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

[ForeverTFC]

I have no idea what Cuban is trying to get across here. Is the crux of the argument that Sandberg needed a bunch of cash on the balance sheet and the Kawhi deal was to con Ballmer into investing more money? If so, a few questions for Cuban:

1. Wouldn't the Clippers sponsorship be enough? Why is a Kawhi sponsorship necessary here?
2. If giving Kawhi a sponsorship deal was needed to get the investment from Ballmer, isn't that already cap circumvention?
3. Why did Kawhi need to get so much more than Robert Downey Jr and DiCaprio? Would a deal on par with the rest of their A-list roster not have been enough to get in the good graces of Kawhi and Ballmer?
3. If we are to believe the original investment had nothing to do with Kawhi, then the subsequent money put in by Ballmer and Wong are less than the cash outflow to Kawhi. In an effort to raise cash, we are expected to believe Sandberg burned cash?
4. If Ballmer truly had no idea about the structure of the sponsorship deal with Kawhi, why the "must be an employee of the Clippers" clause? It's not like Ballmer can take his money back if Kawhi was to leave and was still sponsored.

The gaslighting really bothers me. And it's not even coming from a Clippers fan. It makes no sense.

[LAvision]

At this point posting Cuban tweets should be bannable, the guy is a clown.

[Dino-Might]

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"I always stand up for my fellow billionaire ruling class members"

What a **** hero among men

The line gets cut off but it says:

…I always stand up for people, some i know, some i dont, who have accusations made against them by media or government or someone in power.

Poor, powerless Steve Ballmer, up against the all mighty, powerful Pablo Torre machine, independent podcast extraordinaire. Good on you Mark for sticking it to the man!

[inonba]

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Why did they stop using the original celebs? I dunno maybe because those celebs werent a **** noose around their neck like Kawhi was, being a **** laundering operation. like, what the **** does Cuban think hes actually proving here? Some people go so far into the L territory they think they might dig their way to the other side into the Dub.

Well, if we're going to play the "why did they...." game, I got some questions too. Cuban's argument centers around Aspiration being fraudsters, and fraudsters will do anything for money, then why didn't Aspiration extort the money from Ballmer and treat the 8th richest man in the world as their personal ATM? They already have the documentation. All they need is a bunch of corroborating witness which can be easily manufactured. Aspiration could have said bankroll us, or we're going to the NBA. Wouldn't that be easier than a complex scheme to keep Kawhi happy in hopes of another complex scheme to get Ballmer to invest more?

[G R E Y]

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[Dino-Might]

:lol:

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Don’t look up. It will only encourage him. Just try to avoid eye contact.

[drekwins]

I have no idea what Cuban is trying to get across here. Is the crux of the argument that Sandberg needed a bunch of cash on the balance sheet and the Kawhi deal was to con Ballmer into investing more money? If so, a few questions for Cuban:

1. Wouldn't the Clippers sponsorship be enough? Why is a Kawhi sponsorship necessary here?
2. If giving Kawhi a sponsorship deal was needed to get the investment from Ballmer, isn't that already cap circumvention?
3. Why did Kawhi need to get so much more than Robert Downey Jr and DiCaprio? Would a deal on par with the rest of their A-list roster not have been enough to get in the good graces of Kawhi and Ballmer?
3. If we are to believe the original investment had nothing to do with Kawhi, then the subsequent money put in by Ballmer and Wong are less than the cash outflow to Kawhi. In an effort to raise cash, we are expected to believe Sandberg burned cash?
4. If Ballmer truly had no idea about the structure of the sponsorship deal with Kawhi, why the "must be an employee of the Clippers" clause? It's not like Ballmer can take his money back if Kawhi was to leave and was still sponsored.

The gaslighting really bothers me. And it's not even coming from a Clippers fan. It makes no sense.

1 and 2) Our logic is aligned

3) why not spend 50m extra in sponsorship of the LA Clippers?? Or, spend it towards a different Ballmer foundation/charity/company/cause? (Money that would go directly to Ballmer instead of Kawhi). The reason is because Sandburg felt that it was most valuable and important to Ballmer to give the 50m to Kawhi... Think about that for a second. He thought that giving the money to Kawhi would grow his relationship with Ballmer most…

This entire situation, and the gymnastics afterwards, is an insult to all NBA fans… and, to all human beings with thinking abilities. This is a joke.

[ConSarnit]

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Cool story bro. Why was Aspiration paying Kawhi? And why did the only other minority owner of the Clippers "invest" after it was known Aspiration was a fraudulent company, after which Kawhi got a payment of that same amount absent Aspiration's laundering fee?

Someone needs to ask Cuban:

“As a successful businessman, how many spokespeople have you hired where their million dollar contract states they don’t have to actually do any promotion for said company?”

For all the facts Cuban wants to spout he cannot answer the question of why Aspiration paid Kawhi millions of dollars to do nothing.

[ConSarnit]

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Why did they stop using the original celebs? I dunno maybe because those celebs werent a **** noose around their neck like Kawhi was, being a **** laundering operation. like, what the **** does Cuban think hes actually proving here? Some people go so far into the L territory they think they might dig their way to the other side into the Dub.

“We hired a bunch of celebs and decided the promo work they did for us didn’t generate enough ROI. As such we had to end their contracts. But, we decided to keep the most expensive guy who did zero promo work for us for some reason”

[drekwins]

Yahoo has a new article out toinght:

https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/breaking-news/article/clippers-owner-steve-ballmer-confident-hell-be-cleared-in-nbas-kawhi-leonard-probe-i-welcome-the-investigation-190651732.html

Ballmer made those comments at the Sports Business Journal's Drive event, where he was a featured speaker. When asked about the situation, Ballmer said he was defrauded and that the NBA will find that the Clippers' relationship with Aspiration and Leonard's relationship with Aspiration were "independent."

