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

[G R E Y]

I'm not 100% certain but I think there is likely enough cover for him in this situation at least from a federal perspective. It's probably unlikely that it can be proven that Ballmer was intended to or was able to enrich himself by doing what he did. A civil suit is maybe possible but going after Ballmer seems like potentially career suicide as well so I don't it's likely that gets pursued.

But yes, a lot can change as more info comes out.

There are a lot of potential legal issues. They paid Kawhi as a 1099 independent contractor when the true nature of the transaction was extra bonus compensation (since he provided nothing additionally to earn it). Since they paid him as an independent contractor, federal, state and local payroll taxes were not taken. In additon, withholdings were not made towards the NBA pension fund. They also had to falsify business records in order to complete the transaction.

There are additional potential charges related to the formation of the company itself and the conspiracy behind it. Was the company conducting true business activities or was it inherently just used as checkbook/savings account? This would effectively make the entire creation of this company a sham and criminal organization.

I'm not certain on this and definitely could be wrong but those legal issues IMO are probably more directed towards Kawhi and Uncle Dennis who benefitted from this than toward Ballmer himself.

Feels like there has to be a fall guy this time around.

[PushDaRock]

You can use it without putting it on an exchange. You can just keep it in an anonymous account and then do single person to person transfers when you want to cash out.

How are you cashing out to Fiat without going through an exchange that requires KYC?

Everyone in the gambling world uses crypto because it’s the easiest way to fund online sites. I just find someone I know who wants crypto. A lot of times too if I want more cash I’ll just pay my bookie in BTC on my losing weeks and receive cash on my winning weeks.

Yes and this requires trusting someone to not screw you over. There's plenty of scammers in the gambling world. We all know poker players lend each other money all the time, they certainly don't always get repaid though as there are plenty of dead beats around.

[PushDaRock]

There are a lot of potential legal issues. They paid Kawhi as a 1099 independent contractor when the true nature of the transaction was extra bonus compensation (since he provided nothing additionally to earn it). Since they paid him as an independent contractor, federal, state and local payroll taxes were not taken. In additon, withholdings were not made towards the NBA pension fund. They also had to falsify business records in order to complete the transaction.

There are additional potential charges related to the formation of the company itself and the conspiracy behind it. Was the company conducting true business activities or was it inherently just used as checkbook/savings account? This would effectively make the entire creation of this company a sham and criminal organization.

I'm not certain on this and definitely could be wrong but those legal issues IMO are probably more directed towards Kawhi and Uncle Dennis who benefitted from this than toward Ballmer himself.

Feels like there has to be a fall guy this time around.

Uncle Dennis lol

[PushDaRock]

There's more than enough smoke there, just depends on how motivated the league is to go through it and how much of it they do. I'm going to guess they do not want to at all which likely means they try to make the best of the situation for a win/win here given the circumstances. So, I expect the league to hand out a punishment that Ballmer approves of without an admission of guilt that he "intentionally" did this.

We have barely scratched the surface of this, both in terms of what other evidence comes to light ie/any emails or paperwork from former employees, and in terms of other owners' eagerness to pursue it.

Silver will be earning his pay with this one. On the one hand, he works for the owners; on the other, he has to protect the league and its brand by enforcing rules.

I think the previous statement about opening up investigations in the future was a warning shot to get houses in order. This one looks to have been built of cards and it must be frustrating to have to be in this situation again, with the same participants.

It's not an exact parallel, but if the league comes down harder on players who keep misbehaving, it may look more exactingly at the participants now, especially given a pattern of back door requests by Dennis Robertson.

I mean, the exact thing (among others) that Jeanie Buss rejected for its explicitly stated illegality - give/provide a guaranteed off-court endorsement income - is the very specific $48M thing in question here, and with curious timing of re-signed team-friendly contract, Ballmer's $50M personal money investment into Aspiration and KL2AspireLLC registration all happening within a month of one another.

It's beyond optics now. It's in the league's best interest to look deeper.

Do you think the other owners want to allow this pay-stars-under-table behavior?

I think the other owners want to eliminate competition (among themselves) for star-players' services, to limit the dollar payments to star players. Therefore, they will force Silver to make an example of Ballmer (with a Joe-Smith like punishment) to dissuade future examples of such behaviour by an owner

I am of the opinion that most owners don't care that much about what Ballmer allegedly did, just don't get caught doing it where it then becomes bad for everyone involved in the NBA.

