Punishing rich people is too mean

Ballmer is the richest owner in the NBA and silver doesn’t wanna punish him

They don’t want Ballmer crashing out and taking out his billion dollar investment into the Clippers and other NBA related companies. Reportedly his combined net worth is more than the other franchise owners combined.

They don’t want to enter a giant legal battle with one of the richest men in the world

They’re trying to get Ballmer and the players’ union to agree to a punishment to avoid a drawn out arbitration and appeals process that would drag into next season.

From ESPN:

> The NBA investigation into whether the LA Clippers circumvented the salary cap to pay Kawhi Leonard could drag into 2027 if the parties don’t agree on the findings or any proposed settlement that involves punishing the team, sources with knowledge of the case told ESPN on Wednesday.

> Sources close to the National Basketball Players Association with knowledge of the investigation said the union wouldn’t hesitate to take the matter to arbitration if the NBA sought penalties without sufficient evidence proving the claim that the Clippers have denied since the league’s inquiry began nearly 10 months ago.

> On July 9, NBPA executive director David Kelly told reporters in Las Vegas that he didn’t believe there was a “there, there.”

> Asked if he believed there was anything that the New York law firm Wachtell Lipton, which is directing the NBA’s investigation, had uncovered that was worthy of punishment, Kelly replied, “Not from anything I’ve seen.”

>If the parties – which include the Clippers and NBPA – can’t agree, the matter could head to a neutral arbitrator who is jointly appointed by the NBA and the union. The arbitrator could compel document production, witness testimony and order discovery. After a hearing, the arbitrator’s ruling would be subject to an appeals panel made up of three people jointly appointed by the NBA and NBPA. The appeal panel decision is binding.

> Such a process, which applies in this instance because cap circumvention is a violation of the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement, would ultimately determine whether Silver could punish the Clippers for allegations that money was funneled to Leonard through Aspiration.

Lawyers are deciding how much of this is “circumstantial” to justify a slap on the wrist.

They’re trying to find a way to not be too hard on the billionaire… per usual 🫩

Ballmer is daring the NBA to try him. He has enough money to make the league twist. If this is a small market team or a less loaded owner, they would have been hammered already.

Ballmer is literally one of the richest men in the world, the league needs an ironclad case. I’m not sure what’s so difficult about understanding this.

So many criminal prosecutions go wrong because the prosecutor fucked up for some reason and let the criminal off the hook, this is not a criminal proceeding but the NBA needs to take the same care or risk being caught up in a protracted appeals battle with Ballmer.

Anything worth doing takes time.

why do you think this is “so long?” I’m curious what you’re comparing it to?

The most comparable / most recent investigation when it comes to “sports league vs individual owner”; would be the NFLs investigation into Daniel Synder / Commanders.

That independent investigation took 17 months and only really ended because he settled on selling the team instead of fighting any punishment. Additionally, that 17 month was after months of congressional hearings and whistleblowers, years of other reporting, etc. so they also had “evidence” of multiple wrong doings by Synder before they even started.

So, if you count the time from “whistleblowers/ media probe; The first Beth Wilkenson investigation (first NFL probe) congressional investigation; AND the Mary Jo White investigation (independent probe)” I think it was closer to 3 years of public reporting/investigations before Synder eventually settled by selling.

And that’s against an owner the rest of the leagued and his own fans hated.

Damage control strategy. Punish too hard and you make a billionaire your enemy. Punish too light and you make the public your enemy.

If they keep finding more evidence, they should keep digging until the trail runs out, because of needing to know how significant the punishment needs to be as well as making the case as bulletproof as possible in front of the arbitrators once they actually deliver their punishment. Imagine they called it done 2 months ago, took away 2 firsts and fined Kawhi 250k, then shortly afterwards the Daktronics story surfaces. That’s a much worse situation than “taking too long” for the initial punishment.

Waiting for him to be a raptor so they can fuck us

Balmer is insanely rich and he’d pull the standard move the wealthier party plays in this situation.

You simply say “I have more money and resources than you. It’s not worth it for you to pursue this because I will drag this out in court for so long and bleed you dry”.

At this point I think Wachtell is making sure any legal grounds are 100% airtight. Also there’s probably YEARS worth of documents/emails/etc. to sort through.

