I hope they have Bill Kennedy read the results of the independent investigation like he’s doing one of his challenge decisions.  

Bill steps to the podium, microphone up:

“After extensive review… at first glance, the information presented by Pablo Torre was indeed compelling.”

Brief pause. Crowd murmurs.

“The narrative suggested coordinated financial activity… overlapping relationships… and timing that, on the surface, appeared suspicious.”

Longer pause. He looks up.

“HOWEVER.”

The arena goes silent.

“Upon further review of the actual facts…”

Measured. Calm. Almost sympathetic.

“It was determined that speculative framing, selective sequencing of events, and repeated implication without direct proof do not constitute cap circumvention.”

Another beat.

“Endorsement agreements were largely unpaid. Investments failed to result in player compensation. Property transactions occurred at market value. And charitable relationships predated all alleged misconduct.”

He nods once, as if confirming it to himself.

“As such…”

Final pause. This is where people lose it.

“The ruling on the floor stands.”

He raises his hand.

“The challenge is UNSUCCESSFUL.”

“Pablo Torre will be charged with one lost timeout.”

Turns. Walks away. Absolute mayhem

I’m OOTL

It makes billionaire Steve Ballmer so relatable. See guys, even HE can get scammed like your grandma.

And all I get out of it is this guy called Kawhi Leonard 🤷‍♂️ 🤷‍♀️ it’s the worst 🤷‍♂️

“oh what, just cause I’m the clippers owner, you think that when I gave \(50M to a scam company who then immediately gave \)50M to the star player I just gave a contract to for nothing in return, that I’m somehow involved?

C’mon, I got a little more sense than that…

Yeah, I remember when I gave \(50M to a scam company who then immediately gave \)50M to the star player I just gave a contract to for nothing in return”

In all seriousness whether or not the cap circumvention thing happened, this was a lawsuit brought by investors who lost money in aspiration and then updated it to slap ballmer’s name on it after the Pablo Torre reporting.  It all seems fishy, but nothing to date has been proven and they just added ballmer in there like it’s already a fact he was involved.  They just figured maybe they could get some settlement money from ballmer.  Fully expected him to ask for it to be dismissed. 

As far as the 50 mil in/50 mil out, that’s one of the core problems with the narrative.  Reality is that between ballmer and the clippers it was more like 150 mil into aspiration while aspiration had a long term endorsement agreement to pay the clippers 300 mil.  Separately Joe Sanberg signed a multi year deal with Kawhi that was supposed to pay him 7 mil per year over 4 years + Sanberg gave some of his (what he understood to be worthless) stock options to Kawhi.  Then, based on the reporting, they only ever paid Kawhi like 3 million dollars total.  

If it was clean 50 in earmarked for Kawhi, 50 mil going to Kawhi, it would be a lot easier to call this clear circumvention, but the waters are still pretty murky and the narrative that later money pumped into aspiration (like ballmer’s late stage 10 mil bridge investment) was also for Kawhi would be easier to believe if they had evidence of 10 mil being paid to Kawhi.  

Being involved doesn’t mean having damaged the plaintiffs. They signed that they did their own due diligence, and Balmer owed them no duty.

“Plaintiffs would not have invested and/or kept their investment in (Aspiration) if Ballmer and Sanberg had disclosed the true nature of Ballmer’s investment,” the Nov. 3 complaint reads. “Ballmer thus supported and participated in Sanberg’s fraud.”

It sure feels like trying to add a very rich guy to an existing suit and hope he makes a nuisance payment. It doesn’t mean Balmer did nothing wrong, but that would be a fine not a payment to these 11 Aspiration investors who fucked up and want to blame someone.

We’re all looking for the guy who did this

Ballmer put in way more than 50M and Kawhi got paid less than 50M…

Exactly this.

Ballmer will pay to make this go away. What’s another $50m to him anyways.

The courts have a lot more power than the NBA

Largely yes but in some instances not really. The NBA’s “discovery” can’t be preempted by settlement and if LAC doesn’t turn over the things the NBA wants to see then the NBA can simply assume guilt.

Will the NBA actually want to penalize LAC is the real question. It might be in their best business interest to look the other way. But if they take this seriously then LAC probably is fucked.

alternatively, maybe it’s not wise to openly blackmail someone with enough money to literally buy the loyalty of sitting legislators. intelligence vs wisdom, etc

Genius? It’s common practice to name a business owner. Especially when they are rich.

Hmm, think it’s Kawhi trying to get his overdue payments?

It should be pretty easy for the case to go on if that is the in court defense ballmer is using. The people suing get to show the judge that ballmer continued giving money to the person that he knew was actively defrauding him thru his charity.

He was in win now mode.

This is pretty standard practice, but it being news is also good. Don’t let it go away.

Exactly. A whole month after all star break just for a hearing on dismissal. NBA probably hasn’t even started its own investigation.

This hearing is just a simple motion to dismiss which only tests the legal sufficiency of the claims pled, not whether they are true. It has no bearing on the NBA’s investigation.

Not sure about that. The discovery process could uncover more than what the NBA can control. At least narratively speaking.

If the NBA throws the hammer down early, they could protect themselves. At least from an optics standpoint. How much? Not sure.

What integrity 😅

Does NBA have integrity? The regular season games are cooked by the refs constantly for ratings.

Sad but true 👍

He’s gonna install windows vista on your pc for that

No rules for the rich in Trump’s America

A bunch of Aspiration investors want their money back, and are using the Pablo Torre report to leverage Ballmer for a settlement.

I disagree. I love the clippers :(