It’s a big club and we aren’t in it 

Not a crime to help Russia in Trump’s America

The league is generally not going to comment on the business concerns of their owners, unless the allegation is something like “Pera uses captured women and children to manufacture cocaine in his evil lair before shipping it across the world to street level drug dealers who we have a paper trail showing are directly paid by Robert Pera.”

And even then, the league is going to say “We’re aware of media reports that Dr Evil has threatened the world for a ransom of just one million dollars. We have not yet seen his address to the world, but we take these matters very seriously, and we will investigate.”

When it comes to the head office, the league are basically lawyers protecting the business interests of all the owners. So not until it becomes embarrassing to other owners will they say anything.

A couple of owners may have no problem with what Pera’s drone company is doing all with the equipment that’s ending up in Russia.

I’ll admit that I didn’t watch the Pablo videos on Pera, but just have the general jist of it.

Though I bet he seems know federal inquiry about violating sanctions against Russia, I bet he gets a call from the White House (and maybe even the Mavericks owners) about violating sanctions against Iran.

The aspiration story has already been brushed under the rug and that actually affects the league. The Memphis owner shit is way outside the leagues purview lol

The Aspiration thing was mostly a big deal because it was potentially salary cap evasion, something the NBA can take action on. The NBA didn’t need fraud charges to get involved, it didn’t matter if the lawyers did everything correctly, the investigation is up to the league. Any legal questions aren’t that important, it comes down to whether the league/other owners are willing to allow it.

Sanction evasion is a big boy crime and up to the US government to prosecute. The NBA isn’t going to get involved until/unless the feds do, and major news outlets aren’t going to cover it either until someone manages to track everything through the legalities. Pablo’s investigation isn’t enough because he is FAR from an expert on international business law.

If the President can be an obvious Russian asset, this is small potatoes

Because NBA “journalists” aren’t really journalists. They’re transcribers.

Why on earth would the NBA comment on this ? 

I haven’t read too deep into the allegations so perhaps I don’t understand the full scope of what’s happening, but as someone who does import/export in the electronics industry, I wonder how he got away with it. This type of thing is heavily regulated via EAR99 and ITAR. The company I work for got caught for basically the same thing, except it was a mistake (Russian asset using Czech shell company to hide true end use). We didn’t do our diligence and vet well enough the and fed was nice enough to slap us with millions in fines and we basically had to go on export probation for 3 years. And this was with us already doing billions in business and having a business relationship with the DoD going back to at least the 60s. They didn’t cut us much slack when they came down on us, so if this guy slides something fishy is going on.

My point being the federal government usually keeps very, very close tabs on this type of thing so for him to be doing this so blatantly and relatively openly makes me think either it is all somehow above board or he’s greasing some powerful palms to look the other way.

The world is being siloed thanks to our billionaire overlords.

Nothing in Pablo’s reporting proves or really even indicates Pera/Ubiquiti is guilty of avoiding sanctions to get equipment to Russia.

It’s not exactly a smoking gun. The company isn’t directly selling its equipment to Russia - it just doesn’t stop it from being sold or used. It’s the perfect amount of plausible deniability that will allow them to avoid even commenting on it.

OP, how do you describe the Memphis’ owner ALLEGATIONS to a non-NBA fan? Pablo Torre did some tremendous reporting (again) but how exactly could it be fact-checked in a 48 hour period of time?

The Clippers allegation is a direct story. “Reporter is stating the Clippers directly paid a player through a sponsor”. This one? You gotta first explain what the product is, and then explain how the company is not directly selling it but instead doing it through 3rd party sourcing, and THEN you gotta lay out the international offenses that they may be committing. That’s a LOT of work and frankly it’s a very slippery slope with easy deniability. You’re REALLY putting a lot of trust in Pablo with this one if you don’t fact check yourself as a journalist as this is a bigger offense than a fine of a few draft picks or whatever.

You really think the NBA gives a shit? The same league that has a team owned by the Adelson’s?

Because the real story isn’t about Pera or his company, but a distributor - and the group breaking the story have a large financial stake in tying the story to them.

Their business model is literally to short a company and then publish negative news about them (they say so openly).

They cant do this with the distributor (not publicly traded, and the story wouldn’t get clicks) so instead of writing the story about that, they frame it around ubiquiti.

Their model of journalism is literally to give themselves an enormous conflict of interest on every story they break.

