Kawhi "no-show job" that paid $28M

[TheAlchemist23]

We're here for Kawhi and the Clippers downfall

[TheAlchemist23]

Also reports of Kawhi getting $20 million in Aspiration stock for a total of $48 mill, about the amount Ballmer 'invested' into Aspiration ($50 mill)

"KL2 Aspire LLC"

It's like those skits of rappers' lyrics being used against them by the authorities

Not that any of this is illegal on Kawhi's part, provided he paid the proper taxes on this income. Ballmer might get in trouble for allegdly cheating out his business partners of their dividends of what would've been higher Clippers' salary cap tax payments.

[Raptors Realtor]

Clippers fans on Reddit:

From the moment we got Kawhi it has been continuous letdowns and for a lack of better word, turmoil.

From him bending us over backwards to trade ALL our assets for PG instead of trusting our front office, to the injuries (tho not exactly his fault), to the first few years he would commute from San Diego to practice/games, to barely speaking about the team whatsoever (heard him speak more on this Asia shoe tour than I think his entire Clippers career), to not sitting on the bench when he was injured, to all this Uncle Dennis bs, to making Team USA, having a workout then being sent home, to the front office never revealing when he would come back from injuries, always playing coy, to now this alleged being paid under the table bull…

I’m just tired boss. Tired of the disruptions.

Lebron always rubbed me the wrong way with the power struggle with his team’s front offices, with Klutch sports and what should be a conflict of interest, with him playing GM and picking players and coaches… but tbh, Kawhi is just as bad, only it’s not magnified cause dude is a mute.

Amazing player when he actually plays, but with all the shenanigans, I’m just kind of over it, and tbh been over it.

Hope we don’t get punished too hard, hope Ballmer stays the owner, but also I want off this Kawhi ride and can’t wait to see us move on and stop moving heaven and Earth for him.

I haven’t been loving Kawhi for about 2 years now and I wanted him badly back in 2019. I was predicting he would go to us when most people thought he was going to the Fakers.

The guy has done more harm to our franchise more than anyone. He was the one who wanted Paul George because he didn’t believe we had a good enough team to win when we had just won 48 games with zero all-stars and took the Warriors with a healthy KD to 6 games. Houston only took them to 6 but with KD out by Game 5. Kawhi didn’t have the foresight in SGA. PatBev was right. We only needed HIM. That’s all they ever needed before trading away the entire farm and losing our depth for him that costs us 10 years.

Prior to getting him, he was trying to weasel his way out of San Antonio, one of the most respectable franchises out there. Maybe because he couldn’t handle Pop’s meddling and suppressing his stats. Then he ditches Toronto after winning a chip for them after we stalked him for an entire season, pretty much violating the rules with our tampering. Kawhi entire game mimics MJ and more of Kobe. Iso ball 1-on-1. It doesn’t work in today’s game when the ball needs to keep swinging around and around.

I say, **** him. We need to keep worrying about his knees and B2B games. If Kawhi was on another team, I bet the OP wouldn’t defend him at all. OP would go full roast if he was a Laker. But since he plays for our Clippers, we need to defend and be in this denial like some do with Ty Lue and when we still had Doc Rivers. Then after Kawhi is gone, you start going to town with him saying he was a big waste of money and time for us. How we lost a decade by trying to swing big with him which ended up being a huge miss.

For all the **** LeBron gets, at least he tries not to miss games. Dude is going to turn 41. While he helped deliver a bubble championship, it’s still a championship. They also won the first NBA Cup. We can’t even win Summer League or make the cut for the Cup. Lakers won 6 playoff series while we won only 3 since 2020. Hate Lakers and LeBron all you want. He is an egomaniac but the Lakers mostly got their money’s worth with him. We got TEMU LeBron or TEMU MJ/Kobe who has never been worth it.

Really ask yourself was Kawhi really worth it? The answer is a big fat NO. I respect Kawhi’s game. I get that. I’m not blind what I’m seeing when he does play. But his defenders become blind after anything bad he does. Great player. The greatest player we ever had. Questionable character with he and Uncle Dennis carrying lots of baggage.

It's the karma we were all hoping for after Frank and the Clips stalked him and tampered all season, and Kawhi chose to leave a good thing thinking he could replicate it in La La land.

[blastttOFF]

Where do we start up the thank you to Kawhi thread, to not only thank him for winning us a championship, but for also choosing the Clippers to bring this disaster, an organization that truly deserves all the mess it has seen over the decades.

Kawhi Leonard should be creating a thread thanking the Raptors for giving him a championship because there’s no way he was winning one with any of the other teams. Dude is lucky he ended up on such a stacked team, with a bunch of dudes who played so well together that they compensated for his selfish individual game, and not giving a **** about his teammates. This dude would not win any championship as a leader of his team imo.

lol cmon now.
He literally had a top 5 all time playoff performance.

[blastttOFF]

Also reports of Kawhi getting $20 million in Aspiration stock for a total of $48 mill, about the amount Ballmer 'invested' into Aspiration ($50 mill)

2 million goes to Aspire for providing its services lol

[NinjaBro]

We're here for Kawhi and the Clippers downfall

Lol

[Thaddy]

Leonard needs to face suspension and strict rules. The Clippers need to forfeit several picks. They need to go through the dry spell they had back before when they had the creepy owner.

