Kawhi Leonard Signed a Secret $28M Deal. Steve Ballmer Funded a Fraud. We Followed the Money. | PTFO

[MagicMamba88]

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Did the richest owner in sports sweeten the pot for the most private star in the NBA? Pablo Torre investigates a tree-planting green bank called Aspiration... unearths more than 3,000 pages of exclusive documents... and speaks to high-level sources, ultimately linking Kawhi Leonard's "no-show" endorsement deal to his contracts with the Clippers; to his Uncle Dennis; and to owner Steve Ballmer's personal $50M investment in a company that's now being probed by the U.S. government. Former front-office executives Amin Elhassan and David Samson react to the reporting and wonder how Adam Silver will look into these new allegations of salary-cap circumvention — and whether Ballmer's money took "a round trip."

[AleksandarN]

This will make the Joe Smith secret contract scandal with the Minnesota look small if true. I expect the Clippers to be fined loss of draft picks and possibly more.

[xb3at band1tx]

Im guessing Ballmer gets a slap on a wrist but this sounds like the Joe Smith deal but even more egregious and high profile.

Silver is at a crossroads with this, protect the big market/richest owner in the league or set an example

[itrsteve]

Doesn't seem like a stretch, gets tough when you try to put a billionaire on a level playing field.

[ORLMagicGirl15]

If the allegations are determined to be true then the Clippers are going to lose 2 second round draft picks. That’ll teach every other owner.

[GrindCityHustle]

Kawhi was given an offer he couldn't refuse to leave Toronto.

The whole "Uncle Dennis and being in LA" wouldn't have mattered if Toronto could have matched this type of money.

In the end it didn't really work out for the Clippers except to fully rid themselves of the Sterling legacy. They are also considered a place franchise players will go to now even though they didn't win a title doing this.

[BasketballAnon]

I think the league is rigged and fake anyway but this should be a huge scandal. It should bother everyone including fans, gamblers, players, coaches and owners. It's cheating and it should honestly probably even require a federal investigation. Imagine being one of the worst teams in the league or one of the players on that team who is actually playing by the salary cap rules and working with absolute trash while The Clippers are paying season changing superstars under the table.

[Bergmaniac]

I am not surprised, this kind of stuff probbly happens pretty often, teams have a massive incentive to circumvent the cap for the top superstars since max contract are so far below the market value.

[slicedbread2]

Are we surprised? Ballmer using the same tactics that he learned at Microsoft which allowed them to run a hardware sweatshop for multiple decades.

As for Kawhi, well he got what he wanted and so did his Uncle. Honestly he's probably a bigger diva than he lets on. It's always the quiet dudes that you gotta watch out for.

As far as what Silver will do: nothing. There's more optimism, spine and wisdom in a funeral home and cemetery than there is in Silver actually doing something of note. Rules for me and rules for thee. Captain spineless: leader of men!

[seren]

You either have a cap or you don’t. The league should take the ownership away but for all we know, the punishment will be not been close.

[UcanUwill]

This would be bigger story if Kawhis NBA contract wasn't actually enormous as is.

[Domejandro]

Should be a massive punishment, but I'm sure it'll be a slap on the wrist that will make my grapes even more sour about the Joe Smith punishment.

[Mavrelous]

The hoops Ballmer had to jump through to have this failure of an experiment is quite astounding...
I doubt anything will come out of this, Ballmer is just too connected and too rich, other owners were happy to cash his luxury tax checks...

[Bob Ross]

The NBA did exactly nothing with the Nets when that book came out and exposed all the cap circumvention with Durant and Irving. I expect the same here

[CelticSooner]

They got caught, a severe punishment should be handed out. Silver doesn’t have the spine to do it though and they’ll lose very little if anything.

[bonita_the_frog]

Kawhi's had such a weird career!

[uncleoswald]

it makes my skin crawl to support the league sometimes. i hope they come down hard on these guys - and that fans and media remember this dirty greed when they consider kawhi's "legacy" or "place in history."

[eminence]

I don't really like team based punishments (draft picks), but to me this is in the remove Ballmer from ownership tier.

[MoneyTalks41890]

If this is proven to be true, no reason for the punishment to be less than this. The NBA has been a joke on tampering enforcement, but if this is true they need to come down hard. If teams can circumvent the cap like this with minimal punishment, the NBA cap rules are meaningless and we have a free for all.

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This looks very bad.

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[firedavidkahn]

This will make the Joe Smith secret contract scandal with the Minnesota look small if true. I expect the Clippers to be fined loss of draft picks and possibly more.

100%

And given that it is the Clippers, I don't see Silver going soft on them. If it was the Lakers then this would be a slap on the wrist but the Clippers are the red headed step child of LA.

Circumventing the salary cap to sign players is a MASSIVE issue