[Dan Patrick Show] “I think there’s a very real chance that Steve Ballmer emerges relatively unscathed.” - @PabloTorre on the possible fallout from the Kawhi Leonard situation.
An insanely rich dude isn’t going to experience the consequences of his actions?
I’m shocked.
What is this? 2026?
What is this? Today?
Why should he face consequences? He was scammed and defrauded!! I can’t believe the audacity of those companies to steal from him and then use that money to pay his star employee….SCOUNDRELS 😤
First time, shame on you Aspiration Second time, shame on you Rhode Island FC Third time, ..shame on you Daktronics
Fourth time…? Well, we haven’t quite gotten there yet. But, one thing I can say for sure is that it certainly isn’t Balmer or the Clippers fault. I think you will all agree.
How many fucking side deals do we have with Leonard?
Feel like we should all try some fraud. Seems easy.
Exactly - Aspiration scammed him, Rhode Island FC tricked him and Daktronics took advantage of him! He became a billionaire getting scammed left and right! He’s the victim here!
Yeah! They repeatedly worked over a ruthless businessman with business deals. He was completely unprepared!
It’s really pretty incredible that Americans still for some reason believe that the rich and powerful in this country are held to any standard of accountability. I just don’t understand how people haven’t caught on to the clear fact that we don’t do that as a society
Nobody believes this. But everyone is focused on various distractions. Social media slop, tribal politics, weed, gambling, sports, celebrities. It’s like a black mirror episode where we’ve all been hypnotized to give up.
BIG FACTS. As long as they can keep us in our team vs their team mentality, absolutely NO ONE will be held accountable for anything.
Don’t give up hope just yet. Some folks brought a mock guillotine to a city council meeting the other day so we may come around
Growing up reading about thing like French Revolution etc make me think the world has improved. Now that I’ve grown up I see it’s the same shit just different people benefitting.
America is just Russia with lipstick on too
It used to be they’d get lesser consequences, it feels now like there are none.
It used to be that rich dudes in America could literally own people.
The belief that there was a golden age in this country that maybe we could get back to is a core tenant of the very conservatism that seeks to keep powerful interests entrenched. Don’t fall for it
Rule of law collapsing as it has in recent years is meaningfully worse than it was. Not that it was good, but it is very obviously worse now
They never got any
No they used to get more. There are plenty of examples of light but actual penalties in the past.
Good example is Martha Stewart going to jail. That would never happen today. No chance.
This is not to say they got the correct penalty but now it’s laughable. Then it was annoying. Now it’s we don’t even have to pretend. Pardons for convicted admitted guilty for sale on the unlikely event courts actually don’t let them off anyway
Americans are stupid AF
Source: American
Nobody is holding their elite accountable… Africa is run by dictators/warlords, Middle East is run by royal families/kings, Asia and Europe are controlled by a select few elite wealthy families, and South America goes through cycles of random dictators…
ballmer was def. the red cloak at the eyes wide shut party, no doubt now
Late-stage cryptofascism brought upon by Reagan and perfected under Trump.
Brought to you by Ozempic and DraftKings.
Why Ozempic catching strays?
That is a Dutch product by the way.
Being fat is a redditors pride, they’re stealing our heritage from us.
Damn I’m going against my kinfolk by injecting the 2mg shot weekly.
And to put it into perspective, ain’t he like one of the top 10 richest dudes on the planet? 💀
He’s rich enough to literally buy every team in the league.
I believe he’s already been experiencing consequences. I think the Clippers and Kawhi have been operating under some guidance from the league from fairly early on.
I think the Clippers would have extended Kawhi, but we’re told he won’t be allowed to return to the Clippers.
It will be a few second round picks and maybe a small suspension for Balmer.
The tell that none of the owners would want Balmer to face consequences was when the Bucks signed the most obvious circumventing the cap contract of all time. Nobody wants to make a big deal of this. Partially because many owners do these types of deals to a lesser extent. But also because Balmer’s power extends far beyond basketball. And rich people play nice with people far richer than them.
