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

[bstein14]

Jail time I hope? This is clearly fraud

That makes no sense. Jail time would only be if he was given $28 million and didn't pay taxes on it or claim it as income.

This has nothing illegal going on on Leonard's part. Just broke NBA rules by paying him through their companies.

This is more like the Joe Smith situation. Multiple picks and voided contract should be what happens. Joe Smith eventually got to sign with the Pistons after his contract was voided.

[bstein14]

Ballmer is by far the richest of NBA owners. I could see the NBA letting this slide because its likely known its happened before (likely to lesser degrees) that agents know about and perhaps many more of these situations come out of the woodworks if they drop down harsh penalties. It seems like its one of those things that's bad for the league overall if 5 or 6 of these situations pop up and become public.

[Mark_83]

I'm going to guess there's a 99.99% chance that they face absolutely zero consequences.

[hyper316]

Uncle Dennis using Kawhi, sad to see

[Mak]

It can be a tax issue where he could face criminal charges but it is not likely to happen.

Income Tax Evasion:

Misclassification of Income: If the $28 million was really NBA compensation but reported as business income from marketing/endorsement work, this could constitute tax fraud
Different Tax Rates: Employment income vs. business income can have different tax implications, withholding requirements, and deduction opportunities

Corporate Tax Issues:

Leonard's LLC (KL2 Aspire): If the company received $28 million but provided no legitimate services, there could be issues with:

Phantom income reporting
Improper business expense deductions
State and federal corporate tax violations

[Kurtz]

Ballmer is by far the richest of NBA owners. I could see the NBA letting this slide because its likely known its happened before (likely to lesser degrees) that agents know about and perhaps many more of these situations come out of the woodworks if they drop down harsh penalties. It seems like its one of those things that's bad for the league overall if 5 or 6 of these situations pop up and become public.

I view it the complete opposite way - it's one thing for the league to keep this hush hush when no one knows otherwise, but once the news has broken, the onus is on the league to be transparent and make the best effort at rectifying the situation.

Look at the gambling situation - it may be in the best interest of the league to keep everything secret, but once the investigation target start becoming public, they do take action. Look at Beasley for example - his contract was cancelled after a hint of impropriety, even though he was cleared shortly thereafter.

[bstein14]

Ballmer is by far the richest of NBA owners. I could see the NBA letting this slide because its likely known its happened before (likely to lesser degrees) that agents know about and perhaps many more of these situations come out of the woodworks if they drop down harsh penalties. It seems like its one of those things that's bad for the league overall if 5 or 6 of these situations pop up and become public.

I view it the complete opposite way - it's one thing for the league to keep this hush hush when no one knows otherwise, but once the news has broken, the onus is on the league to be transparent and make the best effort at rectifying the situation.

Look at the gambling situation - it may be in the best interest of the league to keep everything secret, but once the investigation target start becoming public, they do take action. Look at Beasley for example - his contract was cancelled after a hint of impropriety, even though he was cleared shortly thereafter.

But the Beasley situation the league was the one who was made aware of the investigation (even earlier than they told anyone) and the league is who made it public right before FA started, likely to protect their teams/owners. Beasley and the league both knew for a while that the investigation was going on and the league only made it public just before the start of FA.

This isn't a situation where the league made it public.... the league previously "investigated" this situation already and they supposedly didn't come up with enough evidence to do anything about it.

[Boardbreaker]

But the league already “investigated” and found nothing…

[Raptors Realtor]

[bluerap23]

There will likely be 29 very pissed off owners. Hard to imagine there are no (private) consequences.

[WaltFrazier]

I started to listen to the Pablo podcast on the Knicks board but it's 1:40 long so I only heard the intro and background. An hour plus is a long time to commit They laughed about how the two founders of Aspire are prominent Democrats and Harvard grads. But I didn't go far enough to know, is the whole Aspire company a fraud and a scam? Or just the idea that Ballmer circumvented NBA rules to pay Kawhi more money?

[TheRealDeal]

Kawhi wanted to go home but he was never gonna walk away from almost $90M guaranteed unless something else was making up the difference. The Raptors’ 5-year max was our best bargaining chip, and if he left that on the table, it’s pretty clear there were going to be other incentives in play

[OakleyDokely]

Silver going to come down hard on the Clipps and take away their 2051 2nd round pick

[bstein14]

Kawhi wanted to go home but he was never gonna walk away from almost $90M guaranteed unless something else was making up the difference. The Raptors’ 5-year max was our best bargaining chip, and if he left that on the table, it’s pretty clear there were going to be other incentives in play

Raptors 5 years $190 million
Clippers 4 years $141 million (but 4th year player option he opted out of)

Biggest thing here was also the % raises that he could have gotten were higher with bird rights. If you look at the 7 year value of the contract.

When considering his next contract being based off his previous, he likely left $27-$28ish million on the table by going to the Clippers.

Raptors Max $190 over 5 + a later max on the next deal (Total would have been about $306 million over 7 years)

$33 $36 $39 $42 $47 $52 $57 = 7 years $306

Clippers Max $103 for the first three years and then $176 for the next 4 years (total about $279 over 7 years)

The fact that over seven years, signing with the Clippers instead of the Raptors ended up costing Leonard $27-$28 million and that's exactly the amount that Leonard got on this side deal is pretty damning.

[OakleyDokely]

After kawhi left, Masai was very cryptic when asked about it, and he mentioned at the time that there were certain demands they couldn't agree to. Everyone assumed it was the PG trade, but I'd be shocked if Uncle Dennis didn't run this scheme by Masai as well.

[C Court]

But the league already “investigated” and found nothing…

The league investigated the 2019 contract with the Clippers and found nothing. Apparently, this new 'deal' occured at the same time he signed his 2021 extension with LAC and it was not directly tied to the 2019 signing.

So it isn't a stretch to suspect that Ballmer told Kawhi and Uncle Dennis that the 2019 two year deal needed to be clean - because everyone knew that the NBA would investigate. However, 'wink-wink' - down the road there would be something extra paid to Kawhi.

What we are probably seeing here is that Ballmer had a handshake deal to look after Kawhi in 2021 when the heat was off and once he had more time to develop an untraceable sweetheart endorsement deal for $28 million.

Anyway you look at it, it all stinks.

[lobosloboslobos]

edit: ah, skip it, bad karma

[wegotthabeet]

The Raps need picks for this bs.

[pilkoids]

Should look into Brunsons contract next

Sent from my SM-S918W using RealGM mobile app

[YogurtProducer]

Force Ballmer to sell and boot Kawhi from the league.

Set a precedent. What better way to appear "tough" on this than to ban a player who wasn't gonna play much anymore anyways.