[September 2025]: Side-by-side video of NBA commissioner Adam Silver blatantly lying about not knowing anything about Clippers sponsor Aspiration.
He needs to go
It does make you wonder what the other owners are thinking and how they feel about this. I’m sure some of them love the way this has been handled, but others are probably fuming cuz they probably don’t think they would have been treated the same way.
Judging from Pablo in interviews and podcast clips he has been in contact with a couple owners since he started this story that are on his side and feed him info from behind the scenes
From that I’d say only a few owners are probably upset about it which shows most owners are probably doing similar shit as Ballmer but I’d guess not even close to the dollar amount that Ballmer did.
If I’m Joe Lacob the Warriors owner I’m fucking furious. That guy paid hundreds of millions in luxury tax, but apparently circumventing the salary cap is okay???
I think in this case, breaking the Max cap is not as problematic. Technically, it doesn’t impact team cap.
It’s still very problematic, but more about tampering and free agency than team cap and luxury tax.
Also, it probably would have been a bigger deal if Clippers wasn’t entirely incompetent and actually won something.
It’s easier to forgive a murder attempt if you watched murderer shoot himself in the foot rather than injuring you.
I mean no other owner has Ballmer money. Josh Harris owns the Sixers and a fucking NFL team and Ballmer has like 12x his net worth. That’s the difference between a moderatelysuccessfull doctor and an NBA player on a MLE.
Ballmer could own every NBA franchise
Josh Harris owns the Sixers and a fucking NFL team
He also owns the Devils in the NHL, as well, which only further illustrates how ludicrous Ballmer’s net worth is that it’s so much higher than the guy who owns teams in every major American sports league besides the MLB.
Jesus Christ this guy a legit terrorist to American sports. Keep him away from baseball
I mean ballmer was literally former ceo of microsoft during the dot com era
Wait a minute… THAT Steve Ballmer?
developers^developers^developers^developers^developers^developers^developers^developers
Steve Balmer? The actor?! Then who’s vice-president, Jerry Lewis? I suppose Jane Wyman is the First Lady!
Owners hooking their players up by introducing them to local sponsors is 100% something that everyone does and is normal and not against the rules. Usually those are the \(200k for a commercial type of deals though. Kawhi getting \)20m+ to do nothing is absolutely unheard of and something that only Ballmer can swing.
Its not just the high dollar value. The other aspect is Balmer had a significant investment in Aspiration, with allegations that the investment was ear marked to pay Kawhi. Thats a completely different scenario than an owner introducing a player to some guy with a car dealership and then the car dealership using its own money to pay the player.
To expand on this, the CBA has specific rules on sponsors. Athletes can get sponsorships via the team connections, but those sponsorships have to be fair market value. So if an A list celeb would get \(50k to show up at an event and shake hands, the athlete can get that. \)200k for a commercial from a celeb? Your star is fine getting that much as well.
Kawhi wanting to not work and get paid idk 30x market value was so outrageous its no wonder all his previous teams didn’t try to match it.
Yep, getting paid 10x more than much bigger stars like RDJ and Leo who actually did work is not even remotely fair market value.
I would think they’re mildly annoyed about salary cap circumvention because ultimately the cap is what guarantees their money coming in, but what they really love is knowing is that Silver will go to bat for them no matter what rules they stomp on.
but they’re the rules they all voted on and approved. why even have the rules if they don’t care?
A question for the world.
To pretend the sport isn’t rigged
NBA will lose 0 viewers from this fiasco
So ultimately, no one will talk about it 2 years from now
You think the NBA is rigged?
We woulda been docked multiple picks for this. We had to beg hat in hand to get a 2RP back while the league and Hornets sent us a dude under active FBI investigation for throwing games for a FRP
I want heads to roll as well. But doesn’t seem like much is going to happen. Kawhi was traded to the raptors, his former team. Larry Tanenbaum owns 20% of the team, he is also the chairman of the NBA Board of Governors. Surely he knows something of the situation otherwise the trade doesn’t happen.
They don’t care. Mat Ishbia, owner of the Phoenix Suns, was running damage control for Balmer even though the Suns got fucked by following the rules and Ishbia’s stupidity.
Billionaires have much stronger class solidarity they will always back each other.