The American tradition unlike any other
As is the standard for these things…
Its gonna be something crazy like a measly punishment against Ballmer and banishment for Kawhi and Unc lol
Get the union and fans riled up
Yes. Ballmer could call any other of the top 10 richest dudes in the world to partner up and get a bank loan to buy the entire NBA.
I mean obviously it wouldnt be that simple but in idiot terms, that guy is too rich to really truly punish. Its gonna be more like a negotiated agreement
Can’t wait for all the hit pieces on Kawhi to surface after he’s traded.
I mean he owns the clippers, that’s consequence enough isn’t it?
What’s going to be the reaction from folks here if only Kawhi and Uncle Dennis are punished by Ballmer gets off light?
He’s clearly too powerful to be touched and Silver works for him
Technically all sports commissioners work for the owners of their respective leagues.
They work the collective of the owners. If the other NBA owners let this slide they’re idiots
If the other owners let this slide they are planning to (or already) do the same thing
edit: it is amusing that people think billionaires get to the level of wealth they have by not trying to exploit any and all loopholes
They can’t compete against Ballmer, it would be the dumbest shit ever to let it slide. You’re giving a green light to the richest owner
I’d like to agree with you that they will make an example out of him, but Ballmer’s money is fucking crazy. It’s going to be very interesting to see how this all plays out.
“show me da money” Adam Silver
I think they’d be willing to let it slide for a few reasons:
Not saying these are good reasons but I hope people remember the second biggest reason (or maybe biggest) the other owners were okay banning Sterling was that he was a cheapskate they had to support.
and willing to pay the tax and therefore the non-tax paying teams will get money
Importantly, he doesn’t pay luxury tax on under the table payments. That’s money directly out of the other owner’s pockets.
That’s because he can’t pay Kawhi anything more than the max under the CBA. He doesn’t have the option to just pay a higher luxury tax to outbid everyone for Kawhi’s services.
right but he also didn’t go into the apron because of this, which would have been money or roster opportunities for other teams. he didnt have to deal with the apron restrictions either.
And it’s only going to lead to them having to spend more money. We all know those Scrooge McDucks are pinching every penny. Other owners won’t want to compete with somebody significantly more wealthy than them, plus they WANT salary caps and stuff in place to save as much money as possible.
People keep saying this but if the majority of owners wanted to pay players more, they would’ve just made the salary cap higher when they negotiated it. They wouldn’t have put in the second apron penalties.
Let’s be real owners did that to curve Golden State Warriors from just running the league for a way longer time than they go to.
Chase Center alone was bringing in so much that the owner was OK with penalties and luxury tax, it the others who seethed that they couldn’t earn the same amount out if their places, just as you see Blazers owner being a super cheapskate trying to do anything from spending.
They will let it slide and be like “Hum, good to know”
Nothing lol. They’ll support this league and make a bunch of Reddit posts about why the NBA is shitty
I hate it when you’re right
I know I’m right because I’m going to be one of them lol. I talk so much shit about the dodgers going to the White House while still supporting them.
I talk so much shit about the dodgers
#ME TOO
The game will forever be tainted if nothing happens to Ballmer. Pretty much tells the other owners you can do it too
which most of the other owners do NOT want btw
they’d pay the players less if they could, they don’t want the new norm for signing a superstar to be 5/300M on the books and another 50M under the table
if Ballmer gets away with it and the Clippers are only fined a large sum of money and a future 1st, that’s just the cost of doing business. Doesn’t affect Ballmer in the slightest because he’s richer than every other team owner.
Fyi Ballmer is worth less than 1/4th of the Wizards ownership group
worse, it tells the other owners you HAVE to do it too
with the strictness of the apron system, it would be negligent to work for a team and NOT try to circumvent the cap if there’s no consequence for doing so
It’s what happened in baseball. A player is definitely pressured to take PEDs if everyone else is doing it
I would much rather see Kawhi go unscathed and the Clippers and Ballmer get punished than a world where Ballmer gets away with it. Ideally of course, you punish all the parties appropriately.
