Around the NBA 13

[Bassman]

In related news the Hornets have been paying Lamelo under the table with free tattoo sessions

And he’s cashing them in….BIGLY. Starting to look like the sideshow guy we saw at a roadside circus many years ago when I was a pup.

Agree, Skeletor has no guts, and will create some manufactured penalties that seem harsh but are actually gamed out to lessen the severity on the Clippers.

How about that PJ Washington? Geez, their front line is STACKED.

[fatlever]

If anything the world has taught us, Especially recently, is that rich billionaires have a different set of rules than the rest of us.
Maybe this is a little bit different when one super rich billionaire cheats in order to get a leg up on a bunch of other less rich billionaires. Then again I'm guessing all of the billionaires don't want the NBA poking around their finances. So they will probably keep their mouth shut. And Silver will probably quietly have the NBA do some kind of investigation that takes 18 months and then disappears with a whimper.

[fatlever]

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welp... We've already billionaires lining up to defend the other billionaires.

[Bassman]

FatLever said “ welp... We've already billionaires lining up to defend the other billionaires.”

Yep. IT’S AN EXCLUSIVE CLUB AND WE’RE NOT IN IT.

[Diop]

Just finished watching the entire Pablo Finds Out episode. Not only they did was very much against the CBA but it was also incredibly illegal when it comes to defrauding investors. There's already a huge investigation into the company that led to some charges. The way they wrote that contract for Kawhi Leonard basically said he had to do absolutely nothing other than to be a Clipper to receive his 28 million. All this happened when he initially signed with the Clippers and there was a bunch of stink about how Uncle Dennis was going around asking for teams that were interested in signing Leonard to promise some type of Endorsement money. The being said I'm still skeptical that the NBA will try to go head to head against Steve Balmer.

I haven't watched it, is there evidence that will hold up to the scrutiny of a court or just gossip and hearsay? That's going to matter with the amount of expensive lawyers involved.

To me this highlights how much a tightass MJ was, he could have easily done similar:

[Diop]

FatLever said “ welp... We've already billionaires lining up to defend the other billionaires.”

Yep. IT’S AN EXCLUSIVE CLUB AND WE’RE NOT IN IT.

Time to check the endorsement deals some of the Mavs got. Nowitzki was probably the ambassador for 13 non existent companies.

"Dirk Nowitzki, the face of the Dallas Farriers Luxury Experience"

[fatlever]

Just finished watching the entire Pablo Finds Out episode. Not only they did was very much against the CBA but it was also incredibly illegal when it comes to defrauding investors. There's already a huge investigation into the company that led to some charges. The way they wrote that contract for Kawhi Leonard basically said he had to do absolutely nothing other than to be a Clipper to receive his 28 million. All this happened when he initially signed with the Clippers and there was a bunch of stink about how Uncle Dennis was going around asking for teams that were interested in signing Leonard to promise some type of Endorsement money. The being said I'm still skeptical that the NBA will try to go head to head against Steve Balmer.

I haven't watched it, is there evidence that will hold up to the scrutiny of a court or just gossip and hearsay? That's going to matter with the amount of expensive lawyers involved.

To me this highlights how much a tightass MJ was, he could have easily done similar:

pablo doesnt **** around. He's very thorough. I've been watching a lot of his stuff over the past year. And I would imagine before they aired this podcast that they had a team of lawyers review all of the evidence. its very compelling evidence - all filed documents/contracts - corroborated by 7 different former employees of the company.
but can they prove In the court of law or in the court of CBA arbitration or whatever? Who knows.

[fatlever]

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[fatlever]

The end of the day it will probably be pretty hard for the NBA to prove that the Clippers had full knowledge and support of the deal that Kawhi Leonard Uncle Dennis and their LLC signed as an endorsement with aspiration, even though Aspiration was a sponsor of the Clippers and had received $50 million from Steve Ballmer. The Way the Endorsement contract for Leonard is written is obviously very cleverly worded. All that being said, Any ounce of common sense knows exactly what is going on here. On what earth would a company pay an athlete $28 million to endorse their company but not actually ever do a single thing publicly or privately To endorse any part of the company and have it written in the contract that he never did have to do anything other than on the Clippers.

If aspiration wants to they can ask Leonard to like five tweets over the course of a year. If Aspiration wants to they can ask Leonard to sign 50 autographs over the course of the next year. If Aspiration wants to they can ask Leonard to show up at an event. Leonard has the right to refuse any requests from aspiration based on personal Beliefs. Personal beliefs are never defined and therefore a complete blank slate. Contract will only be terminated if Leonard is no longer a member of the Clippers.

That's essentially what the contract states. Basically a bunch of if they want him to do it they can ask him but he doesn't have to do it If he doesn't wanna do it and can give any reason under the sun to not do it. And they can only terminate his contract once he's not playing for the Clippers. And despite all that according to the 7 sources from Aspiration, Kawhi Leonard never did a single thing related to endorsing the company.

And all this on the back of all those rumors when Kawhi Leonard was leaving Toronto that Uncle Dennis was asking for guarantees from teams guarantee a certain level of endorsement money for Leonard.

What on earth would aspiration have to gain by giving Kawhi Leonard $28 million to do nothing other than to be on the Clippers? And also never make it public that he is representing aspiration in any shape or form. Therefore gaining absolutely nothing from having him represent them.

