Pablo Torre hints at a Knicks story?

[Tor_Raps]

Pablo Torres is about to become the NBA's boogeyman if he keeps researching contracts.

He will be found in his apartment as "committing suicide" real soon.

Uhh. Let's be more appropriate por favor. -b

[Shootit]

Pablo Torre has been banned from MSG.

[-Luke-]

Pablo Torres is about to become the NBA's boogeyman if he keeps researching contracts.

He will be found in his apartment as "committing suicide" real soon.

Was going to write "Pablo Torre didn't kill himself", but you beat me to it.

[gavran]

Good. Expose everything.

Expose what?

[HotelVitale]

Mark Cuban was smart enough to pay in crypto

Guy's a weasel out here covering for billionaires. He hears the guillotines being sharpened.

I dated someone who came from a rich family for a few years, and I saw first hand how rich people all hang out with each other and create this environment where they all think that the right moral and political thing is always to create more opportunities for rich people to make money. That's what helps the country and economy and the common man, period, anything more subtle or nuanced than that gets squashed. It's not just casual conversations or people picking up this idea via osmosis, they would go to seminars and read books that either directly reinforced this idea or just 100% assumed it and kind of built up everything around it. I thought it was pretty wild and would regularly talk with them about it, they were amused and respected my arguments--and then just went back to talking and thinking the exact same way.

My sense is that Cuban is 1000% caught up in that world and is trying to be 'real' with fans by saying that of course we skirt these rules because we're all about development and business and moving things forward, that's what really matters etc.

[og15]

As i said over past several days, difference between Ballmer and others who did it in past is just Aspiration burning in blaze of glory with $250M fraud and all the files being available to public. And one man who went through it and saw all the fishy crap.

This is *probably* common practice among nba superstars and owners. Heat big 3 also all took paycuts to "play together".
Given how passionate that tool Cuban was in defending Ballmer hints his Dirk team friendly deal was well paid in different fashion.
Kiriljenko in 2013 rejected $10,3M to play for his countryman Prokhorov for $3M, after advocating for him to become owner since 2009.

Would be interesting to know what's the salary of Brunsons father or they aren't THAT stupid

NBA is burning his credibility last 10-15 years or so. Basically since Tim Donaghy was only "mastermind" caught, whole league has been exposed. Very same Tim Donaghy called Scott Fisher 136 times over span of 6 months around investigation. Scott Fisher is still active referee. But, like it was case with NBA' investigation of Kawhi in 2019, nothing was found. Because, like with doping tests, it's never in NBA's best interest to find anything (at least anything more than what is already out ).
Just few years ago we had FTX being sponsor and arena name of nba team. One of worst ponzi schemes of all time


And yet, people think that draft ain't rigged. Because 30 billionaires will really let something as silly as ping pong balls decide faith of a League

Interestingly enough, owners doing underhanded deals to get players on their team and to increase their chance of winning is actually arguing against the idea that all 30 owners would be together on letting someone else just get top draft picks and actually is more supportive if them being like let the ping pong balls roll, because if I'm not getting it, I'm not letting the other guy get it. Anyone actually think a competitive guy like Ballmer who we are now finding out would even go to these lengths to get what he wants would be the type of person to agree to someone else getting a benefit when he doesn't need the league's money? A guy like Ballmer isn't like those owners who are happy to receive luxury tax payments and just make a profit, so this actually argues the opposite way.

If the story was about owners colluding to get certain players to certain teams during free agency, vs trying to get for themselves, it would better support that.

Your assumption is that owners care about winning. In reality, they don't. You have so many teams who's only purpose is self-sustainability that brings profit. So many teams will go out of their ways just to avoid paying luxury or come close to aprons. in a league of 30, during entire history of a league, 10 never won title. Than you have i think 9 teams with 1 title. Whole culture of championships boils down to 5 to 6 teams at most. But basically it's just Celtics and Lakers + Duncan & Pop era, Jordan & Jackson era and Kerr & Curry. All other teams are below 4 titles during entire history.



Dan Gilbert history:
2010 - open letter where he promises better future to Cavs
2011- first lottery win- 2,8% probability
2012 - Pelicans without owner win lottery #shocking
2013- Cavs win lottery again (15,6% chance)
2014- Cavs win lottery again -1,70% chance

Lebron returns.


So one Ballmer, who is top 6 richest people in the world, for damn sure has different aspirations (cheating to win title i guess) than one Bulls owner, who's whole family depends on that team, or OKC ownership group back in a day when they refused to pay luxury tax to keep Harden.
Pre Ballmer, Sterling used 12 men roster ( minimum level allowed by league at times) just to save money.

