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Not sure if people have picked up on the news broken by Pablo Torre in hs latest podcast.

Essentialy, the Clippers are paying Kawhi $28 million for a no-show endorsement job outside of his contract with the team. The "endorsement deal" includes direct language that the deal is only valid as long as Kawhi is a Clipper.

The podcast episode is worth a listen - Pablo Torre Finds Out

This should be a huge scandal. At the time of his signing, there were investigations into whether or not the Clippers and Kawhi received improper benefits. At the time, the NBA's investigation found no wrongdoing but did release a strong statement that any evidence in the past could reopen investigations and face severe penalties.

Back in 2000 Joe Smith and the Timberwolves were found guilty of cap circumvention. The Timberwolves lost 5 first-round picks and faced heavy fines. They also voided Joe Smith's contract and made him a free agent.

I saw this this morning. I expect the Clippers are going to be facing a pretty stiff punishment for this. Wild stuff.

Torre has carved out a weird, interesting little niche for himself - essentially, using old-school investigative journalism techniques on odd little sports stories that haven't been followed up upon to his satisfaction, and publishing the results in podcast form. Feels like investigative journalism isn't in the budget for a lot of news organizations these days, much less in sports.

jnrjr79 wrote:I saw this this morning. I expect the Clippers are going to be facing a pretty stiff punishment for this. Wild stuff.

Ballmer bout to really pay.

Kawhi has to do his time too.

Both parties should pay heavily.

If the NBA voids Kawhi's contract and he becomes a free agent ala Joe Smiht in 2000. Where he signs could have huge implications on the season.

drosestruts wrote:If the NBA voids Kawhi's contract and he becomes a free agent ala Joe Smiht in 2000. Where he signs could have huge implications on the season.

Joe smith his ass

Stupid cheapskate Reinsdorf never created a fake tree company to funnel cash to players in violation of the CBA. Sell the team!

Clippers don't care about draft picks, but if they void Kawhi's contract that team is just done.
But without their draft picks it also makes zero sense to rebuild. They would be forced into NBA purgatory for years.

Kinda like what we do by our own choice.

I think it was incredibly stupid not to have Kawhi show up for 20 minutes, record a voice line saying "I love this company" into an iphone and it all would have been perfectly fine. Lots of NBA stars get sweetheart deals in endorsements and investments where they do almost nothing.

I can't see how the NBA doesn't come down hard on this if found he committed something shady. This is clearly suspect activity.

The one thing about Adam Silver, he may go easy on some things, but he doesn't play around with the integrity of the league and competition.

Talking with agents early during free agency is one thing - sure lose a second rounder. Who cares.

But ownership starts acting like an illegal college booster, then this is going to boil his blood.

And I am not naïve here.

Do I think star players get perks under the table? Absolutely. They probably are not 28 million dollar perks but perks nevertheless.

DASMACKDOWN wrote:I can't see how the NBA doesn't come down hard on this if found he committed something shady. This is clearly suspect activity.

The one thing about Adam Silver, he may go easy on some things, but he doesn't play around with the integrity of the league and competition.

Talking with agents early during free agency is one thing - sure lose a second rounder. Who cares.

But ownership starts acting like an illegal college booster, then this is going to boil his blood.

And I am not naïve here.

Do I think star players get perks under the table? Absolutely. They probably are not 28 million dollar perks but perks nevertheless.

Yeah, I think Silver will take this seriously in a general sense due to the attempt to avoid the cap, but twenty eight freaking million dollars is an enormous violation in terms of scope. The Joe Smith situation didn't involve any secret payments - Smith was just agreeing to below-market deals (so Minny could add more players) because he had been promised an above-market one on the back-end via his Bird rights.

The larger question is how commonplace is this type of practice? Is it isolated to Kawhi or do other franchises also do this for star players? It's a huge scandal regardless.

greenwing wrote:The larger question is how commonplace is this type of practice? Is it isolated to Kawhi or do other franchises also do this for star players? It's a huge scandal regardless.