[ArthurVandelay]

Read on Twitter

?t=FbFh186ORTrQSkFH-jkUDg&s=19

I’m waiting for the tweet: “In other totally coincidental and unrelated news, Steve Ballmer has retained the services of Wachtell, Lipton, Rose and Katz to audit the Intuit Dome construction. This contract is valued at 5x whatever the NBA is paying to investigate Kawhi-Aspiration contract.”

[tecumseh18]

Read on Twitter

?t=FbFh186ORTrQSkFH-jkUDg&s=19

I’m waiting for the tweet: “In other totally coincidental and unrelated news, Steve Ballmer has retained the services of Wachtell, Lipton, Rose and Katz to audit the Intuit Dome construction. This contract is valued at 5x whatever the NBA is paying to investigate Kawhi-Aspiration contract.”

Hah, someone who knows how the game is played by the super rich. Retain every major law firm for different tasks, putting in them in a conflict position should another party attempt to retain them to sue you. "Succession" had a sequence featuring this crafty manoeuvre.

[LascelleL]

We were defrauded out of a 2nd and potentially 3rd Ring and no one can convince me otherwise.

What's worse the ripple effect of Kawhi's decision to go to LA eventually led to Masai being fired.

[ATLTimekeeper]

Kawhi's life is veering toward biopic potential.

[Basketball_Jones]

This kind of sad they did all this to lose Shai and they didn’t even make an NBA Finals. It’s still a stacked team they have but they’ve peaked.

[beanbag]

Where do we start up the thank you to Kawhi thread, to not only thank him for winning us a championship, but for also choosing the Clippers to bring this disaster, an organization that truly deserves all the mess it has seen over the decades.

Kawhi Leonard should be creating a thread thanking the Raptors for giving him a championship because there’s no way he was winning one with any of the other teams. Dude is lucky he ended up on such a stacked team, with a bunch of dudes who played so well together that they compensated for his selfish individual game, and not giving a **** about his teammates. This dude would not win any championship as a leader of his team imo.

Be serious

[deeps6x]

Is the scammer in jail now? I don't give a fk so I didn't pay attention to that part of the story.

However, if he is in jail, should he now fear for his life (suicided) because he could try to trade info on the Balmer/Kawhi situation for a reduced sentence? Maybe Balmer, one of the richest, most powerful people in America, is quaking in his boots about what this guy might say about it. Hell, even if the scammer has nothing legit to say about it, Balmer should be afraid of what he might say anyway (as a lie), and the effect it could have on him and on the Clippers.

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

Mad at Kawhi for what? Winning us a chip! Making magic with Kyle? If he broke the rules he can pay the penalty but guess what we probably would have beat the deal if Kawhi let us. At the end of the day Kawhi wanted to go back to LA. That is how we got him in the first place. Spurs didn’t want to enable that. We were such a great fit and spot with Kawhi, and he was sooo good, that he created that kind of market. I don’t see it as any worse - with him leaving than before. Sucks that he left. We would have went back to back at least - but he’s missed on our those championships too. Still had the greatest parade of all time and I will always root for anyone associated with that title.

[ShawnTO]

Read on Twitter

Seriously though, Silver has to come down HARD on this or every rich owner's gonna be giving money under the table.

They've also gotta investigate every "discount" other players have taken, like the additional $113 million Jalen Brunson could've gotten on his last contract.

[T_saurus]

I want compensation!!

Sent from my Pixel 8 using RealGM mobile app

[DreamTeam09]

NBA cannot subpoena records according to Jake Fisher, so again this isn't going to be cut & dry.
Team sponsors can sponsor players separately,
-Tatum in Boston - Crypto arena has a deal with Embiid
-Deals being tied to the player being in that organization is also common practice

I don't have a skin in the race, but again there's enough plausible deniability that nothing is going to happen. You have to prove that this is a coordinated scheme and that hasn't happen with the information that's been made aware to us.

[PushDaRock]

NBA cannot subpoena records according to Jake Fisher, so again this isn't going to be cut & dry.
Team sponsors can sponsor players separately,
-Tatum in Boston - Crypto arena has a deal with Embiid
-Deals being tied to the player being in that organization is also common practice

I don't have a skin in the race, but again there's enough plausible deniability that nothing is going to happen. You have to prove that this is a coordinated scheme and that hasn't happen with the information that's been made aware to us.

Is it common practice for someone to get 48m without needing to do anything other than be on a Basketball team?

The dollar amount and job requirement (doing nothing) is what makes this relevant. Do you think we have an investigation over this if Kawhi was getting paid 100k a year?

[DreamTeam09]

NBA cannot subpoena records according to Jake Fisher, so again this isn't going to be cut & dry.
Team sponsors can sponsor players separately,
-Tatum in Boston - Crypto arena has a deal with Embiid
-Deals being tied to the player being in that organization is also common practice

I don't have a skin in the race, but again there's enough plausible deniability that nothing is going to happen. You have to prove that this is a coordinated scheme and that hasn't happen with the information that's been made aware to us.

Is it common practice for someone to get 48m without needing to do anything other than be on a Basketball team?

The dollar amount and job requirement (doing nothing) is what makes this relevant. Do you think we have an investigation over this if Kawhi was getting paid 100k a year?

The dollar amount is irrelevant imo unless there's a clause in the league / and yeah I'm sure plenty of sponsorship deals come with players not actually even doing something. If Kawhi did a commercial or actually planted a tree somewhere would that make things on the up n up also?