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

[levon]

No matter what, this confirms suspicions that a vast majority of basketball media is financially influenced by Ballmer. I wonder how many of them are protecting their own shady investment vehicles.

And/or Silver has already told the owners if this becomes a national story it'll hurt the owners more and maybe Ballmer has privately promised them all recompense. Let's just say they're lucky it's Kawhi Leonard and not LeBron or Steph, or else this was going FBI, especially with this administration.

[manlisten]

its going to come out that Kawhi missed games because of non-payment

Funny enough, to start the 2022 season he only played 6/24 games prior to December 6th when Wong sent the wire. He played a lot more consistently after that. I'm too lazy to look up his injury and it might just be a coincidence but I definitely wouldn't put it past him to sit out games if he didn't get his way. Not like he has a history of doing that or anything.

[TheNewEra]

As a clipper fan what makes all of this worse is Kawhi has proven to be worth none of this extra effort to satisfy. The extension has been a complete failure and damn near the whole 213 run was worse than lob city given expectations.

[ciueli]

its going to come out that Kawhi missed games because of non-payment

Funny enough, to start the 2022 season he only played 6/24 games prior to December 6th when Wong sent the wire. He played a lot more consistently after that. I'm too lazy to look up his injury and it might just be a coincidence but I definitely wouldn't put it past him to sit out games if he didn't get his way. Not like he has a history of doing that or anything.

The game logs are here: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/leonaka01/gamelog/2023

Looking at that log... Kawhi missed a whole lot of games before he got paid, and the games he did play he did not look like a star. Presumably he would have been informed that he was going to get paid right around when Dennis Wong made his investment in Aspire, that was 9 days before the actual transfer, September 6th, 2022, so assume he knew he would get paid at least by September 6th, 2022.

The very next day he plays 30+ minutes for the first time that season (an overtime loss to Orlando), then September 12th, 2022 (the next game he played because he doesn't play back-to-back games) he had his first 20+ point game of the season, 25 point, 9 rebounds, 9 assists on 10 of 12 shooting in 29 minutes, a win against Boston. That game is by far the best game he had to that point in the season, he previous season high was 16 points September 5th.

Now it's going to be impossible to prove Kawhi was dogging it or feigning an injury in order to exert leverage over the Clippers to force the payment without some communication between the Clippers and Kawhi or Uncle Dennis, but it definitely looks suspicious. Kawhi turning back into his old self and playing regular games only one game after Dennis Wong makes the investment in Aspire? And then missing only 10 games for the rest of the season, only 3 of which were not first or second nights of back-to-back games which he is expected to miss anyway? It's an incredible coincidence that he suddenly gets healthy (or as healthy as Kawhi ever gets) when the under the table payment problem is fixed.

[jbk1234]

Dennis Wong needs to stay away from busses because he may be about to get thrown under one by Ballmer.

I don't think that there's anyone that can be thrown under the bus. Kawhi has a two-year contract with Clippers only, so scapegoating him or uncle Dennis would backfire. This Dennis Wong guy seems like a right-hand of Ballmer, no one will believe that Ballmer had no knowledge about everything. Aspiration Inc. guys are right now fighting for the lowest sentence they can get, so that's quite an incentive to provide any information anyone wants about everything, not to mention that workers from Aspiration are already providing crucial information. No one really cares that Ballmer was scammed as well, the whole affair isn't about that. 'I didn't know anything, it was this guy' won't work in any scenario.

The only hope for Ballmer and the Clippers is that it was indeed a recurring event in the NBA in several organizations to blatantly cheat. I doubt it was to such extent, but who knows.

Scapegoating is the wrong word. Wong is guilty. Uncle Dennis is guilty. Kawhai is guilty. Ballmer is guilty. They all engaged in, or conspired to engage in, cap circumvention.

Here's the other thing, there may be tax fraud implications for all of this.

[The Master]

Now it's going to be impossible to prove Kawhi was dogging it or feigning an injury in order to exert leverage over the Clippers to force the payment without some communication between the Clippers and Kawhi or Uncle Dennis, but it definitely looks suspicious. Kawhi turning back into his old self and playing regular games only one game after Dennis Wong makes the investment in Aspire? And then missing only 10 games for the rest of the season he only 3 of which were not first or second nights of back-to-back games which he is expected to miss anyway? It's an incredible coincidence that he suddenly gets healthy (or as healthy as Kawhi ever gets) when the under the table payment problem is fixed.

As much as I dislike Kawhi, he was returning from the ACL injury at that time and didn't play for over a year, I don't think there's any connection here. We have enough evidence to hate on Kawhi without reaching, haha.

[GeorgeSears]

The new revelation with Dennis Wong sending $2M to Aspiration to pay Kawhi erases all doubt that Clippers had no idea about the "independent deal" between Kawhi and Aspiration. They knew full well.

If Adam Silver doesn't come down with a severe punishment (loss of at least 5 1st round picks), the NBA is a joke of a league.