Remember, every position any commissioner takes is always the compromise position between all of the owners. No sports league can be be trusted to be its own arbiter. All sports leagues should be governed from elsewhere, no sports league should directly employ their own referees, no sports league should compel one participant to simply pay another participant in the name of ‘parity’ - but here we are.
The United States, where we love our business to be ruthlessly competitive and capitalistic, except our sports. Which should be so socialistic even Mao would say hold up.
The other owners see him making them money and raising the value of their franchises and at the end of the day that’s all they’ll care about.
Guys like Ballmer have so much money and power. He can bully the other owners to back down and stfu or he’ll uncover all the dirt on their team and their other businesses. Or he can just uncover dirt on the league. That’s the thing about this, Ballmer’s hard to get.
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He’s the worst commissioner in sports. No interest in maintaining the integrity of the sport, only interested in money and selling out.
Learning from Infantino.
Idk Manfred is pretty damn bad
Manfred improved the game at least. Three true outcomes and dead time was killing the sport. Yankees-Red Sox games we’re taking 4 hours.
Pitch clock, 3 batter minimum, bigger bases, throw over limits, and now ABS challenges. Games finish in under 2 hours now sometimes. Game is much more watchable.
Manfred has faults but he saw issues with baseball and rectified them. Silver has done nothing to improve the game in comparison.
Baseball games can finish in under 2 hours sometimes now? Damn I might actually start watching baseball
No joke. Though I hate that starting pitchers got nerfed. Used to love watching guys throw complete games.
How were they nerfed? I think it’s just teams realizing they don’t want to burn their best pitchers by having them go 9 innings all the time.
Baseball has literally never been more enjoyable to watch and basketball is the polar opposite. Reg season basketball is awful to watch
post season basketball has some rough games too tbh
Bettman is still horrendous, Infantino is the worst human being in sports, like there are far worse than Silver
I can’t even begin to imagine the pile of skulls Gary Bettman sits on.
Like I don’t think people remember that he caused two lockouts, one that lost a season, signed one of the single worst tv deals ever, and basically handwaved away two separate sex assault scandals
Manfred has had some massive lows, like calling the world series trophy “a piece of metal” when he handwaved thr Astro’s cheating scandal away, but he’s also had some massive highs recently with the larger bases and pitch clock. ABS challenges are also sick.
Silver isn’t even the worst of the last two NBA commissioners.
Everyone thinks their sport’s commissioner is the worst. I’d definitely find it hard to put Silver at the bottom.
The owners are making money hand over fist and they’re going to get more when the two new teams come into the league. He works for the owners, not the fans or the players. He’s not going anywhere.
But the owners are the ones who put the cap circumvention rules in place. why even have a cap at all if they don’t care about enforcing it?
They do care about enforcing it, enforcing it on 99% of players to limit costs. The few Kawhis can orchestrate these out-of-bounds agreements but everyone else gets told “Oof. I mean you did have a couple extra turn overs last year. And we do have to sign all these people again. Here’s $3m/yr less than you wanted and it’s all we have because we have this number we have to stay under”
Earthworm Jim OUT
Why? You’re not his boss. His bosses love him as he’s doing what they hired him for and he’s doing an excellent job at it . His job is not to please Reddit
we can’t have him here in our social club no more. i mean that much i do know
Dude this league never fires commissioners, they serve for decades on end
Go where? Ownership loves him. Owners are making more money than at any stage of their lives.
Worst commissioner in sports. Manfred started off rough but the changes to the game and global play benefited the game.
Under Silva there has been zero benefits to the nba.
Justice for Pablo Torre. Felt like he didn’t get remotely the recognition he deserved for actual investigative journalism into this.
He did win a Pulitzer and still nothing will be done about it
I hope the WLRK report findings get released/leaked once it’s done. If they recommend actions AGAINST Ballmer, and no balls Silver still doesn’t do anything, that’s easy way to get rid of Silver.
If they recommend actions AGAINST Ballmer
They will not recommend actions against Ballmer, at least not anything substantive.
We already know that when WLRK have interviewed people regarding this, they’re not even asking them questions about Ballmer. As any lawyer can tell you, that’s what you do when you don’t want to find stuff out. They will spin it as “Ballmer’s name didn’t come up” when that’s because they didn’t even look into him. As was the plan all along, they were almost certainly told to limit their investigation to just XYZ not Ballmer by the NBA. Lawyers do what the clients that hire them tell them to do, because the clients pay the bills.
