Rozier situation was different. The FBI had stepped in and told the NBA to resume as normal whereas the NBA is leading the investigation here w/ full control and allowed the Clippers to shop and trade a player who was still being investigated.

When the FBI tells you to keep your trap shut on an ongoing investigation, you do exactly that. And thats what the NBA did with Rozier.

They are investigating kawhi themselves so they can tell the raptors “if you trade for him and we suspend him, youre out of luck. No relief for you in any way”.

Plenty to shit silver for, neither these specific actions are one of them.

Yesn’t, you mayn’t.

He’s a lawyer, so it’s not that surprising his answer would be “sure, go ahead as long as you knowingly assume all the risks of this going horribly wrong”

The league is corrupt. Adam Silver is a snake, impeach Adam Silver.

The Heat need to be made whole

Raptors would never assume any punishment for Clippers/Ballmer

Kawhi contract being voided and/or a suspension is the potential issue

The clippers were the worst record in the sport at Christmas

Kawhi came back when all this was first unveiled without a ban and they wound out saving their record

Imagine if they lost Kawhi and traded everybody back then! OKC would’ve had a lock top 5 pick at WORST

lol what??

Your team traded for the player and seemingly acknowledged the potential consequences.

The punishment for y’all will only be relating to Kawhi specifically…which means suspension most likely.

Why are people acting like the raptors have some rinky dink owner that you can pull a fast one one? They’re literally owned by one of the bigger companies in the country, pretty powerful if you ask me

This is exactly what I’ve been thinking too. They never wanted to punish Balmer. Either they wait forever and quietly sweep it under the rug, or they attach the punishment to whatever team trades for Kawhi.

Even now, they could possibly use the Wachtell report and say they couldn’t corroborate Pablos reporting, with the end goal being to reduce any punishment.

They weren’t going to punish the Raptors instead of the clippers. They were only letting the Raptors know that if they voided Kawhi’s contract, they wouldn’t be getting any compensation back from the league or the Clippers.

And the Raptors were willing to do it

Legit?

They would be paid to take the fall 100%z

exactly this they wanted to blame canada lol

Completely agree. The League wants to come down hard on this but doesn’t want to go to war with their richest owner. If the Raptors agree to be the whipping boy it would solve multiple problems for Adam Silver

Truth. The Mexican restaurant near me did the inverse; looked shitty on the outside, served the best breakfast burritos of my life, then got caught selling crack from the back of store. They probably put crack in my burrito, but ask me if I fucking care.

Weirdly good analogy. Had a restaurant get busted for money laundering in my hometown. It fits this perfectly besides it wasn’t a franchise.

He’s the richest owner by a long shot so that definitely factors in

They call him Balmer because he owns your balls

That was actually very smart by Adam Silver. He can’t tell the Clippers they can’t trade him, but by doing this, he effectively made him untradable.

You mean by the pussy. Silver doesn’t have the balls.

Except Silver has no balls

If you’re asking why the Raptors would take Kawhi in terms of team building, even if he isn’t in his prime, he fills almost all the gaps this team has had issues with sans Center depth.

Kawhi is old but he doesn’t need to shoulder the entire team through the regular season anymore. This squad is good enough to keep it afloat.

In terms of risk taking with penalties, no, the raptors would not do this lol that’s why the trade wasn’t finalized.

Probably #1 player in Raptors history despite 1 season lol. Crazy to trade for him at this point with a fluke healthy year last year.

he fits our team incredibly well and makes us much better, scottie has always wanted to play with him, our fans love him, and having the opportunity to be the team he retires with means a lot for an organisation this young and relatively deprived of major names that stuck around

How else do we obtain a reasonable shot at a chip?

Money!

He’s a superstar that just had one of his best seasons, and has no reported diva tendencies as a basketball player or locker room presence. That’s kind of helpful to have on your team.

Search up Brandon Ingram’s playoff numbers this year.

Nostalgia

For raptors front office, it’s an easy decision, because they can make money marketing the return of Kawhi. You have to understand this is a business first, winning is only second.

For fans, it’s because our fanbase is delusional. They think 35 yr old injured prone Kawhi is somehow going to make this team a contender.

Same reason they trades for him in the 2019 season but replace Demar Derozan with Brandon Ingram.

Is he really a diva? Or just high maintenance due to his injury history?