This whole idea of owners keeping team to win titles is marketing stunt and nothing else. When league wasn't doing well in around 2010s, and Pelicans were for sell, nobody wanted to buy them because there was no money to be made. Out of thin air, Pelicans are winning super hyped Anthony Davis. Money he paid for a team is kind a silly from today's POV. $338M.

What I'm saying isn't that ALL owners care about winning, it's that you have enough owners (minority or course) who care about winning or as just hobby owners who are doing this for the competition to not allow them to do a coordinated thing that does not directly benefit that owner.

Not, there are other things they can all collude together on, no doubt, but the draft one is a tough one to work out due to the fact that you're just not going to get everyone on board with that, and if the idea being thrown out is that they are all colliding together in that, it's just not one that they would agree on.

[Effigy]

Good. Expose everything.

Expose what?

Everything.

[magee]

Good. Expose everything.

Expose what?

Basically all the shady deals that look head-scratch worthy at the time of the deal.

It's one thing to say the Knicks were the frontrunners to get Brunson. There were plenty of ties to it. The real issue is more so with his Dad having more potential pull within the organization than his designated Assistant Coach role would normally have for teams. That's the only real concern I could see with the Knicks and Brunson. Maybe his year-early extension might be cause for concern? But I think the Knicks would have ponied up for his Supermax, pending he is able to be eligible for it in a year or two, anyways.

Outside of that, any deal that looks iffy will now come under scrutiny due to bad business agreements. Money talks!

[Inigo Montoya]

I hope Torre will expose every team that does this.

[hauntedcomputer]

My sense is that Cuban is 1000% caught up in that world and is trying to be 'real' with fans by saying that of course we skirt these rules because we're all about development and business and moving things forward, that's what really matters etc.

He sold out to a gambling empire, so there's that.

[Bad Bart]

Mark Cuban was smart enough to pay in crypto

Guy's a weasel out here covering for billionaires. He hears the guillotines being sharpened.

I dated someone who came from a rich family for a few years, and I saw first hand how rich people all hang out with each other and create this environment where they all think that the right moral and political thing is always to create more opportunities for rich people to make money. That's what helps the country and economy and the common man, period, anything more subtle or nuanced than that gets squashed. It's not just casual conversations or people picking up this idea via osmosis, they would go to seminars and read books that either directly reinforced this idea or just 100% assumed it and kind of built up everything around it. I thought it was pretty wild and would regularly talk with them about it, they were amused and respected my arguments--and then just went back to talking and thinking the exact same way.

My sense is that Cuban is 1000% caught up in that world and is trying to be 'real' with fans by saying that of course we skirt these rules because we're all about development and business and moving things forward, that's what really matters etc.

Excellently put, I don't think many people can wrap their heads around the idea that everyone involved considers themselves a part of the club, and the club believes, as you put it, 'the right moral and political thing is always to create more opportunities for rich people to make money'. This ethos informs their decisions, everything else is just window dressing. The common can get a nice pat on the head.

[gavran]

Good. Expose everything.

Expose what?

Everything.

But there is nothing. So that?

[Lalouie]

is pablo becoming the "60minutes" of the nba

[God Squad]

I don't know much about Brunson and the Knicks' signing, admittedly. But if they did anything, it wasn't as blatant as KL and the Clippers. I expect nothing will come from this Brunson/Knicks talk.

[bfchs123]

Can Pablo please look into the Mavs being awarded the #1 pick for trading Luka to the Lakers?

[the_process]

I hope Torre will expose every team that does this.

You mean every team? The league doesn't want to punish Ballmer. But if Torre finds a couple more smoking guns, they're not going to have a choice.

Unless they change the name of the league to the NBEA.

[Inigo Montoya]

I hope Torre will expose every team that does this.

You mean every team? The league doesn't want to punish Ballmer. But if Torre finds a couple more smoking guns, they're not going to have a choice.

Unless they change the name of the league to the NBEA.

Yes, every and any team, including the Jazz if they do such things. Obviously the league doesn't want to punish Ballmer, and I'm expecting the Clippers will get a slap on the wrist at most.

[Effigy]

Expose what?

Everything.

But there is nothing. So that?

There are no hidden stories anywhere in the NBA? We know absolutely everything? Nobody's on PEDs, nobody but the Clippers ever made a deal like the Kawhi thing, no league mandated referree stuff, nothing? I somehow doubt it. Expose everything means expose the things we're not aware of. So you can't say there's nothing since we just aren't aware of it yet. If we knew about it, it would already have been exposed.