From my experience, I’d guess it’s not actions AGAINST Ballmer, but general ‘here’s what you can improve on generally’.
Without doxxing myself. An employee (and I looked at the NYT source it’s literally one employee atm you guys are parroting) not being asked about Ballmer is not unusual.
They can still be asked about policies, processes, other aspects of the investigation.
Thinking WLRK of all firms would risk their reputation for NBA/Ballmer is cute tho.
I guess we’ll find out!
No, other clients will hire WLRK BECAUSE they won’t recommend dropping the hammer on Ballmer.
I’d guess it’s not actions AGAINST Ballmer
Wait so you do agree you’re just trying to sugarcoat it lol
I doubt it would recommend any actions, just publish the facts of the case. What I want to know is how I can get a job to go sit in an office and wear a fancy suit for a thousand dollars a day and transcribe Pablo Torre episodes for a year and a half.
Fair. It would depend on the scope but I would be surprised if ‘give us recommended actions’ isn’t part of it tho
Why would any owner want to get rid of silver?!? Hes falling on the sword left and right for them. Especially the richest one of them all.
WLRK
They will find whatever they’ve been paid to find.
It’s depressing isn’t it.
He has them dead to rights and Ballmer is going to just weasel out of all consequences.
Like the other reply says, He won a Pulitzer for this exact story and sadly we won’t ever see Ballmer get his deserved punishment.
Shows what a bitch Silver is when the journalist who finds out about it wins an award of the highest honor and he won’t do dick in return.
He won a Pulitzer lol.
Ya but he was robbed of that Nobel peace prize.
He’s still in the running for the fifa peace prize
Unfortunately this highlights modern society not giving a fuck about rules and laws anymore.
If ya ain’t cheatin ya ain’t tryin. And youre a sucka
the grift became the grit. I guess it was easy.
I mean ESPN was literally dismissing him as some clout chasing podcaster
You know… the same ESPN that used to employ him
But they had to terminate him/ let his contract lapse because he didn’t generate enough clicks with frivolous hot takes and screaming into the camera.
real people in the industry give him his props, its just that the NBA media is basically dictated by ESPN who’s fired anyone doing real journalism
Because everyone told him to fuck off after the first episode. I remember people bashing him here and the Clippers sub.
These people have no idea how much lawyering needs to be done before stuff like this is published.
In a nation ruled by criminals, actual journalists are the ‘enemy’.
He won the highest award possible for a journalist?
Adam Silver has become a slimey rat. The dude is so corrupt it’s hurting the league.
Always has been. Why you think he was hired?
This thread has me wondering if any one on it watched during the David stern era. Cause this stuff is child’s play
Stern taught the guy everything he knows
“Do you want to talk about sport betting? Or do you want to watch Michael Jordan hit some dingers?”
People don’t seem to understand that he literally works for the billionaire owners. He does what they want him to do. They say jump he says “I’m already in the air, boss”.
Facts lol
Most people making these threads are probably under 25 years old and think this is groundbreaking information.
First he came for the Sixers and no one said anything because they hate the Sixers.
The NBA is objectively MUCH worse under his “leadership”. It might be making more money, but it is a worse product.
This guy is pure trash. He also looks like a goddamn reptile.
He works for the owners, his job is to make them more money and cover for their shenanigans. I’m sure they think he’s good at his job.
I don’t get their silence on this though. Some owners are just playing by different rules? And that’s fine?
Or anyone who wants to do this is doing this and the salary cap is just an excuse for cheap owners. Oh fuck it’s this isn’t it
No, it’s getting swept under the rug because any corruption hurts the NBA’s valuation and franchise value which hurts the owners. I would bet the owners are pissed, but making a big stink of it isn’t helpful to the NBA owners, so they are going to do as little communication on it as possible.
Any Streisand effect should be avoided a la Tim Donaghy.
And we aren’t owners so what good does that do for us who think the NBA product has gotten worse in presentation with how long it takes to finish games and so many ads and gambling
We aren’t watching this sport because we are getting a cut of the profits. Are we supposed to go from not liking what he is doing to going oh but he makes the billionaires happy, so that makes us happy?
He looks like nosferatu
Nah 2000s was pure garbage, not even close to as bad at it was under Stern.
