Did Steve Balmer pay Kawhi Leonard under the table?

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BigGameDamian said:
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responding to lowe and mcann--I mean, the sarver espn article had a ton of anonymous sources too and eventually the nba found stuff. why is the burden on pablo torre the journalist to be a lawyer all of a sudden?

his job is discovering and reporting on all of the smoke emitting from that carcass of a cluster f**k bankruptcy. now it's the nba's law firm's responsibility to do the rest.

and why is ballmer, who has literally gotten his hand slapped for this in the past, all of a sudden getting the benefit of the doubt here?

people will contort themselves, as pablo puts it, to put this all on kawhi's uncle. (to be clear, they're all shady actors here).
 
usually, where there's smoke, there is at least a little fire. Definitely some smoke coming out of this

there seems to be at least a couple of facts that nobody has really tried to counter: the first being that Kawhi was paid 28M dollars....that's a shitload of money....and he apparently didn't do anything to earn that money; nothing. Has anybody disputed this yet?

and the other 'fact' is that Ballmer got involved financially with this now bankrupt business about the same time Kawhi was reported to have signed the deal that paid him 7M/year...for nothing
 
If Kawhi and his uncle had not gotten greedy, no one would have known. I mean, how stupid can you get for suing for the last 7 million when you already got 21 million for nothing? He won't get punished, but I hope he does.
 
NBA doesn't have to prove anything - it specifically lists in the NBA owners agreements and the CBA the commissioner has broad authority to issue penalties purely with circumstantial evidence. Also that improper compensation is a violation regardless of actually having any documented transaction from the team to player.

Bill Simmons did report how theres tons of improper benefits going on with tons of franchise star players throughout the league. Stars, their family, their friends are able to stay at owners vacation houses and fly on owners private planes for free.

My hope is this gets more scrutinized and cleaned up going forward.

I do think its entirely possible Balmer wasn't even aware of this. In fact I'd be surprised if he was, I don't see it being worth the risk for him to do something so careless as this was done. Regardless of his knowledge or involvement the Clippers should be penalized as Kawhi was inappropriately compensated from an entity affiliated with the Clippers.
 
wizenheimer said:
usually, where there's smoke, there is at least a little fire. Definitely some smoke coming out of this

there seems to be at least a couple of facts that nobody has really tried to counter: the first being that Kawhi was paid 28M dollars....that's a shitload of money....and he apparently didn't do anything to earn that money; nothing. Has anybody disputed this yet?

and the other 'fact' is that Ballmer got involved financially with this now bankrupt business about the same time Kawhi was reported to have signed the deal that paid him 7M/year...for nothing
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yeah like, maybe there is no actual smoking gun.

but to your point, kawhi's contract remains diabolically 'no-show' considering it's $28M dollars.

TWENTY EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS.
 
Pinwheel1 said:
If Kawhi and his uncle had not gotten greedy, no one would have known. I mean, how stupid can you get for suing for the last 7 million when you already got 21 million for nothing? He won't get punished, but I hope he does.
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Kawhi and his party didn't sue for anything. Aspiration went bankrupt and the founder was arrested for fraud. This came out because Kawhi owned company "KL2 Aspire LLC" was listed in the financials during Aspiration bankruptcy preceding. This lead to Pablo Torre and others start investigating what that "KL2 Aspire LLC" entity was.
 
Samuel said:
responding to lowe and mcann--I mean, the sarver espn article had a ton of anonymous sources too and eventually the nba found stuff. why is the burden on pablo torre the journalist to be a lawyer all of a sudden?

his job is discovering and reporting on all of the smoke emitting from that carcass of a cluster f**k bankruptcy. now it's the nba's law firm's responsibility to do the rest.

and why is ballmer, who has literally gotten his hand slapped for this in the past, all of a sudden getting the benefit of the doubt here?

people will contort themselves, as pablo puts it, to put this all on kawhi's uncle. (to be clear, they're all shady actors here).
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What did Ballmer get his hand slapped for before?
 
SharpesTriumph said:
I do think its entirely possible Balmer wasn't even aware of this.
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I think there's zero chance he wasn't aware. I think there's a very high likelyhood there's zero discoverable paper-trail from ballmer on this.
 
SharpesTriumph said:
Kawhi and his party didn't sue for anything. Aspiration went bankrupt and the founder was arrested for fraud. This came out because Kawhi owned company "KL2 Aspire LLC" was listed in the financials during Aspiration bankruptcy preceding. This lead to Pablo Torre and others start investigating what that "KL2 Aspire LLC" entity was.
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You are probably right, but that's not what they have been discussing for the last 2 hours on NBA Sirius radio.
They very specifically said they sued for the last installment.
 
let's say aspiration and the clippers were both on the up and up.

okay.

why did aspiration's contract with kawhi almost literally mandate that he do nothing for them? what would the point for them to pay kawhi that much and have him deliver zero value?

even if the answer is 'to stay in good standing with ballmer', isn't that, on some level, a quid pro quo?
 
Samuel said:
I think there's zero chance he wasn't aware. I think there's a very high likelyhood there's zero discoverable paper-trail from ballmer on this.
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Why do you think this?

Donald Sterling or Glen Taylor type of owners I could see. But Balmer track record doesn't have history of this type of behavior. Yes he throws tons of money at things, but he doesn't try to break rules.

I do think he and the Clippers may have failed to put in measures to prevent this. Yes they should be punished. I just don't see why Balmer would have decided this was a good idea to pursue.
 
Samuel said:
let's say aspiration and the clippers were both on the up and up.

okay.

why did aspiration's contract with kawhi almost literally mandate that he do nothing for them? what would the point for them to pay kawhi that much and have him deliver zero value?

even if the answer is 'to stay in good standing with ballmer', isn't that, on some level, a quid pro quo?
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Oh absolutely its a violation and the Clippers should be punished.

