a few games off, buddy.
Probable Pitching Matchups
Monday, August 17: Mitch Bratt (3.74 ERA /5.31 FIP) vs. TBD (— ERA / — FIP)
Tuesday, August 18: Merrill Kelly (5.11 ERA / 5.72 FIP) vs. Ranger Suarez (3.25 ERA / 2.71 FIP)
Wednesday, August 19: Brandon Pfaadt (3.11 ERA / 3.80 FIP) vs. Payton Tolle (2.97 ERA / 3.21 FIP)