After all this point shaving, he absolutely does
This reminds me of that John Oliver bit where he would show evidence of Trump lying and clicks a Button and go “WE GOT HIM” and then obviously nothing happens
Timeless joke and still relevant.
Holy tits, lawyers avoid culpability.
Why is this so hard? Punish the Clippers by taking away their future 5 1sts, ban some guys from management fine them and Kawhi and just move on. I feel like this should be easier than what he makes it seem
How about force Kawhi trade, rug sweep the rest, and move on with sunny LA skies. 🤣
Force him back to the Raptors! Make this right. hey wait…
Raptors get to keep all their picks but still lose BI and Dick for Kawhi, that’s a huge win for us lol
All squared away, nothing to see here!
It depends on if the other owners want to set a precedent for punishing franchises for getting caught doing things like this. If there’s enough pushback from owners about penalizing the Clippers, then of course Silver won’t do anything, their wishes are his commands.
Yeah, ban Ballmer and Frank from being involved in basketball operations for 1 year, give the Clippers a $5.5m fine since that’s what is stipulated for a second offense (they were already found to have engaged in circumvention with DeAndre Jordan), take a first round pick (whenever that may be), and fine Kawhi for the same amount that he received extra from Aspiration. That’s the quick and obvious answer that sends a message without being too extreme.
WTF is wrong with you people. The owners will decide what the owners want to do. What the owenrs *don’t* want to do is go to war with Steve Ballmer.
The idea that Silver is going to do anything but advise on the margins is laughable.
Ballmer told the league that they weren’t taking away his picks. Now they have to find a way to find him not guilty so they don’t have to punish him.
Fuck adam silver
Indict this ghoul.
Worst commissioner in the history of sports.
Silver wasn’t ever going to do jack shit about this. The owners have him in their pockets, he’s at their mercy
He’s literally a reptile
Worst commish in sports
Textbook lawyer
Boo this man.
People get into leadership positions by lying and not having a conscience that stops them. This man is a professional liar.
On his birth planet that’s not considered lying
People have to realize that the Commissioner of any sports league is only there to take the heat off ownership and to present a central figure who is talking to the public. He doesn’t work for the league; he works for the owners and his job is to make them as much money as he can.
No doubt. Doesn’t mean you can’t call out blatant corruption
It really is crazy how openly corrupt this nation has gotten in every part of our lives. Its just so fucking insane that we’re trying to ignore owners paying players under the table to avoid the salary cap. Like what are we doing here? Eliminate the salary cap then fuck it. I’d rather have the dodgers than pretend we have rules that we now have a blueprint on how to avoid. All you have to do is lie to the public and pretend it’s not what their eyes and their brains say it is.
the corruption has been so normalized that people are saying, “well he works for the owners, and the owners would get angry if he did something about this, so he’s gonna sweep it under the rug!” like that’s a good argument.
my problem is not with people saying he works for the owners, to be clear. my problem is that corruption has become so normalized that people automatically believe that statement and use it as a reason for there being no punishment. even though he does work for the owners, Ballmer should still be punished even if it makes the other owners angry. that’s literally Silver’s job.
I agree with everyone here. NBA should punish Kawhi and the team he’s on.
Petition to have this reposted here on a regular basis until Balmer is punished?
Silver is spineless, just the worst type of person, he’s in the same class as Gianni Infantino
Get thee gone, Nosferatu!!
Reminder NBA is still trying to cover this up , Clippers arent getting punished for clear breach of rules and avoiding salary cap , and Kawhi is yet to be suspended …..
Kawhi should be suspended for entire next season but corruption is rampant in NBA
Clippers fans still cope by saying it’s a nothing burger
Ass per aye Shawn
👏
👏 👏 👏
Silver is terrible 🌳
Gotta suck for the owners that have integrity. I’m sure the slime bag owners about to feast on back room deals
he’s a greasy little lizard, isn’t he?
Adam Silver has been a truly awful Commissioner for the sport. Less integrity, more corruption, will not address rule issues, the worst and slowest video review system in sports, and more players getting caught in betting and point shaving scandals than the entire 40 years prior combined in just the last 2 years.
What an inept fool.
We are living in 24-48 hours news cycle… this feels like it happened decades ago, nobody cares anymore. Billionaires have gotten away for much more than this.
