Kawhi Leonard's Toronto trade stalls amid Clippers shake-up

The forward flew to Miami to join an optional camp session, though he is only permitted individual work until the deal formally clears.

The hold-up is on the Clippers' end, according to insider Jake Fisher. The club is midway through reorganising its front office after the suspensions of Steve Ballmer, Lawrence Frank and Gillian Zucker, and says the reshuffle is what has held up the paperwork.

Fisher reports a different mood inside parts of the organisation: some at the Clippers are frustrated that Leonard has emerged from the affair unpunished, and the league is starting to wonder whether the club might try to squeeze more out of the trade given its current draft-pick situation. The Clippers maintain they believed Ballmer had invested in Aspiration rather than funnelling extra money into Leonard's arrangement, though the Daktronics and Boingo findings pushed the matter into a conduct violation the NBA would not overlook.

Fisher adds that Leonard is working with the players' union and the league on a fine and settlement, a process now clearing his path to Toronto.

The Clippers were fined $30m and stripped of draft picks on 4 September 2026 over the circumvention findings tied to Leonard's 2019 contract, with Ballmer suspended for a year. That penalty is the backdrop to the current standoff: a front office still absorbing the sanction, handling a trade for the same player at the centre of it.