Lockton Insurance is among companies named in the NBA’s investigation into the Los Angeles Clippers’ circumvention of league salary cap rules to sign star Kawhi Leonard.
Leonard and his then-business partner, Dennis Robertson, violated the league’s circumvention rules by pressuring the Clippers to assist the multiple time All-Star in securing off-court business deals, according to the NBA.
NBA rules prohibit teams from facilitating endorsement deals for their players as a way to navigate salary cap restrictions.
The league on Wednesday handed down historic punishments to the Clippers, including the forfeiture of five future first-round draft picks and a $30 million fine.
Clippers president of business operations Gillian Zucker connected Robertson with Kansas City-based Lockton and two other companies, Boingo and Daktronics, in early July 2020, according to an investigation by law firm Watchell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.
Leonard signed multi-million dollar endorsement agreements with two of the companies and later signed a similar endorsement agreement with the third company, the investigation found.
Each agreement was signed during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a period when companies rarely signed such endorsement deals, according to the league’s report.
The report stated that each agreement imposed minimal performance obligations on Leonard relative to the amount paid. The agreements totaled $18 million, all of which was paid to Leonard by August 2021, the investigation found.
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Lockton, which specializes in commercial insurance and risk management, had never before (or never since) signed an endorsement agreement “remotely the same financial magnitude” as the one it entered with Leonard, the investigation said.
Lockton declined to comment.
Lockton never publicized the endorsement agreement, nor did Leonard appear in any Lockton advertisements.
Investigators attempted to speak with Lockton, but the company refused to cooperate, the report said.
Questions surrounding the legitimacy of Leonard’s endorsement deals as a Clipper came to light last September after journalist Pablo Torre reported that Leonard signed a $28 million endorsement agreement with financial firm Aspiration Partners.
Lockton’s involvement with Leonard and the Clippers had not been publicly reported until the NBA released its investigation Wednesday.