[Walton the GOAT]

lol so he never got any money and is listed as a creditor??

Seems like this journalist was out for publicity and jumped the gun.

It really speaks to the nature of Americans at the moment. Everyone’s brain has been retrained for the “timeline” everyone wants some ridiculous sensationalized story where there’s this big “gotcha” moment at the end. People are addicted to drama and it’s made the country ugly.

This story seems dumb. Aspiration was ran by some big time scammers and the clippers/Kawhi got wrapped up into it. Doesn’t change Kawhi and his uncle did some weird stuff with the raptors and lakers but if you’re looking at all the details of this story objectively and non-emotionally. It seems like Pablo jumped the gun hoping for some scandal but it’s not that deep.

Aspiration was making promises they couldn’t deliver on for legitimacy and the owner is now facing 40 years for fraud. Kawhi, balmer and the clippers have very little to do with it other than being among the many who were conned.

Yep. Agreed I need to see more evidence. People love drama and tmz stories though

Out of curiosity, how do you explain Kawhi Leonard getting 28 million over 4 years + 20 million in stock for an endorsement deal that required him to do and for which he did nothing, was kept a secret from the public, and whose only termination clause was that he not be playing basketball for the Los Angeles Clippers, which was inked soon after Clippers owner Steve Ballmer invested 50 million into the company?

[PushDaRock]

It really speaks to the nature of Americans at the moment. Everyone’s brain has been retrained for the “timeline” everyone wants some ridiculous sensationalized story where there’s this big “gotcha” moment at the end. People are addicted to drama and it’s made the country ugly.

This story seems dumb. Aspiration was ran by some big time scammers and the clippers/Kawhi got wrapped up into it. Doesn’t change Kawhi and his uncle did some weird stuff with the raptors and lakers but if you’re looking at all the details of this story objectively and non-emotionally. It seems like Pablo jumped the gun hoping for some scandal but it’s not that deep.

Aspiration was making promises they couldn’t deliver on for legitimacy and the owner is now facing 40 years for fraud. Kawhi, balmer and the clippers have very little to do with it other than being among the many who were conned.

Yep. Agreed I need to see more evidence. People love drama and tmz stories though

Out of curiosity, how do you explain Kawhi Leonard getting 28 million over 4 years + 20 million in stock for an endorsement deal that required him to do nothing, was kept a secret from the public, and whose only termination clause was that he not be playing basketball for the Los Angeles Clippers, all of which happened soon after Clippers owner Steve Ballmer invested 50 million into the company?

lol I would like anyone to try and come up with a plausible explanation for how everything was on the up and up for this.

[Mavrelous]

We have barely scratched the surface of this, both in terms of what other evidence comes to light ie/any emails or paperwork from former employees, and in terms of other owners' eagerness to pursue it.

Silver will be earning his pay with this one. On the one hand, he works for the owners; on the other, he has to protect the league and its brand by enforcing rules.

I think the previous statement about opening up investigations in the future was a warning shot to get houses in order. This one looks to have been built of cards and it must be frustrating to have to be in this situation again, with the same participants.

It's not an exact parallel, but if the league comes down harder on players who keep misbehaving, it may look more exactingly at the participants now, especially given a pattern of back door requests by Dennis Robertson.

I mean, the exact thing (among others) that Jeanie Buss rejected for its explicitly stated illegality - give/provide a guaranteed off-court endorsement income - is the very specific $48M thing in question here, and with curious timing of re-signed team-friendly contract, Ballmer's $50M personal money investment into Aspiration and KL2AspireLLC registration all happening within a month of one another.

It's beyond optics now. It's in the league's best interest to look deeper.

Do you think the other owners want to allow this pay-stars-under-table behavior?

I think the other owners want to eliminate competition (among themselves) for star-players' services, to limit the dollar payments to star players. Therefore, they will force Silver to make an example of Ballmer (with a Joe-Smith like punishment) to dissuade future examples of such behaviour by an owner

I am of the opinion that most owners don't care that much about what Ballmer allegedly did, just don't get caught doing it where it then becomes bad for everyone involved in the NBA.

If they didn't care there wouldn't be 2nd Apron.
The entire idea behind the supermax is to give the team an advantage in salary, if Ballmer can pay players off the book, there is no meaning to the supermax.

[The Corey's]

Stop posting false narratives.