I just find it hard to believe Balmer specifically directed the actions taken here. He might have said "the Clippers and partners should make efforts to help our stars like Kawhi" and then some employees ran too far with that statement and did this violation.
 
SharpesTriumph said:
Oh absolutely its a violation and the Clippers should be punished.

I just find it hard to believe Balmer specifically directed the actions taken here. He might have said "the Clippers and partners should make efforts to help our stars like Kawhi" and then some employees ran too far with that statement and did this violation.
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More likely Balmer said "make it happen," not wanting to know how to protect himself.
 
This seems pretty damning; his agent asked for the same kind of deal in Toronto.
"Arthur reported that Kawhi's camp asked for a trade for Paul George, ownership in the Maple Leafs, ownership in outside companies, and a minimum of $10 million in additional sponsorship income. The Raptors said there was corporate sponsors that would like to work with Kawhi, but the catch was that he didn't want to actually do anything. He wanted a 'no-show job.' "
https://raptorsrapture.com/raptors-refusal-grant-endless-kawhi-wishes-saved-them-from-doom
Original article unfortunately behind a paywall. https://www.thestar.com/sports/rapt...cle_9f1b0398-0ebd-4193-bc06-798efda95023.html
 
If the NBA lets this go, that will be the end of small markets. This is like the old days of college football where the SEC was just buying everyone under the table and we all knew it.

No point in having a salary cap.
 
Natebishop3 said:
If the NBA lets this go, that will be the end of small markets. This is like the old days of college football where the SEC was just buying everyone under the table and we all knew it.

No point in having a salary cap.
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could be...if the connections, that seem obvious from initial reporting, are proven to be obvious, I don't see how the NBA can justify not coming down hard. But they may very well try to justify a wrist slap...after an 'investigation' that takes months. Ballmer spent 2B on a state of the art arena....in a league that loves money and glitz, that probably bought him lots of good will

just had Adam Silver say if people can't afford streaming service, they can always watch free highlights because it's a highlight league.....yeeeeesh. Let them eat cake

which is why local officials better take Silver seriously after he said Portland 'probably' needs a new arena. Piece-meal renovations of the Moda may not be on the NBA's wish list
 
wizenheimer said:
could be...if the connections, that seem obvious from initial reporting, are proven to be obvious, I don't see how the NBA can justify not coming down hard. But they may very well try to justify a wrist slap...after an 'investigation' that takes months. Ballmer spent 2B on a state of the art arena....in a league that loves money and glitz, that probably bought him lots of good will

just had Adam Silver say if people can't afford streaming service, they can always watch free highlights because it's a highlight league.....yeeeeesh. Let them eat cake

which is why local officials better take Silver seriously after he said Portland 'probably' needs a new arena. Piece-meal renovations of the Moda may not be on the NBA's wish list
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I don't understand why the other owners would go for this though. Basically the super rich owners can just buy your star players.
 
Natebishop3 said:
If the NBA lets this go, that will be the end of small markets. This is like the old days of college football where the SEC was just buying everyone under the table and we all knew it.

No point in having a salary cap.
Click to expand...

wizenheimer said:
could be...if the connections, that seem obvious from initial reporting, are proven to be obvious, I don't see how the NBA can justify not coming down hard. But they may very well try to justify a wrist slap...after an 'investigation' that takes months. Ballmer spent 2B on a state of the art arena....in a league that loves money and glitz, that probably bought him lots of good will

just had Adam Silver say if people can't afford streaming service, they can always watch free highlights because it's a highlight league.....yeeeeesh. Let them eat cake

which is why local officials better take Silver seriously after he said Portland 'probably' needs a new arena. Piece-meal renovations of the Moda may not be on the NBA's wish list
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Natebishop3 said:
I don't understand why the other owners would go for this though. Basically the super rich owners can just buy your star players.
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Yeah ultimately Silver is just a mouthpiece for all of the owners. We've seen in all the CBA a strong preference for rules that benefit small markets. I expect if there is solid evidence Silver comes down hard. Balmer wealth, market, and paying for a big arena makes him a BIGGER target amongst other owners - not a smaller one.

But owners also won't want a precedent set where they could be the next one to get in trouble. So they will want some solid evidence.
 
https://www.nbcsports.com/nba/news/...ion-days-later-kawhi-leonard-got-late-payment

Enter Dennis J. Wong — the vice chairman of the Clippers, a man who owns 1% of the team (Ballmer owns the other 99%). According to Aspiration bank records, on Dec. 6, 2022, Aspiration received a $1.99 million wire from Wong’s investment LLP. That came at a time when the company was hemorrhaging money, was in default and was not a good investment, company employees told Torre. All of that was public and disclosed, and Wong should have known about it.

• On Dec. 15, Leonard got his $1.75 million fall quarterly payment from Aspiration. That same day, Aspiration laid off 10% of its remaining workforce.

• A finance executive with Aspiration said this to Torre about Wong’s investment: “It is not a rational investment that someone would make. So it is very shocking to me that $2 million was made as an investment by Dennis Wong, who in my texts is identified as the ‘Clippers’ and Steve ‘Ballmer’s partner,’ a week before $1.75 million was paid to Kawhi.”
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Pinwheel1 said:
A fine is meaningless.

2 FRPs minimum. Maybe a playoff ban this year.
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The contract should be voided but the cap hit should still remain. The anti-amnesty clause.

Kawhi should be kicked out of the league.

The Clippers should lose all possible picks that they have. I think that's out to 2031 or 2032? I know they owe some of them but they lose any swaps.
 
I’ll say it again….they should be forced to reverse the PG13/SGA trade! That’ll teach ‘em!
 
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