I don’t have plan to watch the video (because of Stephen A) until i saw this comment. Thanks!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Stephen A. is never worth watching outside of the morning after the Cowboys get eliminated. That is must-see TV.

I literally just thought the SAME thing as I was watching.

Facts.🤣

im not gonna lie tho i’ve come across Stephen A bashing Kawhi for this whole Aspiration stuff and it sounds like the old Stephen A. Really wish he would stick this stuff instead of the clown non-sports stuff he’s associating with now

This is how all videos should be

Stephen A Smith would say, “I know Kawhi, hes a close personal friend. I got his number on my phone, we’ve had brunch, hes my brother!”

Who wants to listen to Stephen A talk about Stephen A?

Pablo needs to be tweeting out “I’m not suicidal” and staying away from tall buildings

He’s not just playing with billionaires, he’s playing with a billionaire that could easily buy the entire league if he really put his mind to it. The whole reason this is taking so long to play out is because of how wildly exorbitantly wealthy Ballmer is

I think the fact that they’re billionaires is probably why he’s pretty safe doing this. Not because Balmer couldn’t do anything to him, but because Balmer is so rich he doesn’t have to worry about ever experiencing consequences for anything anyway. 

Pablo could prove Balmer was in the Epstein files and Balmer would still skate 

No one is offing Pablo over Kawhi Leonard lmao

Pablo better not have any skeletons in the closet or they’re gonna dig it up (unless it’s in the Epstein files)

If I was a pilot and saw Pablo Torre as a passenger I would quit on the spot

Ballmer could lose 99% of his fortune and still be a billionaire.

Wish there were better ways of differentiating “centi-billionaires” than a dumb term

Bro’s about to get Boeing’d.

The way people on this sub glaze David Stern baffles me.

He might want to hire some security

If stern was alive, it would have never gotten this far. Kawhi and Balmer banned easily.

I lost any respect I had for him when I heard him try to bumble his way through explaining the situation.

What an absolute moron

I think people should also consider this when looking at the Clippers: their two other major brand partners are also exceptionally shady. They have a major partnership with Honey, which sponsored their jersey patches and their practice facility, and Honey’s entire corporate model is basically just scamming people. And then more recently their big partnership is with the Rwandan government, who has been responsible for numerous human rights abuses.

If the Clippers were looking for shady organizations to help launder money through to their players under the table, they couldn’t have picked better ones to pair with.

Show me the Intent To Commit Cap Circumvention form signed by both parties, Adam Silver, one notary from each state of above parties as well as no fewer than 10 independent witnesses and then we can start talking about a legitimate case.

Dude is such a fucking shill. NBA should look into all the Cuban-era deals too

The Minnesota Timberwolves lost five first round draft picks for promising Joe Smith, a contract extension under the table, what do you think the punishment for the Los Angeles Clippers will be? I think Kawhi Leonard will be suspended for the whole year. I think the Clippers will lose five or more draft picks as well.

This is huge news already and the fact that the Clippers didn’t win is irrelevant. They cheated and should have the book thrown at them. They could’ve gone 0-82 every year with Kawhi and I’d feel the same way. Cheating is cheating

This point is really not brought up enough. This would be the scandal of the decade in line with the 2017 Houston Astros if the Clippers actually managed to win or even advance to the finals. The entire league would be demanding the banishment of both Kawhi and Steve Ballmer. They’re actually benefiting significantly having essentially not won anything in the last 6 years. Lol

Would be funny if they won, people would be asking for the ring to be revoked

I know the clippers didn’t win but I blame them for what Okc is doing and won.

Is anyone surprised? They’ve been a pathetic, loser franchise for my entire 40 year existence.

It should be huge news regardless.

Correct.   Show up to one event and all of this never happens 

A couple photo ops with aspiration, a single ad and announcement with Daktronics.