Adam Silver is corrupt. This needs to be discussed more often
Get this alien basketball terrorist away from the sport
He’s a lawyer in sheep’s clothing, it’s what they do best . I for one am completely shocked
Letting the clippers trade him and recoup some of their loses before there’s punishment and an announcement of how the investigation went is very unjust.
these fuckin money-hungry ghouls are out of control
Can Van Helsing take care of this guy already
Now take away the picks they just traded him for
The NBA is making more money than ever before. Owners love Silver.
Every time he lies, his face gets more alien-like. Some kind of weird Pinocchio curse going on here
Why does he look so fucking weird, like a giant lizard man?
Fuck the nba, fuck Adam silver, and fuck the clippers b
I’m so glad people are finally starting to wake up to the fact that Adam Silver is a corporate piece of shit who doesn’t care about basketball or the fans
The whole season passed by and no punishment and now clippers won’t even feel that punishment via kawhi because they traded him. Insane
I’m usually willing to give guys the benefit of the doubt when people nitpick their statements but it’s pretty clear in this one he did not mean “I’d never heard of the company’s involvement”, but “I didn’t even know that company existed at all”.
Nah someone who approved ads on jerseys and later sports betting into the league doesn’t deserve benefit of the doubt. We aren’t even owners benefiting from this so what does it matter how much annual revenue is made. This isn’t the stock market. Can’t even be shareholders.
the grotesque looking rat face ghoul lies again
no one was surprised
You have to be a next-level shit tier commissioner to make Roger Goodell look good by comparison. There used to be a balance or atleast an appearance of one for what is good for the league + what is good for the league owners, that is long gone. “Who cares about the product when we are making so much money with gambling and streaming rights?”
fuck this league
Walmart Jeff Bezos hasn’t done anything good for the league
How does he look more like an evil Disney villain by the year
A lawyer who lies. Imagine that
10 years ago I loved this guy. I was so wrong.
Somebody needs to get this nerd out of running the NBA. All my homies hate Adam Silver.
Fuck this alien scumbag
How are the other owners not fucking more pissed about this?
Because they all do the exact same thing.
Is there anything an average fan can do? This guy is a snake, is terrible for the league, and needs to go.
Huge loser who unfortunately reflects our times
Ballmer’s check to Silver must have cleared.
No confidence vote from me.
Absolutely clown show.
Teams need to only sign players to minimum deals. Fans show clown their respective FO for any deal that’s not a minimum. Just compensate the players via outside vehicles.
Bring this to the front page guys
This is thin.
Kawhi running to Canada to avoid prosecution
just ignore the 41 away games
Addams family ass build
Don’t worry. That whole not lying thing is just for all of us working-class-soon-to-be-poor saps, not for the rich-soon-to-be-richer folks.
The glove doesn’t fit
The masses are so dumb I can’t get over it. Sheepppppp. Baaaa!!!
[X] Doubt
Him and Rob Manfred can eat a bag of dicks.
It’s okay he’s traded, so nothing to see here anymore!!!
This guy gives me the creeps
Jesus Christ I am not usually one to critic peoples appearance, but he fucking looking like nosferatu
If nba front offices and owners dont cheat the cap after this stupid handling, than they are doing a disservice to their organization.
This guy is from another planet. Literally
He’s obviously an alien
The same man to write an article about legalising sports betting in the NBA many years ago and now cracking down on players involved
The handling of this has been the most pathetic, spineless nonsense I’ve seen I a minute.
Fuck Adam silver. I’m just worried who they’d put in his place. Steve Bronze?
Liar
Swept that deal under the rug, f all punishment
This toe has got to go
This dude has to be one of those reptilian mfs they keep talking about right?
“Yeah I remember grinding my feet on Eddie’s couch.”
I hate this ghoul so much, man.
I mean anybody with half decent intuition can simply look at this man and see that he’s a villian.
This fucking slime ball can’t even get the optics right. Even if that shit is rampant you have to do the right thing to at least appear to have integrity. This blatant neglect of the situation is insane and I have no idea how he can speak about anything else without this coming back into his face immediately.
Do something Silver, holy fuck!!
No justice no peace…in the NBA
NAGINI strikes again
Worthy repost
This guy sucks. The league has way too many free throws, mediocre refereeing, and so many commercials. The FIFA World Cup is showing us how good games and refereeing can actually be if the sport attempts to correct things like flopping.
[ Removed by Reddit ]
He sucks