People will keep watching lol. That’s why they don’t give a fuck, they know sports fan are the most braindead consumers out there along side gamers. They can literally let owners bid to start play off series one game up and the viewership wouldn’t suffer.
Or some people don’t care and take enjoyment in things.
The family who goes to one a game doesn’t give a shit about this. Half the comments in here are classic Reddit hyperbole when the general population dgaf
Yeah Kawhi gets paid more than other players under the table. WOW🤯
What will that change about my viewing experience and me watching the Cavs flame out in the first round.
Most of the other owners do do it. It’s not like Khawi and his uncle made this entire scheme up out of nothing. This shit has happened for decades. It’s just that Khawi’s money was bigger and the whole thing was turned into a farce due to none of the reporters working for major networks wanted to say the obvious.
[citation needed]
I’m sure some of the owners do it, but we’ve seen teams get broken up to avoid tax payments for over a decade. Do you really think the Celtics get broken up if they could have just paid Brown or White under the table to stay under the apron? Does OKC trade Harden if they can pay him without going into the tax? Do the Jailblazers trade Rasheed Wallace?
Jerry Reinsdorf has been selling 2nd round picks for cash the past 10 years, he sure as hell isn’t paying guys under the table
I know what you mean
He’s just the highest profile athlete in the league to be caught in this
But I’m sure it’s happening now in the nfl too
I mean the Patriots were allowed to let Tom Brady run his health and wellness con program out of the Pats facilities, and they let him send his teammates to his convicted fraud fitness guru if they got hurt, all while he “took a pay cut” so yeah it’s been going on for a while over there
the unfortunate reality is that even if that happens, fans will be mad and post about it but move on and keep watching their team. i dont think itll meaningfully hit the leagues margins in any way, so at the end of the day the reaction will be online posts and not much more.
People will be apocalyptic but they’ll still watch, and this will just be another step on the ladder for a league that’s drifting further from being a sport and more towards an entertainment product.
….did you mean to say “apoplectic”?
The nba is entertainment at the end of the day 😂
It’s a sport with rules; that we derive entertainment by watching it doesn’t mean the rules don’t matter whatever the NBA likes to pretend
end of the day
End of days, if we’re being apocalyptic
9 out of 10 threads on here about aspiration focus on kawhi and dont mention ballmer. to me, kawhi is the small fish but easy target in this whole situation
Yeah, Ballmer is basically undermining the integrity of the whole league, because he is a rich billionaire that thinks that the rules don’t apply to him. Sure, Kawhi did something wrong and should be punished. But, Ballmer absolutely engineered this entire thing and he deserves the brunt of the punishment. If the league doesn’t stand up to him and adequately punish him, then the NBA will become a joke, with no credibility.
Yeah there’s clear CBA rules for Kawhi/Dennis they can use. There isn’t one for Ballmer.
And relatively unscathed = a fine Ballmer can afford.
Ballmer specifically yes but could they not go after the clippers organization?
They can.
I’d expect Lawrence Frank to get banned, Dennis banned from being an agent and a 35 game Kawhi suspension.
Ballmer fined.
Ballmer will pay every other owner a $20M “fine” and then the NBA is going to stop talking about it
I don’t think it matters about our reaction here lol the NBA doesn’t give a single s*** what we think
It’s why I’m in the camp of “every penny of wealth over a billion dollars should be taxed at 100%”. When you accumulate this much wealth, you become untouchable. “Too big to fail”. Elite impunity is the #1 driving force for how our society has gotten to this point, and if Silver had the guts to do the right thing, he would drop the hammer on both Kawhi and Ballmer. And if the other owners think the punishment is too harsh, then make them try to defend Ballmer’s actions.
I’m in the camp of “every penny of wealth over a billion dollars should be taxed at 100%”.
Did you actually think this through at all, or did it just sound good?