Which one? That people under 30 rather watch their tiktok than the NBA? They do. Or that ratings are in the toilet? They are.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1098395/national-basketball-association-interest-age/

Good looks. Thank you.

As I said. The majority of the fans of the NBA are above the age of 30.

[Mak]

lol so he never got any money and is listed as a creditor??

Seems like this journalist was out for publicity and jumped the gun.

It really speaks to the nature of Americans at the moment. Everyone’s brain has been retrained for the “timeline” everyone wants some ridiculous sensationalized story where there’s this big “gotcha” moment at the end. People are addicted to drama and it’s made the country ugly.

This story seems dumb. Aspiration was ran by some big time scammers and the clippers/Kawhi got wrapped up into it. Doesn’t change Kawhi and his uncle did some weird stuff with the raptors and lakers but if you’re looking at all the details of this story objectively and non-emotionally. It seems like Pablo jumped the gun hoping for some scandal but it’s not that deep.

Aspiration was making promises they couldn’t deliver on for legitimacy and the owner is now facing 40 years for fraud. Kawhi, balmer and the clippers have very little to do with it other than being among the many who were conned.

Yep. Agreed I need to see more evidence. People love drama and tmz stories though

You’ve really got to suspend common sense to act like this isn’t a big deal. Kawhi makes about $5M a year off his shoe deal—so how is it “normal” he’d get way more than that for some random promo work? Even if he had done something, the payout compared to what others in this scam got and his actual market value in sponsorships makes zero sense. But the kicker is he didn’t even do anything. And then you look at how much Balmer poured into this… it looks really bad. Then this deal was never announced or made public, legitimate deals like this always get promoted to get some kind of value out of them.

[The Corey's]

Do you think the other owners want to allow this pay-stars-under-table behavior?

I think the other owners want to eliminate competition (among themselves) for star-players' services, to limit the dollar payments to star players. Therefore, they will force Silver to make an example of Ballmer (with a Joe-Smith like punishment) to dissuade future examples of such behaviour by an owner

I am of the opinion that most owners don't care that much about what Ballmer allegedly did, just don't get caught doing it where it then becomes bad for everyone involved in the NBA.

If they didn't care there wouldn't be 2nd Apron.
The entire idea behind the supermax is to give the team an advantage in salary, if Ballmer can pay players off the book, there is no meaning to the supermax.

That's the point of the apron. Saving agianst the tax.

In theory, if this money was able to be added to Leonard's contract it would of cost the clippers millions if not hundreds of millions more in taxes.

The second apron exist only to **** the players while some of the star players get theirs under the table.

This league is done. Cooked. The only thing keeping it going now is in real time gambling for all these Gen z weirdos who don't care about the game but care about their portfolio.

[Billl]

It really speaks to the nature of Americans at the moment. Everyone’s brain has been retrained for the “timeline” everyone wants some ridiculous sensationalized story where there’s this big “gotcha” moment at the end. People are addicted to drama and it’s made the country ugly.

This story seems dumb. Aspiration was ran by some big time scammers and the clippers/Kawhi got wrapped up into it. Doesn’t change Kawhi and his uncle did some weird stuff with the raptors and lakers but if you’re looking at all the details of this story objectively and non-emotionally. It seems like Pablo jumped the gun hoping for some scandal but it’s not that deep.

Aspiration was making promises they couldn’t deliver on for legitimacy and the owner is now facing 40 years for fraud. Kawhi, balmer and the clippers have very little to do with it other than being among the many who were conned.

Yep. Agreed I need to see more evidence. People love drama and tmz stories though

You’ve really got to suspend common sense to act like this isn’t a big deal. Kawhi makes about $5M a year off his shoe deal—so how is it “normal” he’d get way more than that for some random promo work? Even if he had done something, the payout compared to what others in this scam got and his actual market value in sponsorships makes zero sense. But the kicker is he didn’t even do anything. And then you look at how much Balmer poured into this… it looks really bad. Then this deal was never announced or made public, legitimate deals like this always get promoted to get some kind of value out of them.

Yeah, it's pretty hard to say you are paying a guy to promote your business.... and then everyone keeps it a secret. The whole value in promotion is that people know you are associated with the product.

[iggymcfrack]

For the people who think there’s not much evidence, one minor point I’d forgotten until I was listening to the Zach Lowe Show:

In addition to the Aspiration employee who spoke on the podcast with the voice modulation, there were 6 other employees who confirmed that they’d been told from the top Kawhi’s endorsement deal was for salary cap manipulation.