Teams introduce players to sponsors in their orbit ALL THE TIME. It’s the money for nothing that makes this a slam dunk circumvention case

I have zero doubt that Balmer even paid for 100% of Kawhi’s shares in RIFC, but we have no clear evidence of that so we aren’t even talking about the secret soccer club ownership as a big part of this.

Just seems so goddamn lazy.

It’s possible the Clippers thought that announcing the deal would bring unwanted scrutiny. The league might start to ask questions if they announced a huge sponsorship for a scoreboard company and a tree planting organization. Remember, the only reason this came out is because Aspirations was being investigated criminally.

Yes but that’s not the point

The point is they gave kawhi the money as part of his basketball duties to avoid the salary cap.

If you make him do something for that money you’re paying him for doing that thing rather than his already existing basketball playing

Not quite. There’s still the fact that Ballmer himself is funneling money through the companies directly to Kawhi’s businesses.

If it were an outside company using Kawhi’s likeness for advertising, that’d be fine, but the money is coming from Ballmer as a method of paying Kawhi more money than allowed by the NBA salary cap.

Sure, but a slight consideration would not make it not cap circumvention.

Like imagine if LeBron suddenly got some \(50M contract from the 76ers credit card processing company and LeBron makes one endorsing sentence "X payments makes payment processing simple" that they then use in a print ad that they spend \)10k using that. Bron quote in some trade magazine and then over the next 5 years the Sixers pay ~$50M more in credit card processing fees than they did beforehand.

There’s specifically a clause in the CBA about cap circumvention violations:

A violation of Section 2(a) or 2(b) above may be proven by direct or circumstantial evidence, including, but not limited to, evidence that a Player Contract or any term or provision thereof cannot rationally be explained in the absence of conduct violative of Section 2(a) or 2(b).

The consideration still has to be rationally explainable. Kawhi making a throwaway comment that Daktronics Halo scoreboard is amazing or that Aspiration is saving the planet or whatever, isn’t going to be close to worth \(40M+ (or whatever; \)28M + multimillion) in value.

His legacy is sponsored by draftkings

dude, titles were rigged in the early 2000s and no one cares about stern’s legacy. you think silver cares about a nothing-berger where teh clippers didn’t even make the finals

Imagine if Presti could pay everyone on the roster and keep that monstrous squad for 5+ years intact. Oof

Why the F would a mom and pop jumbotron business have a sponsorship? They don’t market to every day people. Ballmer must think we’re f-ing idiots.

Kawai is just a 2 faced bitch I never fell for the whole quiet nice guy act lol. It’s always the quiet ones who you have to worry about

Yeah Silver the notorious hard ass

Silver literally works for the owners.

I mean seriously this should be more than enough to force Ballmer out of the league, at least in a league with any serious rules about ethics. I still expect a slap on the wrist because I think they want Kawhi in Toronto (I also want Kawhi in Toronto).

Ban his ass for years. He can have the team but he cannot attend the games or be around the facilities he spent billions to build.

You spelled Ballmer wrong

Kawhi should never play again.

The players’ union are dickheads if they side with him.

He should get suspended and have his contract voided.

Spain has a salary cap in its soccer league

No cap?

That’s not true. There’s FFP in European soccer.

European soccer has caps that take a different form. Torres qualified his statement because Manchester City circumvents Financial Fair Play on an industrial scale.

We say that but the Panama Papers absolutely got journalists murdered. 

that’s what you said about Epstein!

I think you’re mistaking Kawhi for Uncle Dennis

Probaly why the spurs shipped his behind out.

Until he was found out by Pablo Torre.

Kawhi is hilarious

This shit would have been worth it if they won but dude was making like 100 million+ per year to put up numbers for 50% of the regular season and then get injured in the playoffs.

All time bag chaser idk why people are mad at him it’s not like it hurt anybody’s pockets but ballmers

I wanna be Pablo Torre when I grow up. I am 40.

There were tons of reports in 2019 that Kawhi was demanding things that were against the rules.

He might be better than Rich Paul 😂