If silver does nothing I’m actually kinda excited to see what the league ends up looking like with the sudden and unexpected removal of the salary cap. Like Giannis can sign with the Knicks on a vet min then a corporation wholly owed by Giannis gets a $500 mil investment from James Dolan the same day. It’ll be the Wild West.

It’s time for Adam Silver to be ousted by the NBA. He’s not doing anything for the FBI investigation, he’s not doing enough here. Adam Silver wants all of this to happen for his own agendas. Ruining and disrespecting the game of basketball smh.

Adam Silver, actually, is very busy just activating brand awareness to finesse synergies in an effort to provide value to consumers of the NBA product in the most cost effective strategy possible to maximize the potential of his alien head going straight up his candy ass

Hey now, be accurate

It’s invertebrate Adam Silver!

He does kinda remind me of the ghoul from fallout

Worst commissner in the modern era. Mr. Do nothing era

Kissinger’s biggest fan, Adam Silver

This is the biggest issue in all this IMO. If the NBA uses the logic that they need a clear “smoking gun” type document where the player or team basically admits to fraud/cheating, but that everything other than that is perfectly fine, then the league has laid out the template for every other owner to do exactly the same thing thanks to the Ballmer precedent.

The most frustrating part is that the NBA’s rules don’t require evidence to be so concrete. They seemingly just want to get out of punishing Ballmer and the Clips if at all possible and/or are so scared of Ballmer’s lawyers when he eventually sues them for any punishment.

They probably still can if they want anyway. You think the NBA is gonna be doing due dilligence on some “booster” dropping 10 million of bitcoin into a player’s wallet on the side?

i think if silver doesnt punish its more of a reflection that this was just a hidden secret, not that it will become like the wild west. i think that would just be evidence that this is just the first we are hearing of a fairly common practice

It’s funny, because as a Lakers fan if there is no punishment it will be really good for us with our new ownership.

However I don’t want that, I want a severe punishment to deter this.

It’s also why I think something will happen. Small market teams that receive money from the luxury don’t want to lose that money which will happen if teams can pay out a side door.

Like seriously why pay extra in the tax at like 1.4x or whatever it is when you can give them at cost through a shady deal?

I think the non punishment is admission it’s already happening everywhere in the league

Salary cap isn’t a thing, competitive integrity is a myth

Any other conclusion is simply illogical

It’s crazy too because the NFL seems to have no problem punishing teams with whatever evidence they have.

I vaguely recall in one of the first reports, I think it was the Lakers that Uncle Dennis made a lot of similar demands to and they laughed him out of the room and told him ‘good luck finding anyone to do that!’

Which indicated to me that not only do they not engage in that stuff, but they were confident nobody else would either.

And 29 other owners which were put at a competitive disadvantage by Ballmer.

Hence why it is ultimately the other owners that will determine if consequences happen.

I think 2026 has already shown that rules are only for those dumb enough to care.

Don’t forget the Nico legacy trade

“Small market teams won enough rings” - silver, probably

Not just pampering, tampering too!

Exactly this. The fucked up thing is that if there really aren’t any consequences for this, then that means this is allowed. And I’m looking at the Nuggets’ various expiring contracts and thinking, “well, can Peyton Watson just happen to get a do-nothing secret sponsorship deal from a Denver-based company that the Kroenkes just happen to heavily invest in?”

Why would they care? Ballmer overpaying for the Clippers increased the value of their own franchises by tens of millions minimum. He also turned a franchise that sucked up moneys by underinvesting into a luxury tax payer.

I would guess the true cheapskates of the league actually like the Clippers. They don’t really care about winning, but the vast sums of revenue sharing from the Clippers tax payments went straight into the pockets of owners like Reinsdorf or DeVos.

The only salty owners are probably other ones that wanted to win but since the Clippers ended up largely failing to be a contender threat those owners didn’t really care

If it doesn’t cost the league money

You know where luxury tax money goes? Split between the teams that arent in the tax. When one team that would be a taxpayer pays under the table and avoids the tax the poor owners are materially hurt.

The other owners must be banking on Ballmer and the Clippers being dysfunctional as fuck or guilty of similar if they aren’t pissed off by this. If the Clippers get away with this, any player could sign with the Clippers for below market value and bad hundreds of millions without it making a dent to Ballmer.

Even if other owners decide to try and copy him, he can offer more money.

Lol, intermittently balls.

Insulated from what? He didn’t commit a crime - he broke NBA rules. Silver doesn’t have the balls to cancel his contract. Nobody is going to jail. The only penalties will be for Balmer and the Clippers and Silver doesn’t have the lawyers to fight the 3rd richest person on Earth.

Some people think Kawhi seemingly not giving a shit about any of this makes him cool. Personally, I find it really off putting.

There is quite literally naked brazen corruption at the highest levels of our government. I don’t think the powers that be really care about torre because it’s kinda like “Yes, and? Look around you, corruption reigns supreme whether you know about it or not”.

Silver doesn’t need to do anything about it because optically he doesn’t need to care. Americans have voted for and accepted corruption in every single step of their lives and it’s endemic. there’s no need to pretend anymore to care if you’re a suit.

It’s not, though. The CBA clearly says anybody acting on the player’s behalf-whether it’s the agent, father, brother, best friend, girlfriend, whatever-who makes impermissible demands for the player puts the player in violation of the CBA. It’s not like a criminal case where the prosecution has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the league just has to say “I think you did this.”

Which these owners won’t want considering they A) Don’t want to set precedent for getting each other in trouble because B) They’ve all come to power by doing shit like this (and worse) to get to their position of power.

If they try to ban Kawhi the NBPA will make it a huge issue that gets tied up considering that’s what unions are literally for. If you see comments from previous players, it’s clear none of them view this negatively (because players getting more money = good). To them, it becomes an immediate infringement on their potential endorsement deals.

They’ll basically take the stance that Kawhi was offered an incredible endorsement deal, he took it, and that’s that. They’d paint it out as: “If a sponsor offered any of us $20M and never asked to do anything, why shouldn’t we be able to take that deal? It’s our right to do so.”

It’d be much, much easier for the NBA to give LAC + Kawhi some type of slap on the wrist, say that any future failures in this realm will be more severely punished, then move on.

There are literally dozens of them

Yea, I’m most certainly not biased but I think game 7 of those ECSF round should be overturned.

But that’s not a clear relationship, at least in terms of the framework that Pablo was using before (business partners)? That’s Pablo moving the goalposts.

I guess I need to watch the full episode. It’s usually my 6am drive to work entertainment but I had today off.

Yeah and the condo in question is literally a block away from Staples Center…not unreasonable that someone that rich would want a crash pad close to the home arena

Anybody not shilling the popular ‘Damn they are fully guilty and no one will get punished’ line is getting downvoted but this isn’t the first time Pablo has been reaching, lol. Is it really that unlikely or unusual that Ballmer would know someone with property in the area next to the arena that he owns?