If someone doing journalism for a podcast could get 7 separate employees to confirm this deal is for salary cap manipulation, I’m sure an NBA investigation could find similar information.

[PushDaRock]

For the people who think there’s not much evidence, one minor point I’d forgotten until I was listening to the Zach Lowe Show:

In addition to the Aspiration employee who spoke on the podcast with the voice modulation, there were 6 other employees who confirmed that they’d been told from the top Kawhi’s endorsement deal was for salary cap manipulation.

If someone doing journalism for a podcast could get 7 separate employees to confirm this deal is for salary cap manipulation, I’m sure an NBA investigation could find similar information.

lol some people want to see video of someone in Clippers team gear handing Kawhi a duffle bag before they will finally believe there might be something to this

[AmusingFiddle]

It feels like ESPN is trying to limit the fallout.

Stephen A was the first person to comment on it yesterday and he started by standing up for Ballmer's character while **** on Kawhi.

One of the first things Ballmer did as owner of the Clippers is invest heavily in PR. Including allegedly paying to plant + stories about the Clippers and - stories about the Lakers. Dont take my work for it...just go back and see the campaigns right after his acquisition of the Clippers.
ESPN has vested interest in protecting Ballmer NOT Kawhi.

Sent from my SM-S938U1 using RealGM mobile app

[PushDaRock]

Something to also keep in mind is Kawhi took a 3 year 153m extension in 2024 while he was eligible for 4 years 223m. We can point to injury history and age for why he didn't get the full max and years it but still that's 70m less in money he could have got so we will see if there's another rabbit hole to go down for that as well. If it gets proven that it happened multiple times, there's a clear pattern of intent there and it will be much more difficult for Ballmer to escape a harsh punishment IMO.

[God Squad]

I've been aware of this for years, even without having any solid proof. There were way too many "unusual demands" during the Kawhi sweepstakes made by his uncle Dennis.

[The Master]

For the people who think there’s not much evidence, one minor point I’d forgotten until I was listening to the Zach Lowe Show:

In addition to the Aspiration employee who spoke on the podcast with the voice modulation, there were 6 other employees who confirmed that they’d been told from the top Kawhi’s endorsement deal was for salary cap manipulation.

If someone doing journalism for a podcast could get 7 separate employees to confirm this deal is for salary cap manipulation, I’m sure an NBA investigation could find similar information.

Yeah, also, it's much easier now to get such information and feedback as the company is bankrupted and under federal investigation.

When we're surprised that they did everything so blatantly - I think it's because they just didn't expect it to go public at any point. So the whole 'Ballmer is not that dumb' angle isn't too valid, I just don't think he expected the company to be under federal investigation few years later.

You’ve really got to suspend common sense to act like this isn’t a big deal. Kawhi makes about $5M a year off his shoe deal—so how is it “normal” he’d get way more than that for some random promo work? Even if he had done something, the payout compared to what others in this scam got and his actual market value in sponsorships makes zero sense. But the kicker is he didn’t even do anything. And then you look at how much Balmer poured into this… it looks really bad. Then this deal was never announced or made public, legitimate deals like this always get promoted to get some kind of value out of them.

Exactly. Like I've already mentioned - according to Torre, Kawhi was paid much more ('more than 4x') than all celebrities and influencers combined (and he referred only to this 28 mil $ sum at that point), and we're talking the biggest stars in the world actually supporting environmental causes. So I doubt that Kawhi - EVEN IF HE HAD ACTIVELY PROMOTED THE COMPANY - would've been actually worth even 5% of what he was supposed to earn via these two separate deals, and it will be very easy to prove in comparison to guys like DiCaprio or Downey Jr who have 60 mil followers on Instagram and are A+ level popstars. They're cooked.

I guess all this influencers' support was to legitimize company - and Kawhi deal was to get Ballmer into their inner circle. Logical, but so dangerous for the Clippers as soon as they turned out to be a fraudulent company.

One of the first things Ballmer did as owner of the Clippers is invest heavily in PR. Including allegedly paying to plant + stories about the Clippers and - stories about the Lakers. Dont take my work for it...just go back and see the campaigns right after his acquisition of the Clippers. ESPN has vested interest in protecting Ballmer NOT Kawhi.

Yeah, there was a moment in 2019 that Clippers were mainstream darlings and Lakers were laughed at, also because of Kawhi choosing the other LA team, what was always funny to me considering at that point they didn't even make it once to the Western Conference Finals in their history.