Kawhi asked multiple teams for this type of deal. So while Ballmer needs be punished, Kawhi should not be given leniency either, and it’s different if it was solely Ballmer and the Clippers that came up with these terms on their own without Kawhi asking. Ballmer and the clippers should be fined and lose multiple 1st round draft picks, and Kawhi should be suspended for a year at the very least
You’re right because…. Balmer’s networth is basically that of the next 20 owners, combined. He’s almost as powerful as the league as a whole.
He can spend 50 BILLION in legal fees and have ~ 100 Billion left over for the rest of his life.
He can basically destroy the NBA if he wants.
People can’t comprehend or don’t want to comprehend how much more powerful Ballmer is than the rest of the NBA owners.
Ballmer could easssssily pay off Trump to absolutely fuck the NBA up with his couch cushion money.
I think there are signs the Clippers are already being punished in a preliminary way. I believe both the Clippers and Kawhi have been operating under some sort of guidance from the league from fairly early last season.
I think Kawhi has been told he won’t be able to return to the Clippers. I think the Clippers made the zubac and harden trade knowing they’re going to have to rebuild once the full consequences hit. I think both the Clippers and Kawhi have been front running the punishment process. It’s why Kawhi forced his way to Toronto.
I don’t know where this notion that he’s too powerful to be touched comes from.
Adam Silver works for every owner, not just Steve ballmer. And if the other 29 owners are furious about this, you’d bet your ass that something is going to happen to Steve ballmer. He’s not special.
that wouldn’t make any sense.
it’d almost be framed as if it’s extortion from Kawhi and his camp.
I’ll tell you one thing us Raptors fans are going to be pissed the fuck off. Kawhi did some shady shit but the majority of the onus should be on Ballmer
Done with the NBA for good. I’m not here to watch WWE
Did Pablo hint Silver is done as Commish? He said “bookending his tenure”.
He’s 64 and is signed through the 2030 season as commish. Just seems like a normal age someone would retire
Yes, but you see Adam Silver is a vampire cursed to walk the globe for an eternity without a soul.
He is pretty singed.
Burnished Silver.
not people with power, you usually have to pry it from their cold pre-dead hands sometime after 80
Silver does not have as much real power as people think, he’s more of a figurehead for the owners.
Nosferatu does not age like mortals
He might just leave tbh
We can only pray
He and Infantino will start their own league with bribes and Argentina.
Resurrect Stern. His corpse would do a better job than Silver
And NBA will be a clown show after.
Unserious league.
Ballmer walking away with a fine that equals 0.0000062% of his net worth while the Milwaukee Bucks get docked three first-round picks for the GTJ contract is the only way this thing ends lmao
So is cap circumventing fine then? Why doesn’t everyone just do it
They do
Alternatively Luxury Tax lol
A clown show after? Man, I have some bad news for you
It already is with the refs and gambling
NBA has already been a clown show for years bro
Steve Balmer would convince you of that.
But as someone who has worked in the motorsports industry for almost 40 years, 40 years ago NASCAR would have you believe they were untouchable, and is now a fraction of itself before Earnhardt’s death 25 years ago.
If the popular assumption becomes that NBA is corrupt, there will be fallout even if the execs never see consequence, the association will.
I’m watching sports TV in new zealand right now and the ad for the NBL (our shitty national ball league) that was on at halftime was literally advertising itself as “NO SCRIPTS” lmao
Obviously that’s a tiny tiny sample of NBA opinion but I found it funny to read this immediately after seeing that. They must have focus grouped some people who feel that way here, at least.
Don’t disrespect the Breakers, man.
Not even the Breakers, this is our national pro league (confusingly also called the NBL, or NZNBL). It does not deserve much respect 🥲
I agree. Boxing fell, baseball fell and kind of is back. Football is still up but being real, it didn’t really boom till post merger and even more real, the 80s/start of salary cap era. NBA has boomed since the 90s and I don’t like to play into the whole rating crises thing but there are warning signs. With the increased popularity of soccer( I know a tired argument) then there is potential for basketball to go back down and similar to hockey. It only takes a prolonged period of scrutiny.
