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?

Quote:

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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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Man I love the NBA so much.

Quote:

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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.

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

Zach Lowe:

Quote:

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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]'."

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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:

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• 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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That "my family is dying" post on the reddit thread effing killed me

Happy Birthday, Kawhi!🥳

For every comment/retweet, @Aspiration will plant one tree for Kawhi's birthday! pic.twitter.com/dHOS8sgyWT

— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) June 29, 2023

superunknown said:

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Happy Birthday, Kawhi!🥳

For every comment/retweet, @Aspiration will plant one tree for Kawhi's birthday! pic.twitter.com/dHOS8sgyWT

— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) June 29, 2023

---

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

PlumDog

Happy Birthday, Mason! 🎉

For every comment/retweet, @Aspiration will plant one tree for Mason’s birthday! pic.twitter.com/Q6Y1Mtw6nI

— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) March 5, 2023

Lue:

Happy Birthday, Coach 🥳

For every comment/retweet, @Aspiration will plant one tree for Tyronn Lue’s birthday! pic.twitter.com/ny0aIzeNTL

— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) May 3, 2023

This guy?

Happy Birthday, @MoussaDiabate_! 🎉

For every comment/retweet, @Aspiration will plant one tree for Moussa’s birthday! pic.twitter.com/afj1NQX9Ia

— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) January 21, 2023

Spurs training camp legend Brandon Boston

Happy birthday, @bboston_! 🎉

For every comment/retweet, @Aspiration will plant one tree for Brandon’s birthday! pic.twitter.com/I3XlFZmI24

— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) November 28, 2021

They also did Trees for Threes.

🌲 Trees for Threes 👌

For each three-pointer the Clippers scored this season, @Aspiration will plant 3 trees.

We’ve planted 3,306 trees this season! pic.twitter.com/szhISzn34V

— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) May 8, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6597250/2025/09/04/kawhi-leonard-clippers-steve-ballmer-sponsorship-deal-aspiration/

Amick:

Quote:

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

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Quote:

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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.

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Quote:

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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.

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Quote:

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

---

Quote:

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

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Quote:

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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:

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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.

---

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

LawHall88 said:

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San Antonio Zoo takes our tree planting very seriously.  In light of recent news an immediate investigation was launched on property to determine if any potentially fraudulent activity (aka “Clipping”) was occurring on zoo grounds by a previously known “actor.”  This video… pic.twitter.com/weJNjyzjQD

— San Antonio Zoo 🦍 (@SanAntonioZoo) September 4, 2025

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The zoo getting in on the jokes lol

If I send you this, I’m not showing up pic.twitter.com/FHdS7BGKbt

— Hater Report (@HaterReport_) September 4, 2025

Cuban is off. He talks about big deals getting you access, but ignores that they didn't get access to Kawhi with tens of millions of dollars.

Steve Ballmer on sportscenter talking about the Kawhi situation pic.twitter.com/tqBOLeV0sW

— Josiah Johnson (@KingJosiah54) September 5, 2025

I'm with you. But money talks and it's never been quiet and it feels like it's more obvious today than ever. The Clippers and Kawhi need to be punished severely and I'm not sure how that happens within the NBA structure (BoG and NBAPA) in a way that doesn't wind up in lawsuits forever.

I think something along the lines of a fine equal to the amount of luxury tax the Clippers would have paid if that money was above the table is a damn good start. They don't have full control over their own 1rp until 2030, so start whatever draft pick forfeiture from there. I'd also dock their salary cap by 7 mill for 4 years, leaving current contracts grandfathered as to not harm the players who signed legit deals. For Kawhi, current contract nullified and future contract docked by 7 mill per for 4 years, with no Bird rights/auto raises allowed for 4 years as well considering that 48 mill from Aspiration was nearly the difference between if he'd re-signed in Toronto with his Bird right intact as opposed to jumping to LA under what we all can see was a fraudulent contract.

I'm not trying to get involved in a class war by any stretch. Doesnt bother me at all that billionaires pay millionaires to do sports. It is rather offensive when excess to this level of "we can buy and sell anything we want with no repercussions" is shown. Rules for thee, not for me, etc.

In non-Kawhi news:

The Thunder say rookie forward/center Thomas Sorber sustained a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his right knee during an offseason workout in Oklahoma City yesterday.

— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) September 5, 2025

A lot of Spurs fans liked Sorber during the draft process.

West Texan said:

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In non-Kawhi news:

The Thunder say rookie forward/center Thomas Sorber sustained a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his right knee during an offseason workout in Oklahoma City yesterday.

— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) September 5, 2025

A lot of Spurs fans liked Sorber during the draft process.

---

Yep, but that is a bad deal. Recovering from broken foot, which is especially bad for a 265lb guy, and tears his ACL. I would have been thrilled to have him at 14, but I'm so glad we got Carter Bryant.

Sorber seems like a good guy, too. Hate it for him.

Lol at Ballmer expecting people to believe he was duped out of 50 million dollars that just happened to be almost the exact amount funnelled to Kawhi.

I get that people don't have to incriminate themselves, but sometimes silence is better.

AggieEP said:

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Lol at Ballmer expecting people to believe he was duped out of 50 million dollars that just happened to be almost the exact amount funnelled to Kawhi.

I get that people don't have to incriminate themselves, but sometimes silence is better.

---

Yeah, it is completely unbelievable.

Ballmer getting scammed by a Green company like that? Believe it completely.

That company giving Kawhi $48MM and expecting nothing in return? How do they benefit. Fraudsters and scammers commit fraud and scams by TAKING money while doing nothing, not giving money and expecting nothing.

The explanation makes no sense.

What I tweeted this morning:

I can understand @mcuban's point that keeping Kawhi in LA would benefit a major sponsor, but Kawhi had just spent multiple years forcing his way to LA and making them sell the farm for his buddy PG13. It isn't like he was wanting to move home like he did in SA - he was home. 2/2.

— Tom Campbell (@thomasgcampbell) September 5, 2025

Now if HEB and Frost wanted to team up to pay Kawhi under the table to stay in SA and not implode the team in 2018? That would make sense. But Kawhi spent years orchestrating his move back home to LA and forced LA to trade the farm for PG13 (he tried to get the Spurs to trade for PG13 and Indiana said no)

It makes absolutely no sense at all for them to pay Kawhi under the table with no benefit. He wasn't going to leave playing for his home team and the Lakers had already washed their hands of him.

BREAKING: The NBA has mandated that Kawhi Leonard play all 82 games next season as part of a disciplinary action.

(Via @ChrisBHayne) pic.twitter.com/e85mJOK1Ue

— NBACentel (@TheNBACentel) September 5, 2025

San Antonio Spurs No. 2 pick Dylan Harper underwent surgery Friday to repair a partially torn ligament in his left thumb that he suffered in a workout Wednesday, and the hope is Harper will be ready for the season opener Oct. 22 in Dallas, sources tell ESPN.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 5, 2025

May the best chef win 🤣

Dylan Harper and Carter Bryant faced off in the ultimate cook-off challenge in an all-new Spurs Invest in their Best pres. by @VCMtweets #ad

Full video 🎥 https://t.co/K9YkBDKRpq pic.twitter.com/WWPyxEVNxl

— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) September 5, 2025

Did dylan hurt his hand in the cook off?

I would assume Ballmer has already talked to Silver at least informally here. It's been alluded to in several reports that Ballmer and his deep pockets are good for the league, so maybe Silver said "just go with the deny everything strategy and we'll take care of the rest."

The league has been oddly quiet about such an explosive allegation that undoubtedly harmed the Raptors (not the first time the Raptors have been damaged by a bigger organization). The league might end up coming down with one of those "our investigation showed that Ballmer didn't know what was going on but GENERIC FALL GUY orchestrated this whole thing and is now banned from the NBA forever" statements and dock them a couple of draft picks and take away some cap room. But I'm starting to have serious doubts that the NBA has any incentive to hammer the Clippers here.

AggieEP said:

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I would assume Ballmer has already talked to Silver at least informally here. It's been alluded to in several reports that Ballmer and his deep pockets are good for the league, so maybe Silver said "just go with the deny everything strategy and we'll take care of the rest."

The league has been oddly quiet about such an explosive allegation that undoubtedly harmed the Raptors (not the first time the Raptors have been damaged by a bigger organization). The league might end up coming down with one of those "our investigation showed that Ballmer didn't know what was going on but GENERIC FALL GUY orchestrated this whole thing and is now banned from the NBA forever" statements and dock them a couple of draft picks and take away some cap room. But I'm starting to have serious doubts that the NBA has any incentive to hammer the Clippers here.

---

Can't take away cap room. That punishes players and isn't a listed penalty in the CBA. The listed penalty is ban for 1y, but realistically, no one is going to want to rehire that guy if it is generic fall guy.

The NBA hired one of the most reputable white shoe big law firms to investigate it. That signals they are spending 7 figures on this and are taking this seriously.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wachtell,_Lipton,_Rosen_%26_Katz

I don't think they hire WLRK to sweep it under the rug.