This is really interesting for Ballmer to say... that the transactions were completely independent... Yet, in Cuban's arguments, he repeatedly states that the deal with Kawhi was NOT seen as independent in the eyes of Aspiration. How could both be true?

[Mavrelous]

Yahoo has a new article out toinght:

https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/breaking-news/article/clippers-owner-steve-ballmer-confident-hell-be-cleared-in-nbas-kawhi-leonard-probe-i-welcome-the-investigation-190651732.html

Ballmer made those comments at the Sports Business Journal's Drive event, where he was a featured speaker. When asked about the situation, Ballmer said he was defrauded and that the NBA will find that the Clippers' relationship with Aspiration and Leonard's relationship with Aspiration were "independent."

This is really interesting for Ballmer to say... that the transactions were completely independent... Yet, in Cuban's arguments, he repeatedly states that the deal with Kawhi was NOT seen as independent in the eyes of Aspiration. How could both be true?

Cuban is irrelevant, he's not part of this story, despite his best efforts to force himself in.
Ballmer is confident he's powerful and rich enough that the league will find a way to turn a blind eye on this.

[inonba]

This is getting EMBARRASSING for Adam "the patsy" Silver

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Silver: We will begin with a presumption of innocence, not a presumption of guilt is what I keep reading about....

Rational people don't have a presumption of anything. They follow the evidence and draw their conclusions based on what best explains the evidence. You are innocent until proven guilty is what I think he was trying to allude to.

Clipper fans like the host of Locked on Clippers on youtube, starts with the conclusion the Clippers are innocent, then proceed to fabricate reality to try and explain the evidence away. Problem with making stuff up is, they can't account for every piece of information already available, or things yet to be release. For example, one of his guest speculate that the reason Aspiration kept paying was trying to get naming rights to the Intuit Dome. Sounds reasonable right? Except the naming rights were already awarded before Kawhi signed the endorsement deal. Seeing the rights will last for 23 years, perhaps Clipper fans were expecting Aspiration to play the ultimate long game. Pay Kawhi now, so they'll have a shot 23 years later. Literally the mountain of evidence is so large, you can't even explain away the basics.

I sincerely hope Adam Silver misspoke. Otherwise, it's a Freudian slip that he'll approach the investigation like a Clippers fan. Just make something up to not do anything.

[drekwins]

Yahoo has a new article out toinght:

https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/breaking-news/article/clippers-owner-steve-ballmer-confident-hell-be-cleared-in-nbas-kawhi-leonard-probe-i-welcome-the-investigation-190651732.html

Ballmer made those comments at the Sports Business Journal's Drive event, where he was a featured speaker. When asked about the situation, Ballmer said he was defrauded and that the NBA will find that the Clippers' relationship with Aspiration and Leonard's relationship with Aspiration were "independent."

This is really interesting for Ballmer to say... that the transactions were completely independent... Yet, in Cuban's arguments, he repeatedly states that the deal with Kawhi was NOT seen as independent in the eyes of Aspiration. How could both be true?

Cuban is irrelevant, he's not part of this story, despite his best efforts to force himself in.
Ballmer is confident he's powerful and rich enough that the league will find a way to turn a blind eye on this.

I understand BUT Cuban is putting in a lot of effort to formulate fact patterns/scenarios in which Ballmer could claim plausible deniability. All of Cubsan's suggestions involve Aspiration investing in Kawhi to gain a more important big-picture benefit: 1) Further investment by Ballmer, or 2) protecting the value of their sponsorship with the Clippers.

No one... not even Ballmer's greatest defender... believes that the Kawhi deal is "stand-alone" and completely independent of the LA Clippers... but, that's what Ballmer claimed.

[RyderMike]

Pablo has hundreds of emails. Watch him have one that specifically has Sanverg mentioning its for cap circumvention, but he's sitting on it. He's done a masterclass with his methodical and deliberate release of information to counteract all rebuttles. I wouldn't be shocked to see him hold on to the most damning piece, so when the NBA announces that there is insufficient evidence to punish the Clippers, he'll whip that out and be like, sure, you're just protecting him. Here's irrefutable proof.

[inonba]

Pablo has hundreds of emails. Watch him have one that specifically has Sanberg mentioning its for cap circumvention, but he's sitting on it. He's done a masterclass with his methodical and deliberate release of information to counteract all rebuttals. I wouldn't be shocked to see him hold on to the most damning piece, so when the NBA announces that there is insufficient evidence to punish the Clippers, he'll whip that out and be like, sure, you're just protecting him. Here's irrefutable proof.

Do you think Pablo would go after the 8th richest man in the world if he didn't? Why I said in a previous post you can't make up a scenario to explain away the evidence because you don't know what's out there that hasn't been released. Look at what happened to Andrei Cherny when he decided to open his mouth.

[-Luke-]

Pablo should be in the Hall of Fame.

[JayMKE]

Cuban’s reputation should be as bad as Ballmer now, he is a disgusting shill who has a very average intellect and business acumen but massive ego.

[xb3at band1tx]

assuming we don’t get a verdict anytime soon, feels like ballmer and silver are hoping this story gets buried when the season opens in full swing


hopefully pablo doesn’t let it die and keeps up the pressure

[grimlock]

assuming we don’t get a verdict anytime soon, feels like ballmer and silver are hoping this story gets buried when the season opens in full swing


hopefully pablo doesn’t let it die and keeps up the pressure

Pablo? you mean the people.. and the owners.
Its not like Pablo will have endless aces up his sleeve.

[raleigh]

Cuban is irrelevant, he's not part of this story, despite his best efforts to force himself in.

Thank you for saying it.

This story is about Kawhi, Ballmer, and the NBA.