The major difference is the massive global growth of the NBA over the past 15 years. That gives them a much better spot even if domestic viewership slides (which it currently isnt).
It’s not a coincidence they are launching a league in Europe, more events in Africa, Asia, etc
NFL has been trying to do that as well with their European and South American (and now even Australia) games, but are further behind the NBA
That’s when we used to always hear about how NASCAR was the fastest growing sport and was taking over the world
….how?
Cause Adam Silver has no balls and Steve Ballmer has more money than God
False, his balls are in a jar on Ballmers shelf.
So he has no balls. Those are Ballmer balls now, baby!
Remember kids billable hours always wins.
If Silver has enough support from owners to punish Ballmer, I can’t see why he wouldn’t.
Let’s not forget, Silver first and foremost represents the owners.
Cuz his yearly dividends are more than the net worth of most other owners. Ballmer quite literally is too rich to punish
He’s the 13th richest person in the world, which means not only does he nearly have enough to buy the entire NBA on his own if he wanted (worth ~170 billion), his immense power and influence could absolutely gain enough supporting investors, loans, government funds, etc to do it.
100%, this was why the excessive rich like him have actually been barred in the past from being owners, it leads to a power issue.
And yet he has less than 1⁄4 the assets of the Wizards ownership group.
Because Adam Silver is a bigger pussy than the one of a blue whale.
rich people get rich people’s backs.
More like rich people can pay people to take the heat for them
He’s richer than most of the other owners combined and can drag this out in courts if he wants to fight. Silver can’t just punish him. Once the investigation is complete it will go to arbitration and then through an appeals process unless Ballmer agrees to a punishment. Which he said he won’t.
Once the investigation is complete it will go to arbitration and then through an appeals process unless Ballmer agrees to a punishment.
Do it then! Arbitration isn’t necessarily some auto-pass, and I think appeals processes are away more limited. It’s not like Ballmer can bankrupt the NBA in arbitration, and if the evidence convinces the arbitrators, Ballmer might have to eat it. Just takes some willingness to do the work for a decent case and push back.
He’s richer than most of the other owners combined and can drag this out in courts if he wants to fight
People need to stop with this. Literally every owner could tie it up in courts. Do you really think there’s a billionaire owner who can’t afford to take their case to court? How much do you think lawyers cost? The idea that Steve Ballmer is uniquely positioned for a legal fight is daft.
And even the premise is wrong. While I agree with you (there are quickly diminishing returns in legal fights, see musk just losing to OpenAI), for some reason people haven’t caught on to the PE and Wealth Funds that have purchased ownership stakes.
For example the Wizards ownership have over \(700 billion in net worth (600b for Quatari Soveirgn Wealth fund, ~100b for KKR) and another \)750 billion in assets under management (KKR). That absolutely dwarfs Balmer as an individual
Ballmer has more power than Silver.
Silver has more power than Kawhi.
When you employ the guy punishing you, you can tell him how to
It’s like when you complain to HR about your boss and HR just tells you to fuck off.
Silver works for the owners and Ballmer is the richest owner (by a lot). Unless there’s enough push from other owners then owners generally don’t get punished.
Owners that get punished usually get punished because they’re hated by the other owners. Rather than for any particular thing they did. For example, everyone already hated Sterling, and he gave them an excuse to give him the boot. A more well liked owner could easily survive that.
Fyi Ballmer has less than 1⁄4 the net worth of the Wizards ownership. There are levels to this.
He’s just hedging his bets.
He says Ballmer should be punished for committing the cardinal sin but that it’s possible for Ballmer to escape unscathed because of his relationship with Silver.
The crazy thing is that aspiration guy got 14 years for wire fraud. If an insanely rich guy asks you to do shady shit, you are the fall guy lol
I mean they ran a Ponzi scheme and stole over $250 million from the some of the biggest investors and lenders in America.