If I had to guess, something on this scale is probably rare. One, only some owners would find it financially desirable to throw 8-figures of money at a player who they are already paying handsomely, and two, I think a lot of franchises would be legitimately worried about the punishment if caught.

I imagine smaller perks, though, are more commonplace.

Assuming this is true, I hope Silver throws the book at the Clippers. If Kawhi's contract were invalidated, I wonder where he ends up next year. I assume the best he could do this offseason is find some team that hasn't used their MLE.

If the Clippers get a Joe Smith-esque punishment I wouldn't be shocked to see them relocate to another market, possibly with a new owner. The backlash from fans could be so severe that the org thinks a fresh start elsewhere is needed

I said this in the general board. If this is true then why pay him an additional 28 million in a shady deal? Was Kawhi really going to say no to the deal they already offered him? Where else was he going to go?

A tweet about Kawhi asking Toronto for endorsement deals and their front office lining up different endorsements that would have totaled $15m

League Circles wrote:If the Clippers get a Joe Smith-esque punishment I wouldn't be shocked to see them relocate to another market, possibly with a new owner. The backlash from fans could be so severe that the org thinks a fresh start elsewhere is needed

That seems pretty hard to envision after Ballmer just dropped $2 billion on an arena.

Dan Z wrote:I said this in the general board. If this is true then why pay him an additional 28 million in a shady deal? Was Kawhi really going to say no to the deal they already offered him? Where else was he going to go?

To my understanding, this was back in 2019, so the Lakers were in play and Toronto was also trying to keep him.

greenwing wrote:The larger question is how commonplace is this type of practice? Is it isolated to Kawhi or do other franchises also do this for star players? It's a huge scandal regardless.

I think the amount of money and Ballmers very public connection to the company are what stand out here.

I imagine teams do work with sponsors to get players involved - Bulls with Zenith eyewear and ads featuring Coby and Ayo come to mind.

But Ballmer being on record giving the company $50m and then the company giving Kawhie $28m and paying for sponsorship in the stadium all seem like Ballmer giving the company money to benefit the Clippers, and in the case of Kawhi, circumvent cap rules.

The $28m for Kawhi is also outrageous. It's reported that it's more than all other spokespeople/celebrity endorsements deals combined - including Drake, Rober Downey Jr, Leo Dicaprio, Cindy Crawford, and others.

And those endorsements actually did things for the company - even if something as simple as doing the voiceover for an ad.

jnrjr79 wrote:

League Circles wrote:If the Clippers get a Joe Smith-esque punishment I wouldn't be shocked to see them relocate to another market, possibly with a new owner. The backlash from fans could be so severe that the org thinks a fresh start elsewhere is needed

That seems pretty hard to envision after Ballmer just dropped $2 billion on an arena.

Damn I guess I had forgot about that. Still, I wouldn't be shocked to see an existing team move to LA to take over that arena and the Clippers go to a new market that currently doesn't have an nba team. That arena will be 50% full at most for years if the league hits them hard and they lose Kawhi and a bunch of draft picks.

League Circles wrote:

jnrjr79 wrote:

League Circles wrote:If the Clippers get a Joe Smith-esque punishment I wouldn't be shocked to see them relocate to another market, possibly with a new owner. The backlash from fans could be so severe that the org thinks a fresh start elsewhere is needed

That seems pretty hard to envision after Ballmer just dropped $2 billion on an arena.

Damn I guess I had forgot about that. Still, I wouldn't be shocked to see an existing team move to LA to take over that arena and the Clippers go to a new market that currently doesn't have an nba team. That arena will be 50% full at most for years if the league hits them hard and they lose Kawhi and a bunch of draft picks.

Yeah, I would have no issue with kicking Ballmer out of the league and moving the team to Seattle. I just can't see the NBA going quite that far.