Your mind is far too easily boggled if this is doing you in

I’m confident owners could straight up murder and eat someone on camera as long as they don’t say they want their mistress hanging out with Magic Johnson because he’s black. Now that’s a step too far! 

“Why isn’t my basketball league commenting on electronics sanctions evasions”

Do you guys hear yourselves

Seems like this topic struck deep enough into real news/politics/crime that the billionaires and politicians controlling the media have an interest in keeping it quiet. Jared Kushner’s brother is a part owner of the Grizzlies so it’s likely Pera has connections.

Aspiration Kawhi and the Clippers was a more entertaining story that had minimal real world consequences.

its not like the fans care. performative redditors literally get more viscerally angry at Ja doing finger guns than Pera doing this

Yall were much more outraged about Ja. Its not the media, its the people on the internet who keep stories alive

I like the NBA.

A player smokes marihuana: BANNED!

Team owners do the sketchiest and darkest shit: No, we have to be 100% that’s correct information and we need at least 10 years of in

I need the people who were outraged about finger guns to keep that same energy for alleged war crimes. It has been very interesting watching the difference in reaction to what Ja was accused of and what this billionaire owners is alleged to have done.

It’s disgusting.

Because it’s Memphis, and the league obviously doesn’t care about the city or organization. We are the unwanted child, and the reputation of Memphis is already in the crypts beneath the cellar.

You must not realize how much the wealthy control the narratives.

The truth is no one cares

None of us care

All we do is make ourselves feel better by leaving a comment here before we scroll on and see some cute dog video and forget all about it

Mamba mentality

Congress. Republicans control both chambers and are the ones with the power to set up hearings. If they really gave a damn, they’d haul this guy in front of them and grill him in hearings. They don’t care, though.

All the violence by ICE in Minnesota and across the country also tamps down the story. Which isn’t surprising or even necessarily a bad thing. It deserves to be talked about.

Oligarchs own medias and they love doing the uggliest stuff possible so they’re used to bury these kind of stories. With the current administration, I do not believe justice will be done. Trump loves guys like this owner.

[removed]

Have you seen what Microsoft is funding….. 

All billionaires are unethical scum 

This isn’t a league issue. Maybe it becomes one if there is a federal investigation or indictment. 

All the ICE stuff is burying this, so it might not be something that catches on.

Because this is a report by a short seller publicized by a podcast. Also stories about sanctions, and sanction evasions, are the kind of thing covered by the financial press usually, it’s interesting reading but not blaring headline kind of stuff.

Here’s the thing, there are no billionaires that got there without deserving to be banned from the server.

What? A billionaire got his money through questionable means? I m shocked.

The general nba community finding out that no one cares about non-Ja Morant grizzlies news is hilarious. Ja taking a dump would’ve gotten more coverage and outrage. This news story didn’t even last half a day.

What you’re missing is nobody really cares. It’s frankly baffling to me how people still talk about “sanctions” and “international law” when we’ve seen it made abundantly clear that sanctions are just a way for the US to bully geopolitical opponents, and international law requires someone to enforce it. Has Pera said anything against Trump? If not, nothing’s gonna happen.

I dont know about buried as much as general apathy. “Billionaire gets rich off seedy business ventures” isnt like, news.

I also noticed that the Ubiquiti stock completed rebounded when I checked yesterday. Hunterbrook disclosed that their business model involves short positions on some of the companies they investigate, and other than a dip when the story broke - the price is unchanged.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/UI/

Edit: LOL its up

Check the stock market reaction. The report is full of holes and is just a short seller hit job. The “smoking gun” is that unaffiliated European distributors may not be fully complying with American sanctions.

The US distributor they called correctly told them they couldn’t ship to Russia.

Technically, the owner isn’t breaking any laws. He’s selling to a company that is reselling them to Russia. Pera will just say he can’t control who the reseller is selling to.

This is something the NYT should report, not the NBA lol

Billionaires don’t suffer consequences

I’m gonna get hate for using some critical thinking instead of knee-jerk hating the Memphis owner but here goes a real answer anyway:

It’s networking equipment. I could go buy some at the store right now. America’s semi-enemies must also be using a ton of other American owned products, like springs or vehicles or bullets or sleeping bags or motor oil or cell phones. It’s a big world and there’s a ton of connections and if you want to link usage of a common product to a moral failing, there will be a way. Some plant in China probably makes product X for Russian and beloved product Y for us. Do we boycott product Y? Granted this guy might be some extra scummy business guy going behind the rules however he can to make a buck, but that also just seems like common practice nowadays.