Nobody asked them to do any of that lol if they did they’d be in federal prison right now
Facts.. balmer might’ve circumvented the cap but I doubt he’d be part of a Ponzi scheme for what would be the equivalent of a couple thousand bucks to him lol
as long as Kawhi/Balmer paid their taxes on whatever deals they were making, there was nothing illegal about what they were doing, unfortunately. Just against NBA policy.
Two different situations
As Pablo said, the question now is whether the rules matter.
If you’ve followed this story, the proof is undeniable at this point. I am 99% sure that Ballmer and the Clippers circumvented the cap. It’s up to the NBA now to step up.
Adam Silver is at a major crossroads. We’ve got a club blatantly breaking the CBA to sign a player, multiple players and a head coach indicted for gambling, serious tanking issues, worse-than-ever flopping, and an owner who is holding his team’s city hostage to get public money, among other things. THe NBA is making more money than ever, but the league has lots of urgent issues to sort out right now.
Make that100% sure and I’ll co-sign
99% sounds way more reasonable to me.
It’s unlikely, but possible that Aspiration and Daktronics knew about Kawhi’s widely reported no show job requests and proactively offered to give Kawhi no show jobs in an a (successful) bid to secure massive, company saving contracts from the clippers. What if Daktronics have a clause in the contract that it is dependant on them getting the Intuit Dome contract and Kawhi remaining a Clipper. There is possibly an argument that Kawhi’s job wasn’t to sell Daktronics to the public, only specifically to sell the Halo board to the Clippers. They help the clippers keep Kawhi, then they get the largest scoreboard contract in history that saves their company from bankruptcy. It’s a decent gamble.
It’s like how Trump happened to receive hundreds of millions of dollars from KSA (as investment in his made up currency) two weeks before getting access to high tech AI chips. It clearly looks absurd, but if there wasn’t an agreement before hand, is it illegal? So far it looks like he will get away with it.
Billionaires play by different rules. Sometimes people just give them stuff and hope it works out in their favor.
The rules do not allow for an owner to be banned for this, they allow taking picks and giving a pretty small fine. Ballmer wasnt “cleared” when the Raptors and Lakers reported Kawhi had asked for under the table perks. The NBA didnt find enough evidence and never issued a statement. This isnt a mistake from Torre, he knows what he’s doing smearing Silver, who has no ability to ban Ballmer. To do that you need 23 other team owners to vote his actions are prejudicial to the league.
The owners can vote to remove Balmer as an owner. Donald Sterling lost the Clippers because of a vote of no confidence from other owners, and Sarver almost suffered the same fate before he decided to sell before it got to that point.
I don’t understand why the NBAPA(outside of generally not being up to the task) isn’t getting out ahead of this and the GTJ/MIL contract and saying it’s clear the cap and/or apron levels need to be raised or the aprons need to be less punitive as owners WANT to be able to pay their players more.
There’s probably a reason it would backfire but I’m not sure what that would be.
Ultimately, the other owners are probably doing some version of the same thing. I doubt the reports of other owners/execs being angry is just them posturing. The only way owners would actually want ballmer punished is if it leads to higher cap.
Ballmer paid for an arena in Los Angeles, cash.
In relative terms, it cost him what it would cost us normal people to get a new iPhone… cover
You’re just the afterbirth, Pablo
Twas Paul that was the smart one
He paid Madison Square Garden LLC with his ‘fuck you’ cash to attain the Kia Forum.
If the league owners tried to force him to sell I could see Ballmer teaming up with a sovereign wealth fund to buy the entire league. For about $220B they could pull it off.
Balmer? Sure
Clippers? Gonna get properly scathed
That’s what I was gonna say. Even if Ballmer doesn’t get punished I won’t really care as long as his team has to fork over a bunch of picks and deal with some kind of cap punishment with Kawhis deal
There is no universe where the Clippers dont get smacked to oblivion with consequences.
This is so many magnitudes larger than any cap scandal previously.
Lawrence Frank is never going to be allowed to work in the league again.
Balmer is going to get banned from his own team for at least a year but maybe longer.