[Johnny Bball]

Section 3.
Penalties.

(a) Upon a finding of a violation of Section 1 above by the System
Arbitrator, but only following the conclusion of any appeal to the Appeals
Panel, the Commissioner shall be authorized to:

(b) impose a fine of up to $4,500,000 (fifty percent (50%) of
which shall be payable to the NBA, and fifty percent (50%)
of which shall be payable to the NBPA-Selected Charitable
Organization (as defined in Article VI,

Section 6(a)) on any

342
Article XIII

Team found to have committed such violation for the first
time;

(i) impose a fine of up to $5,500,000 (fifty percent (50%) of
which shall be payable to the NBA, and fifty percent (50%
of which shall be payable to the NBPA-Selected Charitable
Organization) on any 'Team found to have committed such
violation for at least the second time;

(ii
direct the forfeiture of one First Round Draft Pick;

(iv) void any Player Contract, or any Renegotiation, Extension,
or amendment of a Player Contract, between any player and
any Team when both the player (or any person or entity
acting with authority on behalf of such player) and the Team
(or Team Affiliate) are found to have committed such
violation; and/or

(v) void any other transaction or agreement found to have
violated Section 1 above,



Sent from my SM-S938U1 using RealGM mobile app

So the max penalty is $10 million and an FRP?

Yeah that's a love tap for these billionaires.

If they're circumventing the cap to over $100 million, the penalty needs to be like 50% at least. Even $100 million is nothing to these billionaires.

They are potentially saving hundreds of millions in potential repeater luxury taxes so why wouldn't they keep cheating if the max penalty is $10 million and an FRP?

https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/possible-punishments-for-clippers-questions-loom-over-nbas-investigation-of-kawhi-leonard-deal-140314949.html

The penalty can expand if the violation falls under the “No Unauthorized Agreements” clause, in which case the Commissioner can levy up to the following:

$7.5 million fine;

forfeiture of draft picks;

void the player contract and player faces a $350,000 fine;

suspend team personnel for up to one year;

void any transaction or agreement in violation;

In this case, the Joe Smith/Timberwolves penalty would be within the bounds of the league office.

and just because they didn't find it in 2019 when they investigated, doesn't mean it didn't happen. Now they know where to look. They might get them on two violations at the same time.

And if they don't go back and look at 2019 now again, they are just FOS.

[Bad Bart]

I'm not certain on this and definitely could be wrong but those legal issues IMO are probably more directed towards Kawhi and Uncle Dennis who benefitted from this than toward Ballmer himself.

Feels like there has to be a fall guy this time around.

Uncle Dennis lol

He'll be in the cell next to Ohtani's interpreter

[DaddyCool19]

We have barely scratched the surface of this, both in terms of what other evidence comes to light ie/any emails or paperwork from former employees, and in terms of other owners' eagerness to pursue it.

Silver will be earning his pay with this one. On the one hand, he works for the owners; on the other, he has to protect the league and its brand by enforcing rules.

I think the previous statement about opening up investigations in the future was a warning shot to get houses in order. This one looks to have been built of cards and it must be frustrating to have to be in this situation again, with the same participants.

It's not an exact parallel, but if the league comes down harder on players who keep misbehaving, it may look more exactingly at the participants now, especially given a pattern of back door requests by Dennis Robertson.

I mean, the exact thing (among others) that Jeanie Buss rejected for its explicitly stated illegality - give/provide a guaranteed off-court endorsement income - is the very specific $48M thing in question here, and with curious timing of re-signed team-friendly contract, Ballmer's $50M personal money investment into Aspiration and KL2AspireLLC registration all happening within a month of one another.

It's beyond optics now. It's in the league's best interest to look deeper.

Do you think the other owners want to allow this pay-stars-under-table behavior?

I think the other owners want to eliminate competition (among themselves) for star-players' services, to limit the dollar payments to star players. Therefore, they will force Silver to make an example of Ballmer (with a Joe-Smith like punishment) to dissuade future examples of such behaviour by an owner

I am of the opinion that most owners don't care that much about what Ballmer allegedly did, just don't get caught doing it where it then becomes bad for everyone involved in the NBA.

I think they care for the wrong reasons. Imagine if that because the new normal, where stars ask the owners for some hefty under the table deals, to make way more than the max. Those greedy guys wouldn't want that to happen.