This is essentially no different than the old wink wink college recruitment deals where The star quarterback agrees to go to the college and in the summer he's given an internship at a company owned by a super wealthy sponsor where they pay him $2 million to never show up for work.

[GoBobs]

How could the NBA not have some rules in place to prevent an owner from investing in a third company that turns around and pays a player.

[fatlever]

How could the NBA not have some rules in place to prevent an owner from investing in a third company that turns around and pays a player.

they do

[fatlever]

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zach adds some great context to the clips/leonard situation
summary: clips *should* be completely **** based on current cba rules
- circumstantial evidence is enough -> there is more than enough
- contracts/endorsements must meet "fair market value" -> leonard was paid way over market value - 28mil for nothing at all
- contracts that cant rationally be explained -> can be viewed as violation
- does balmer have plausible deniability and does it matter
- people around league say this is not something "every team does"
- league has a board meeting in 6 days. perfect timing to discuss

[JDR720]

The hammer should be dropped on them. Depends on if Silver/the other owners are mad enough though. Definitely a PR nightmare.

Also funny that Kawhi was being paid to do nothing... also in this endorsement deal.

[yosemiteben]

With the changes to the CBA for the apron penalties, feels like the league is incentivized to send a message with how they handle this situation

[Diop]

How could the NBA not have some rules in place to prevent an owner from investing in a third company that turns around and pays a player.

they do

Well then it should be a no brainer. How many advantages does LA **** need to sign players? They were already a "big market" city, shouldn't need this extra billionaire cheating ****.

[Chapelchilla]

It sounds like they are guilty and should pay a hefty price. The NBA has a legitimacy issue with the draft lottery "fixing", weird Lakers trades and this stuff. Time to clean up and level the playing field a bit.

[fatlever]

How could the NBA not have some rules in place to prevent an owner from investing in a third company that turns around and pays a player.

they do

Well then it should be a no brainer. How many advantages does LA **** need to sign players? They were already a "big market" city, shouldn't need this extra billionaire cheating ****.

its not against rules for that triangle to exist
but
its must be fair market value for services rendered
contract must logically make sense

[Bassman]

Wow…OKC’s #15 pick Thomas Sorber, who was recovering from injury, tears his ACL and is out for this upcoming season. From ESPN:

Oklahoma City Thunder rookie big man Thomas Sorber tore the ACL in his right knee and will miss the 2025-26 season, the team announced.

Sorber, the 15th pick in the draft out of Georgetown, was injured during a workout in Oklahoma City on Thursday.

This will be the second straight season that an Oklahoma City first-round pick missed the entire season because of an ACL tear. Guard Nikola Topic, the No. 12 pick in 2024, was recovering from surgery when the Thunder selected him in the lottery.

Sorber averaged 14.5 points, 8.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 2.0 blocks and 1.5 steals per game as a freshman at Georgetown last season.

[fatlever]

Yesterday Pablo put out his one-on-one interview with Mark Cuban where they debated the Clippers situation. I still can't see why Cuban is trying to defend Steve Ballmer so much... Cubans defense of Ballmer basically boils down to the following

- He got scammed. Scammers are smart. All of us have been scammed including - Mark Cuban.

- billionaire owners are way too busy to be involved in day-to-day stuff at this level. The 50 million donation was a drop in the bucket and would not have caused bomber to put any more eyes or effort into aspiration as a company.

- there's no way ballmer could possibly be so dumb as to have anything that would potentially Trace back to the Clippers

- discounts the seven employees who all confirmed that it was basically understood and company-wide knowledge that signing Kawhi Leonard was away for the Clippers to circumvent the salary cap. His explanation is that the scammers scammed the employees and convinced them that they had to keep their mouth shut for this reason so that they wouldn't talk about the fact that they are scammers as a company. Their way to get their employees to keep their mouth shut was to tell them a lie that this was to circumvent the salary cap and that's why it had to be hush hush.

- the reason the out clause related to the contract being terminated if he no longer played for the Clippers, was simply that as partners with the Clippers they wanted Kawhi Leonard on the team to help their own investment.

In my opinion, none of Cubans arguments hold up when you look at the entirety of all of these circumstantial evidence, and the fact that Kawhi Leonard threw his brother had tried to do this back in 2019 during the original free agency or the fact that Steve Ballmer had already been found guilty in 2015 of trying to circumvent the salary cap.

I appreciate Mark Cuban's willingness to go on the podcast and debate with Pablo one-on-one for an hour. And as far as billionaires go Cuban ranks fairly low on what I consider the who is the most evil Evil billionaire list. There's no such thing as a good billionaire, but he's nowhere near the bond villain level of billionaire villains like the nerd reich. But I find his arguments to be ridiculous. And this is the same argument he tried to use when all of the reports about all the inappropriate behavior happening in the Mavericks front office came to light a while back. That he was simply too busy to be involved in that level of day-to-day stuff and would have no idea of all that awful **** that was happening under his ownership.

[Diop]

Definitely feels like Cuban is defending his club mate oblivious to whatever evidence is presented.

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Players and agents should be held accountable as well. Players already earn a ridiculous amount of money, this type of negotiation needs to be called out and punished.