***** 2025-2026 San Antonio Spurs Thread *****

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AggieEP
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In reply to Guitarsoup • 10:40a, 9/4/25
This story is beyond hilarious. The Joe Smith precedent if followed means voiding the contract and taking FIVE first round picks away from the clippers. That's a brutal punishment and will make this already aging roster they have a long term losing roster with no way to dig out.

What I find most funny in this story is that everyone at the time knew that uncle Dennis was shopping Kawhi for extra benefits on the side in addition to a max deal. Somehow it took 6 years for us to find out about the fake tree planting shell company that funnelled 28 million to Kawhi's pockets. I'm legitimately surprised it took this long to find out what really led him to sign with the Clippers.

I do like the typical rich person defense coming from Ballmer that he doesn't pay much attention to companies he invest in. Just a little 50 million dollar investment in a fake company, nothing to see here.

Finally, **** Kawhi, no interest on seeing him back with the Spurs. Even if we do sign him, I hope we immediately trade him to the Hornets so he has to play with Lonzo and Brandon Miller as punishment.
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superunknown
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In reply to AggieEP • 1:19p, 9/4/25
AG
It makes all those stories about the Lakers not wanting to play ball with Unc even more glaring. Sure they're "the Lakers" and all that and they're above those sorts of shenanigans, plus apparently the Buss family was notoriously cheap (from what I've read, by the time he died, the Lakers were the only business the family was involved in) and being the NBA flagship franchise they really can set their own standard and be snobs if they want.

Still curious to see how this shakes out for Silver..his first big time act after becoming commissioner was to punt Donald Sterling into the sun for being, well, Donald Sterling. How far is he willing to go (and how far will the other team governors be willing to let him go) to address this?

Do the other teams go along and hope it all goes away so nobody uncovers any other similar acts? (Was Timmy getting all kinds of HEB Buddy Bucks under the table?)

It's clear that Ballmer/Clips need to be addressed and so does Kawhi. Stern set a pretty high punishment bar (the Stepien rule, the Minnesota/Joe Smith punishment) but the land$cape of the NBA is way different now.

Man, who needs the Real Housewives of wherever when we have the NBA and it's pathological need to be overly dramatic?

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Guitarsoup
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In reply to superunknown • 2:42p, 9/4/25
AG
Quote:
Man, who needs the Real Housewives of wherever when we have the NBA and it's pathological need to be overly dramatic?

Man I love the NBA so much.


Quote:
It's clear that Ballmer/Clips need to be addressed and so does Kawhi. Stern set a pretty high punishment bar (the Stepien rule, the Minnesota/Joe Smith punishment) but the land$cape of the NBA is way different now.


Yeah, and according to Lowe, that seems to be the feeling around the league:

Zach Lowe:

Quote:
I've already had people that said "I've seen enough for them [the NBA] to do something to the Clippers."

I'll read the text I got from a league executive: "Most people I've talked to think the Clippers need to explain this now. They have the job to prove their innocence at this point. The NBA doesn't need a [smoking gun] text message or an email. It's now on the Clippers and Kawhi to explain this way more than 'We didn't know' and 'these are bad guys [regarding Aspiration]'."


The Joe Smith deal was a section 1 violation and using a 3rd party to pay a player is a section 2 violation. The punishment should be worse than the Joe Smith penalty.

Additionally, in 23 and 24, the Clippers paid over $140M in luxury tax. Well, they would have paid significantly more if they had been paying Kawhi more, so should they have to pay luxury tax on the additional? I think so, but doesn't seem to have a provision in the CBA to be able to do that. But that luxury tax money is divided up among non-tax teams. That might be an extra $3-4 million dollars per team with the tax level the Clippers were at.


From Reddit:

Quote:
  • Food $200
  • Data $150
  • Rent $800
  • Paying Kawhi to do nothing $28,000,000
  • Utilities $150
someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying

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superunknown
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In reply to Guitarsoup • 5:38p, 9/4/25
AG
That "my family is dying" post on the reddit thread effing killed me
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superunknown
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5:50p, 9/4/25
AG
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Guitarsoup
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In reply to superunknown • 6:08p, 9/4/25
AG
superunknown said:

It should be noted that the Clippers did one of these for all the birthdays that year.

PlumDog



Lue:



This guy?



Spurs training camp legend Brandon Boston



They also did Trees for Threes.

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Guitarsoup
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6:56p, 9/4/25
AG
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6597250/2025/09/04/kawhi-leonard-clippers-steve-ballmer-sponsorship-deal-aspiration/

Amick:

Quote:
the Clippers chose not to acknowledge was the suspicious nature of Leonard's reported contract


Quote:
And keep in mind, this statement was released before a Boston Sports Journal report emerged on Thursday alleging that Leonard actually had two deals with Aspiration that could have totaled $48 million combined.

Quote:
There was no mention in the Clippers' statement of Ballmer's involvement in said company, either, the reported $50 million investment from his personal LLC that was deposited approximately three months before Leonard's deal was done (in April 2022) and two years after a league investigation into Leonard's free agency should have inspired maximum discretion.


Quote:
No reference to the seven former Aspiration employees who chose to anonymously assist in Torre's reporting


Quote:
the convenient omission of such key facts only worsens the already-poor optics.