I think Ubiquiti is most guilty of making good networking equipment. I wonder what all the Ukrainian drones are running on?

It honestly feels like the owners aren’t held to any type of accountability

Oh hey look the short seller is back

First I’ve heard of this. Insane

You want Stephen A covering economic sanctions and wars?

The truth is when tech and weapons get sold around the globe the us government and intelligence community is often well aware and even involved in the proceedings. I wouldn’t be surprised if we want them to sell them devices so we can pass along a number of them with backdoors we can access. 

Buried for sure. Nba trade deadline is approaching. 

It’s shit this happens but absolutely being buried 

Because it’s a nothing burger. The company sells to a 3rd party. 3rd party sells to Russia. The company is clean. Get over it.

Money over Morals….

Because its kijd of a made up story? It has literally no connection to the NBA. All the claims are against distributors, not ubiquiti itself. Im sure hes a douchebag just like every other billionaire is, but its a huge stretch to act like hes personally responsible for warcrimes, because goods hes produced and lost ownership off have gone on to be sold by other people to eventually end up with Russia. Ive seen clips of ISIS members driving Toyota around Syria, should we boycott the rockets until they change their arena name? And pretend that its Toyota fault a million people there were left as refugees?

If anything Torres going so hard on this bullshit story jisy makes him lose credibility and makes me question how legit all the aspiration stuff is

They don’t care. The clippers stuff is being ignored and it hits directly at the credibility of the league. If they’re ignoring that of course they’re going to ignore the business dealings of an owner

Explains Ja Morant doing all the bazooka and grenade motions.

This is much worse than what that fucking clippers douche did. Memphis dude is actively helping kill people. I’d make him sell this shit so fucking fast if I was Silver. This is truly pathetic.

Russian drones is definitely some of the worst shit to be connected to. I wouldn’t support anything with known ties to that

been all over the news…

American Billionaire with close ties to military industrial complex, indirectly responsible for mass civilian deaths is not bad PR, unfortunately.

I honestly think journalism as we know it is changed forever in America.

Everything is politicized now and the way we react to how things are covered (or not covered) has desensitized us to certain things .

Also rich people have realized that most things go away if you just ignore it and let distractions take over.

Corruption is normalized sadly.

I feel like OP is a Clippers fan and is trying to distract from the league releasing the Aspiration Files

It’s just networking supplies lol. Plenty of alternatives. It’s not like ubiquity is the only one that can supply these.

Yeah you aren’t going to hear too much about that one. You may hear something about Torres taking a never ending sabbatical eventually though.

I work at a local news station near Memphis and the station there did report on it at least

I’m sorry yall but what is your obsession with thinking Silver can do anything? He works for the owners, and the grizzlies owner committed a federal crime. Not a league rule. Something like this is literally what the FBI is for. But we know they’re not gonna be deployed

Please be careful out there, Pablo!

big money going wild these days

Same thing happened with the browns owner who had a major FBI scandal investigation in the NFL and I think the Vikings owners.. hell the Patriots let Donald Trump use their airplane to ship off deportees to gitmo.

Needs a better headline. He’s connected to Russia and it’s affecting us how?

This is why you’re a random redditor and not a business executive lmao

Zero media coverage locally

If Jeffrey Epstein owned a team he would’ve been an owner till the day he died. Only time real consequences come around is if their fellow billionaires don’t like them personally.

Our president looks up to Putin at the very top, nothing will happen to a billionaire here

Nah its super rich and everyone else. Its not even a fight anymore. Someone that rich needs to have a federal prosecution but our current president is handing out pardons like million dollar candy. So nah nothing is gonna happen

So the correct people to really investigate issues with breaking sanctions is the US Government. With this administration, if you have your bribes donations up to date, they will look the other way. If this issue, and the many other issues with this administration bother you, please make sure to vote in the midterms for the Democrats.

Y’all haven’t got a clue what all of these owners have their money in. They don’t have a clue what their money is being used for. For so many of these owners they have 80 toes in 160 pools that if you were to take the effort to dig, none of the owners in the Big 4 or even MLS or the women’s leagues would be innocent.

We don’t play the same game as them.

Trump is probably the middleman for this contract. We all know he supports Russia. They probably had the story killed.