[levon]

its going to come out that Kawhi missed games because of non-payment

Funny enough, to start the 2022 season he only played 6/24 games prior to December 6th when Wong sent the wire. He played a lot more consistently after that. I'm too lazy to look up his injury and it might just be a coincidence but I definitely wouldn't put it past him to sit out games if he didn't get his way. Not like he has a history of doing that or anything.

The game logs are here: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/leonaka01/gamelog/2023

Looking at that log... Kawhi missed a whole lot of games before he got paid, and the games he did play he did not look like a star. Presumably he would have been informed that he was going to get paid right around when Dennis Wong made his investment in Aspire, that was 9 days before the actual transfer, September 6th, 2022, so assume he knew he would get paid at least by September 6th, 2022.

The very next day he plays 30+ minutes for the first time that season (an overtime loss to Orlando), then September 12th, 2022 (the next game he played because he doesn't play back-to-back games) he had his first 20+ point game of the season, 25 point, 9 rebounds, 9 assists on 10 of 12 shooting in 29 minutes, a win against Boston. That game is by far the best game he had to that point in the season, he previous season high was 16 points September 5th.

Now it's going to be impossible to prove Kawhi was dogging it or feigning an injury in order to exert leverage over the Clippers to force the payment without some communication between the Clippers and Kawhi or Uncle Dennis, but it definitely looks suspicious. Kawhi turning back into his old self and playing regular games only one game after Dennis Wong makes the investment in Aspire? And then missing only 10 games for the rest of the season he only 3 of which were not first or second nights of back-to-back games which he is expected to miss anyway? It's an incredible coincidence that he suddenly gets healthy (or as healthy as Kawhi ever gets) when the under the table payment problem is fixed.

This is honestly incredible. And it's obviously not the first time Kawhi's been dodgy. Remember when he left at halftime one game without telling Ty Lue?

It feels like Kawhi kind of hated being a Clipper? Or just having to play at all given his injury history. He seems like a manipulator while also being manipulated, going through real personal and professional pain to keep doing this.

[GeorgeSears]

Clippers don't deserve benefit of the doubt. Convenience of ignorance isn't going to fly.

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[tamaraw08]

No matter what, this confirms suspicions that a vast majority of basketball media is financially influenced by Ballmer. I wonder how many of them are protecting their own shady investment vehicles.

And/or Silver has already told the owners if this becomes a national story it'll hurt the owners more and maybe Ballmer has privately promised them all recompense. Let's just say they're lucky it's Kawhi Leonard and not LeBron or Steph, or else this was going FBI, especially with this administration.

It's very interesting and amusing to watch Ramona Shellburne quickly got to interview Ballmer and allow him to defend his innocence and her very carefully not to ask too many pointed questions so Steve will not incriminate himself.
Ramona living the life, getting paid by ESPN to do appearances then hop into ESPN radio as fill in host for the Mason and Ireland Show always coming late then have some type of "relationship" with Ballmer's team.
Dave McMenamin also get to interview a Clipper staff on how they treat salary circumvention very seriously to defend the Clippers management without getting the side of other NBA team personnel to get some balanced reporting.

[levon]

No matter what, this confirms suspicions that a vast majority of basketball media is financially influenced by Ballmer. I wonder how many of them are protecting their own shady investment vehicles.

And/or Silver has already told the owners if this becomes a national story it'll hurt the owners more and maybe Ballmer has privately promised them all recompense. Let's just say they're lucky it's Kawhi Leonard and not LeBron or Steph, or else this was going FBI, especially with this administration.

It's very interesting and amusing to watch Ramona Shellburne quickly got to interview Ballmer and allow him to defend his innocence and her very carefully not to ask too many pointed questions so Steve will not incriminate himself.
Ramona living the life, getting paid by ESPN to do appearances then hop into ESPN radio as fill in host for the Mason and Ireland Show always coming late then have some type of "relationship" with Ballmer's team.
Dave McMenamin also get to interview a Clipper staff on how they treat salary circumvention very seriously to defend the Clippers management without getting the side of other NBA team personnel to get some balanced reporting.

I blame Woj for a lot of this. He led by example on the access journalism front. He went full Ballmer at the tail end of his career.

[ciueli]

No matter what, this confirms suspicions that a vast majority of basketball media is financially influenced by Ballmer. I wonder how many of them are protecting their own shady investment vehicles.

And/or Silver has already told the owners if this becomes a national story it'll hurt the owners more and maybe Ballmer has privately promised them all recompense. Let's just say they're lucky it's Kawhi Leonard and not LeBron or Steph, or else this was going FBI, especially with this administration.

The crazy thing is there is a completely legal way for Ballmer to compensate all the other owners, to funnel money directly to them with zero chance of him being caught. How? Just tell them he'll spend deep into the luxury tax for the next few seasons, any team that is not a tax team (most teams) will get increased payments via the mechanism the NBA uses to distribute luxury tax payments.