Quote:
rival executives who spoke to The Athletic on the condition of anonymity made one thing abundantly clear: No, this is not the norm.

For starters, as one pointed out, the combination of Ballmer's significant investment in a team sponsor and Leonard's curious contract (or contracts, perhaps) were reason enough to put them in harm's way with the league.

Several noted the size of Leonard's deal as a red flag all its own even before the BSJ report, and independent of the fact that he didn't provide any services in return.

Others wondered aloud if this explained why Leonard, who has historically pushed for every penny in his personal negotiations, would later agree to two extensions that were below maximum-salary level and afforded the Clippers additional roster flexibility.


Quote:
You can't have a luxury tax system like the NBA's that is essentially a hard cap a structure designed, in part, to level the playing field with less-wealthy owners only to look the other way when there's evidence that one of the richest people on the planet might be finding ways around it. And considering Ballmer already has history here even before the summer of 2019, there should be even more incentive to do a thorough and definitive investigation.

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superunknown
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In reply to Guitarsoup • 7:09p, 9/4/25
AG
Just came here to post the Boston Sports Journal article.

He was due $20mill worth of stock too?

And Ballmer "invested" $50 million?

Wtf, man. The only way this would be any less transparent as a cap workaround would be if it was exactly $22mil in stock.

Conspiracy theory time: what if Silver takes it to the BoG and says "we need to ban Ballmer."

BoG could agree to that punishment and to also use that to cover-up/button up their own transgressions. Especially if they know a Clippers team with a brand new state of the art arena (using the recent Cs and Lakers sales as a measuring stick) would bring a record amount.

Ballmer gets made whole (his purchase price + whatever negotiated prorated IntuitDome price) and the league pockets a portion of the overage and the rest distributed amongst the other teams as punishment.
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Guitarsoup
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In reply to superunknown • 7:21p, 9/4/25
AG
I feel like Ballmer giving $50M (which enabled them to get some big loan) and them turning around and giving Kawhi $28M cash and $20M in stock is as transparent as can be.

BOG meets in 6 days in NYC. I can't wait.

I don't think they will ban Ballmer and by Cubans' statements, I think the other teams will support him because Ballmer is probably good for the NBA. He cares and is dumping in money in the biggest market in the NBA.

If Kawhi was planting trees, wearing Aspiration hats, talking about it in his pressers, MAYBE you could get past the fact that the total paid to Kawhi was 4x what was paid to guys like Drake, Leo, RDJ, Cindy Crawford, etc combined. But the fact that Kawhi didn't do jack **** for them ever plus the testimony of people at Aspiration shows that it was solely to get out of cap/luxury tax problems.

The Clippers were in the range of luxury tax where $5M more salary would cost them over $30M in taxes. Skirting the luxury tax with these payments probably saved him 75-100M. Those luxury tax payments go to the 21 teams that didn't pay luxury tax. That's like 3-4M per team.
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superunknown
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7:43p, 9/4/25
AG
The fact that it would take SO LITTLE to make good on an "endorsement" like this and yet KL did nothing makes it so obviously transparent. I'm with you...literally anything like instagram pics or retweeting Aspiration would have been so much more plausible to pass off.

The punitive phase (especially so close to the season) is what intrigues me the most. Agree, Ballmer long term is a net+ for the association in a lot of ways and I wonder if the BoG would give that up in order for a relatively quick payoff. I've seen a lot of business decisions fumbled because of JG Wentworth syndrome (need cash NOW!) and with a brand new 11 year media deal in place and a potential addition of expansion teams, I can't imagine they want this thing drawn out. If they can come up with a solution that makes this go away asap i think that's what they'll do.
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Guitarsoup
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In reply to superunknown • 8:10p, 9/4/25
AG
To your point, I was thinking: "Kawhi's agent probably has social media guys that take care of that stuff for the players." So I looked up his agent.

https://nbpa.com/agents/directory/profile/Mitchell%20Frankel

Has his Gmail email and his address set as his personal home, which looks like a simple 1 story 2300sf house in Boca Raton.

He currently has 1 other NBA player: Tony Bradley of the Pacers, who has nearly 850 points scored in 7 NBA seasons. He is an NFL agent as well... with no current NFL clients.

IDK Kawhi. Maybe your uncle that used to be head bankteller and this boomer agent with no clients aren't the best people to choose to run your career.
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Guitarsoup
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9:39p, 9/4/25
AG


Spurs with the dig at the no show job with the Clocking In caption.
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LawHall88
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9:45p, 9/4/25
AG
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superunknown
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10:11p, 9/4/25
AG
Can you imagine the chaos if the Klaw gets his contract voided because of the Clause and then comes back under the BAE...would that make the Spurs a 2nd/3rd seed in the west? I feel we're about a 45 win team. Adding Kawhi..does that make us a 60 win team?

I absolutely cannot wait till the NBA office releases...something. I'm too young to fully know the Stepien rule 1st hand and I very much remember the Wolves/Joe Smith deal. This is the most significant thing I've seen in my lifetime (non violent version) and I want to see it all play out.
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West Texan
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In reply to LawHall88 • 11:06p, 9/4/25
AG
LawHall88 said:


The zoo getting in on the jokes lol
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jteagle
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6:14a
AG
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