Blame Canada

Silver: Next time, don’t lose your Finals MVP to the team that did the crime, dork

Legitimately insane

This sounds like a dumb WWE storyline rather than how an actual league should be run

Not exactly, just having the Raptors waive any right to complain about Kawhi being punished

No, they will punish Kawhi. What they want is for the Raptors to realize the obvious dangers of trading for him before going through with the deal instead of making a mess about how much punishment entails how many picks in a trade renegotiation arbitration.

Seems like a perfectly normal expectation from a billion dollar org that knew about the scandal even before starting the trade negotiations in the first place.

They may punish Kawhi. Possibly suspended for a season and didn’t want the Raptors to sue.

It’s your own fault for believing in most unreliable “superstar” and biggest con artist in NBA history. He wanted back in Toronto because he figured he’d be able to get whatever he wants. Don’t think for a second he actually gives a shit about Toronto.

If the Raptors still trade for him despite everything? Honestly yeah lmao.

The piece of paper: “No take backs”

For the Kawhi punishment specifically. The title leaves out the end of what Pablo says saying any punishment for KAWHI would indemnify the league and the Clippers. They view the punishment for the Clippers side of things separately. You’re not gonna be losing draft picks or anything.

He’s literally trying anything to not get sued by Ballmer because Silver knows that’s the end of his career

Jack Daniels sends his regards.

i think its a protect raptors from terry rozier situation. leads me to believe player will be getting suspended as well

It sounds more like they are signing an agreement that says they can’t back out of the trade for whatever reason, including a scenario like Kawhis contract being terminated. It’s likely a deal that involves Kawhis rights being owned by the Raptors and they assets they trades away being owned by the Clippers no matter what punishment is given out.

That still fucks then over massively for something that fucked them over when it happened.

Remember they were the ones that got fucked the most because they signed a rental with kawhi under the likelihood that they could match any offer and retain him. Well they couldn’t match an offer under the table so they lost him.

Theyd lose 2-3 picks plus ingram 

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If the Raptors sign it, the Silver bans Kawhi for a year, fines Balmer 10 million bucks, and everyone is happy except the Raptors. 

but why would they trade for a hot potato in the first place? was it corruption of some kind? because nobody is that incompetent. what did they think would happen?

I asked that in raptors sub way back when, and people lost their shit. I honestly don’t get it.

I’m not sure how you read the title and felt it was misleading. It’s pretty cut and dry.

They were giving up a bad player in Brandon Ingram? Kawhi is a top 10 talent ITL, had an incredible year last year, that was a very reasonable if not fantastic value trade for Toronto

then you don’t understand basketball or winning, just legalities 

It’s only scary for the teams and players that broke the rules…

Not the only fanbase

Like get mad at the Clippers for doing this exact, fucking, same thing with DeAndre Jordan and very clearly not respecting the league’s rules around the salary cap

I dont understand the outrage

Its pretty reasonable considering the circumstances.

The league was just saying no takesies backsies and live with the consequences of the investigation  

What punishment goes to the team though? Just a Kawhi suspension? I don’t see how you punish somebody for an act they didn’t do, but I always expected Kawhi to be punished no matter what.

Probably

My dad loves Kawhi and doesn’t believe any of this. He still thinks of Kawhi as “that player who used to drive a old beat up pickup truck to games and use coupons to get food.”

Because balmer literally built a stadium with his own money for the nba. Of course he wouldn’t want to punish him

DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS

Should be sick of Silver.

Well no because the trade hasn’t gone through yet

They didnt sign it..hence why the trade hasn’t gone through yet..

Bullshit. This investigation had been radio silent for 10 months, then the Raptors make the trade and now Silver wants to talk about Raptors taking on repercussions.

Silver is just a bald headed bitch who is afraid of Steve Ballmer and didn’t want to piss off his richest owner.

Knowingly traded a ton of assets for a player currently being investigated for one of the biggest scandals in NBA history and have the audacity to be mad it might affect them lmao

Yes, one of the very few actual journalists in the industry left.

Ok Mark Cuban…

Found Steve Balmers burner account

Nah, they just gave him a Pulitzer because they thought he was cute.

A guy who won a pulitzer for investigating this exact scandal isn’t believable now?

He’s made so many crazy accusations over the year and got every single one right. Why would he be wrong about this specific part?

I mean he’s one of the most respected reporters in sports….

Everything I’ve seen Pablo present so far has seemed very credible and thoroughly researched

No. He’s trying to milk this for all it’s worth.

Only winners in this are the lawyers. Nothing will happen to Balmer or Kawhi outside of maybe a small fine.