The other big thing is reports from Zach Lowe yesterday seem to indicate that other owners are pissed. They do not want the standard to be that stars get extra pay on the side that the owners set up and they also know that Ballmer doing this avoided significantly luxury tax - probably about $65-125M in tax spread out to ~20 teams that were not tax payers.

Silver's investigation doesn't have to abide by the criminal law standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. I think just Pablo's evidence so far gets us beyond a preponderance of evidence. I can believe Ballmer was scammed out of $50MM. That's totally reasonable. I cannot believe that Aspiration gave Kawhi $28MM cash and $20MM in stock to do nothing and have it written that he had no obligation whatsoever in his contract.

Kawhi makes $5.5MM from New Balance. They have a line of shoes, shirts, hats, etc for him. He wears their merch everywhere. He makes commercials and social posts. It is in his social bios with links. This is more than double that much to not do anything at all?

The CBA (Art XIII S1) details that an endorsement deal with a team sponsor cannot be "Substantially in excess of fair market value for services rendered." This wildly and clearly violates that clause on its face. Kawhi was paid exponentially more than all other Aspiration celebrity endorsers combined and didn't do a single thing, plus Kawhi's a significantly lower profile star than people like Robert Downey Jr, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Drake.

-------



Now comes the unintended consequences. I think the NBA should make Kawhi pay back any money received from Aspiration either to charity or to the bankruptcy debtors and his $100MM contract should be cancelled (both are punishments in the CBA.) But the unintended consequence of that is: OKC owns the next two Clippers draft picks. Talk about imbalance of power. LAC should still be a 46-52 win team, even with Kawhi only playing 40-50 games. The Thunder getting two unprotected lottery picks from the Clippers would be a nightmare. Without Kawhi, they are still probably a playin team - assuming all those old dudes state relatively healthy.


What I would love is for the NBA to investigate all players on the Clippers and get all their endorsement deals. I am positive that Kawhi isn't the only one Ballmer did this with. He's certainly not the only one to take a below market deal to sign with LAC.

[ol]

Bill Russell

Hakeem Olajuwon

Tim Duncan

Kevin Garnett

Rudy Gobert

Scottie Pippen

Draymond Green

David Robinson

Ben Wallace

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Dennis Rodman

Bobby Jones

Jason Kidd

Wilt Chamberlain

Kawhi Leonard

Giannis Antetokounmpo

Michael Jordan

LeBron James

Dikembe Mutombo

Sidney Moncrief

Dennis Johnson

Dwight Howard

Gary Payton

Bruce Bowen

(tie) Marc Gasol and Tony Allen

[/ol]

25 Best defenders of all time, according to Hollinger:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/3093939/2022/01/27/nba-75-a-history-lesson-on-defense-and-ranking-the-25-best-defenders-of-all-time/

I think Robinson should be higher, in his prime, he was neck-in-neck with Hakeem and won DPOY over Hakeem plus was All-Defense 1st team over Hakeem 4x in 7 years.

I think Wallace was a better defender than Gobert and couldn't be exploited the way Gobert was.

I think I do

Russell
Hakeem
Duncan
Garnett
Robinson
Pippen
Ben Wallace
Rodman
Draymond
Kawhi
Gobert
Kareem
Jordan
Giannis

And Alvin Robertson makes the team somewhere. From 86-91 he averaged 3.1spg. In the modern era, only 5 players have had 3.1spg in a season and Alvin averaged it over the course of 6 straight seasons. I think he gets overlooked because he is an *******.

West Texan said:

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Alvin Robertson should definitely be on there. 6x all defense, dpoy, 3x steal champ. Easily one of the 25 best.

The fact that Duncan never won a dpoy is still criminal.

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It all comes back to the "system" (calling good players who actually play the game as a team a "system" is comical, but that's always been the argument).

Duncan without Popovich probably wins more individual awards, but the Spurs were just always good and Duncan didn't have to do more than he did.

My guess is that Duncan would trade in his MVPs for the chance to get the rebound against the Heat we needed in the Ray Allan finals.

West Texan said:

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The fact that Duncan never won a dpoy is still criminal.

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I've mentioned this story here before but I think of it far too often so why not share it again?

In 2007 when Marcus Camby won it, it should have been Timmy without a doubt. I was at the first home game for Denver when Stern was there to present the trophy. Tim did the Tim Stare at Camby the entire duration of the ceremony, just burning a hole through him.

Then went out and held Camby to 6 points. Ate him up the entire game.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/200704280DEN.html