Kawhi is defintely getting suspended and will be lucky to not age out of the league by the time it is over
They are going to ARod him
!remindme 6 months
You’re quite the optimist!
The Timberwolves lost 3 first round picks for the Joe Smith scandal, and this is so much worse.
Everyone is talking about punishing Ballmer and Leonard, and I’m just waiting to make sure there is no double standard on team punishment.
Not a follower of baseball, what does this mean? What did ARod do?
Because ARod was implicated so badly in a steroid scandal the MLB suspended him an entire season which was effectively the end of ARod’s career.
He just opted to retire
Got it. Thank you!
The richest guy gets away with it and other people are left holding the bag??? gasp
I’ve never heard of such a thing. Especially not in America!!
In 30 years, we’ll find out he just bought the entire league to avoid punishment.
Despicable show of no integrity.
Somebody that rich can just write checks to make problems go away.
Maybe he’ll donate a commemorative bench somewhere or something
Considering how long this has drawn out, far more likely than last year when it came out
Billionaires getting away with crimes? Say it ain’t so!
Nothing bad ever happens to billionaires outside random chance misfortunes that the universe deals out to every living being. that said, being a billionaire means you can usually handle that risk better than most.
Calls on MSFT
He’s super wealthy. Super wealthy people can get away with anything because the rules don’t apply to them. In fact, they’re celebrated for breaking the rules
These sociopathic tech billionaires think they can do whatever they want with absolutely zero repercussions. In a sane world, Ballmer would be forced to sell. To be clear this is way worse than what Donald Sterling and Robert Sarver did. They may have been POS’s, but this goes right to the heart of the fairness of the game. It’s blatant cheating.
A billionaire won’t face consequences for his actions?!
This has to be the first time… Wow
Who could’ve seen that coming?
This is extremely likely. If anything they’ll make Kawhi the fall guy along with Unc Dennis.
Unfortunate but likely
Richest nba owner will face no consequences? 😲
Well that strikes me as equal parts unfair and unsurprising
Of course, there’s no reason an investigation with unlimited funding and unlimited man power has not concluded. (FYI NBA can charge Balmer for all fees associated with the investigation which are what he makes on interest on a Tuesday.)
Federal murder trials progress more quickly than this.
Silver and Balmer are intentionally sand bagging this to make it all go away. And Pablo won’t let them.
yah bro, he’s a billionaire.
So circumventing the cap as long as being the Richest owner is okay. Got it
Wow, the big rich guy in the sports entertainment space won’t see consequences?
Now I’ve seen it all/
A billionaire escaping the consequences of his actions?? IN MY AMERICA???
I don’t have an issue with Kawhi being punished but if Ballmer slides I would think the league would lose a massive amount of credibility.
He’s right and this is waaaaay bigger than the NBA. This is being too big for the rules to apply. These tech assholes are literally destroying this country. They corrupt everything that they touch.
Fuck adam silver and fuck infantino man
What have they done to our sports…
The only thing that will force ballmer to blink is if other owners join together by either refusing to play against the clippers or something like that. They know they have skeletons in their closets so they won’t do it either so it’ll be some small agreed upon punishment that will largely be a small blip while the clippers are in rebuild mode
This is why the Raptors were waiting. The type of suspension is 100% based on who Leonard is playing for when the actual hammer comes down.
lol what a statement to start. Ballmer the hero will be Silvers eventual downfall. I’m more interested in what the other owners think of the situation…
There’s a reason all owners have to agree for you to buy a team. It’s their league and they have to trust you to buy in. Ballmer has some sort of leverage or they would’ve been punished already
I mean obviously the fans opinions couldn’t matter less to the people making the decisions but you would think maybe some of the other owners, especially the ones who don’t have “aspiration” money to make deals off the books, might want him to be held accountable
Ain’t no way they’ll find a smoking gun… gonna be all circumstantial and Ballmer will be able to litigate his way out of this one
Not shocking
NBA HR manager, Silver, will make sure bosses won’t face any consequences.