So there’s a chance they’re gonna tweak the rules so Ballmer can get away with it? Can’t to see the top free agents signing for vets minimum with the biggest pocket owners

They’re gonna make rule changes and call it a day no punishment.

Someone on some sports podcast, I forget who, might be Pablo, brought up the notion that it is very bizarre the league apparently doesn’t have a dedicated office to manage and vet team sponsorships deals especially when one of their players is also sponsored by the same company. 

Apparently the NBA doesn’t have an apparatus there, which just seems strange. And it’s how stuff like Ballmer and Aspiration can happen. 

This just seems like such a “Steve got caught so now we all have to act like we didn’t know what was going on” answer. The fact that the Raptors and Lakers were also apparently getting wild demands from Uncle Dennis makes it seem probable that the Spurs had been as well, and that would mean that this has been a known issue around the league for a while now, at least on Kawhi’s side. And the cynic in me tells me that the fact zero noise was made by any of those teams means that type of stuff probably happens often on a smaller scale.

The biggest issue in my eyes is Ballmer though, the man is just insanely wealthy, \(50M to him is like less than \)20k to someone with a \(50M net worth. It’s a microscopic fraction of a cent relative to his ten dollars. People talk about James Dolan like he’s an abundantly rich owner, Steve Ballmer is worth like \)150 billion dollars more than he is lol, the guy just has an insane amount of resources at his disposal. They’re not gonna force him out of the league, but I don’t see how he can possibly be trusted not to try and pull something like this again, especially when he’s so shameless about his denial. Team needs their own independent watchdog or something

I wonder how the Player’s Union will react to this. The big win for the last CBA negotiation on the player’s side centered around the player’s ability to take on more off the court deals. 

Enhanced enforcement of off the court deals could lead to players pushing for a larger share of NBA revenue in response. 

Adam Silver already setting up the endgame: “Clippers and Kawhi Leonard were unwitting participants in a complicated ruleset. We can’t punish them for our failure to have clear rules.”

Silver gonna give the slappiest of slaps on the wrists for this 100%

Ballmer’s infinite money glitch broke the league. They had to change the CBA (second apron) and now this.

This really isn’t that hard. Just require every NBA player to have any contracts that are non team related to be registered with the players union. If the player is found to be receiving money outside the NBA contract and that hasn’t been reported to the players union, the whole contract is invalidated. And outside auditor that is agreed by the league and the owners can review these contracts randomly to check and see if they are making money that goes agains the spirit of the CBA. Further any team that is found to circumvent the contract loses the cap space, the right to that player and is still required to pay the money to the player union to be distributed to the rest of the union minus the owner split.

I think there is already a clause in the CBA preventing owners from buying outright the companies that sponsors their players.

That was why Steve Ballmer could not salvage Aspiration and lift it out of bankruptcy, because he could not invest anymore into that company.

it could also explain why Dennis Wong had to step in and invest that 1.99 mil

If the players union was savvy they would push for just removing the salary cap.

Who cares how much Steve Ballmer owned of Aspiration? They still get their “fee” from the 50M investment and a 48M payout. 2M. The issue is that NO team should be sending money to a company that is paying players. NONE. ZERO. FULL STOP.

If you think every single team isnt doing off the books deals with players you are delusional.

Shit like that was happening in college sports for decades pre NIL, im sure it happens in high school for top recruits. So why the fuck wouldnt it happen in the pros?

Oh wait, it does.