[jvsimonetti0514]

Adam silver punching their air right now cuz Pablo has more evidence that has 0 plausible deniably. Failing company is laying off staff and gets a surprised infusion of cash from the Clippers minority owner and then a week later it’s being turned around to his star player that never made any endorsement for the company? Before the company is failing maybe you could get away with saying they were making a bad investment but when everyone is calling for money and you choose Kawhi first? There’s no explanation for why that makes sense.

It didn't make sense and there was no explanation since the first report matching all the circumstantial evidence that we'd had at that time, really, but there was one kinda understandable angle that people could use to defend them: there's no way the Clippers and Ballmer were that dumb.

Now, we know that they are indeed this much dumb.

Cuban getting made a fool of (again). Cubans entire defense of Ballmer boiled down to not believing he would do something so blatant (dumb). Turns out he was wrong

Especially after the report from the Boston sports journal that found the 20 million in stock options. I didn’t really find it believable but before that you could argue that Ballmer just liked the company and made an investment. VC’s in Silicon Valley make bad investments all the time. Once it was 50 out of ballmers and 48 into kawhi’s that deniably is gone. Now with a second member of the clippers organization made an investment when the company is failing should put a nail into any remaining deniability

[levon]

No matter what, this confirms suspicions that a vast majority of basketball media is financially influenced by Ballmer. I wonder how many of them are protecting their own shady investment vehicles.

And/or Silver has already told the owners if this becomes a national story it'll hurt the owners more and maybe Ballmer has privately promised them all recompense. Let's just say they're lucky it's Kawhi Leonard and not LeBron or Steph, or else this was going FBI, especially with this administration.

The crazy thing is there is a completely legal way for Ballmer to compensate all the other owners, to funnel money directly to them with zero chance of him being caught. How? Just tell them he'll spend deep into the luxury tax for the next few seasons, any team that is not a tax team (most teams) will get increased payments via the mechanism the NBA uses to distribute luxury tax payments.

Right, ultimately how the league handles this is just external messaging to its viewers. They can be really harsh internally but never make that public (dubious, but possible). But it's really important to send a strong public message to dispel notions that the league is corrupt.

[youngthegiant]

Balmer needs to be removed as owner.

[xb3at band1tx]

The daughter of the Clippers minority owner was an employee of Aspiration...

[mtcan]

Cuban getting made a fool of (again). Cubans entire defense of Ballmer boiled down to not believing he would do something so blatant (dumb). Turns out he was wrong

Yeah. To be honest - while I found Cuban's logic to be pretty offensive and didn't buy a thing he tried to sell - I kinda understood his stance, because it is indeed impressively dumb to be a billionaire risking reputation of his and multi-billion company/asset in such a way. I mean, I never had issues in believing that Ballmer could be so dumb, but I was able to understand why someone from the inside couldn't believe it, because it was clearly a very amateurish way to conduct salary cap circumvention. Really, a month ago no one would've believed that it could be conducted without any cover up efforts with direct (!) payments from the owners.

But now - I don't think that anyone can have any doubts of what happened.

I'm suspicious that Cuban just wants this to go away because it may also lead to how he dealt with Dirk Nowitzki in his later years in Dallas. He sure did sign a lot of team friendly deals...

And while we are at it...how about Jalen Brunson? What is Dolan up to?

[Texas Chuck]

I'm suspicious that Cuban just wants this to go away because it may also lead to how he dealt with Dirk Nowitzki in his later years in Dallas. He sure did sign a lot of team friendly deals...

And while we are at it...how about Jalen Brunson? What is Dolan up to?

So let me start by saying I put nothing past Cuban in terms of trying to cheat to gain an edge. I have a hard time believing Dirk would engage in a similar scheme.

Also worth noting that Dirk took one small paycut in the summer of 2010. Took slightly less than a full max in part so Dallas could add Tyson Chandler. Then he signed a 2+PO deal in the summer of 2024 that paid him roughly $16M over 2 seasons(Rockets and Lakers both offered him max deals that summer). This would be the questionable one. He left a ton of money on the table to stay with Dallas, but according to Dirk did so in order to have a competitive team. Then his last two years he made $5M, but its hard to suggest Dirk was worth more than that.

Investigate Dallas if you think there is something there and maybe I'm blind because Dirk is Dallas, but I have a hard time believing he would go along with cap manipulations and under the table payments.

[fansse]

The new revelation with Dennis Wong sending $2M to Aspiration to pay Kawhi erases all doubt that Clippers had no idea about the "independent deal" between Kawhi and Aspiration. They knew full well.

If Adam Silver doesn't come down with a severe punishment (loss of at least 5 1st round picks), the NBA is a joke of a league.

I agree.. I was doubting the allegations but if this true, there are no doubts left

[raleigh]

Balmer needs to be removed as owner.

One might suspect he's worried about that outcome, too. The quick flight to Bristol was a bit telling in that regard.