I think everyone agrees the NBA doesn’t WANT to do anything punishing Balmer and the Clippers, but with more and more evidence of egregious cap circumvention I think they will have to.

At some point this is going to start going beyond the NBA. If the NBA doesn’t come down on this, what’s to stop owners in the NFL/NHL (maybe MLB is a cap is instituted) from pulling this exact move? I’m sure Rodger Godell is at least slightly interested in how this plays out.

They’re trying to find a punishment that will satisfy the public while also not totally destroying teams’ abilities to circumvent the cap

Can only punish small markets and make an example of them. (Wolves losing 3 FRP)

Integrity of the league is gone.

I just really hope my team can keep up and pay their players under the table now maybe bring in some extra guys next year buy paying them.

Just a guess.

1. Corruption

2. Need to be 100% sure. If they do punish, ballmer can sue or appeal or whatever else. If the evidence ain’t sufficient then balmer wins and they get away with it.

Same as the Premier league and Man City, everyone knows they did it but won’t punish them since they are too “rich” or “influential”.

Because Ballmer has more money than the NBA and they don’t want him to flip out (he’s gonna flip out no matter what)

Law firm had to start investigating the Daktronics deal after Pablo told them about it

Onions have layers.

Steve Ballmer is worth $145 billion.

Because they really don’t want to

They’re waiting for an ideal news dumping time or situation for when they deliver their wrist-slap punishment.

-holiday (11 PM, Friday before Labor Day Monday?)

-someone important dies

-a major non-sports scandal appears

-US ends the war in Iran

NBA is clearly terrified of punishing Ballmer, because he’s going to file a lawsuit? I don’t get it, he might sell the team in anger/protest?

Because they were 95% through with the investigation and then a huge new allegation came out last week. 

Do you want Kawhi and the Clippers punished for both acts or just aspiration? The scoreboard accusations threw an entirely new charge into the mix. 

Because the League is trying to negotiate with Richie Rich about just how much they’re going to be allowed to slap his wrist.

Apparently they have to make sure Balmer is ok with the punishment and it’s not too severe

When you go for the king you best not miss. 

NBA is giving time for all the other teams doing this to do re up their tracks better first

Sorry bud, unless the league sees security footage of Kawhi leaving the building with a comically large lottery-style check that says “NBA cap circumvention” on the “for” line, the best they can do is drag this out another 6 months and take away two second round picks

I mean they had pretty much this level of evidence for months, it’s clear they were just waiting to see if everyone would forget about it by then.

Wonder if Ballmer says his employee or the jumbotron company scammed him as well next

Yeah but there’s no proof that KL is Kawhi, it could be Kevin Levin

We already reached smoking gun case with the bestie co-owner investing money into Aspiration and then immediately having that money go to KL2 when Aspiration wasn’t paying.

What does activations really mean?!??

Activations means sponsorship events so I feel like this email can be twisted as proof that the sponsorship deal with Daktronics was for real. It was the absence of emails such as this that made the Aspiration contract so damning

Is it illegal for the Clippers to use their corporate connections to make sure that their athletes are getting sponsorship opportunities?

How?

Industry terminology for marketing events and activities

His boops be beeping

This really is the funniest thing about the whole situation. It’s so absurd that he couldn’t have someone else toss out a social media post on one of his accounts but it’s also so on brand.

Come again?

The Dow is at 50,000!

SAD!

That still won’t be enough for some people here. Nothing short of a video confession from Balmer himself would suffice for them apparently.

“Forensic” means used in court.

Circumstantial evidence is forensic evidence.

DNA on a knife is circumstantial evidence.

Reminder they dont even need evidence lol. Silver can punish them for the appearance of wrongdoing and losing public trust in the league/product.

A great example I’ve heard is if you go to bed and the skies are clear, then you wake up the next morning and the streets are wet and people are carrying umbrellas, you can infer that it rained without actually witnessing the rain itself.

Common misconception.

The CBA clearly states the league needs a photo of Kawhi dressed like the Hamburglar accepting a big full burlap sack with a dollar sign on it from Steve Ballmer dressed like the Monoply guy. Legally, anything else is hearsay.

Source: I am smart.

Especially considering that the language in the CBA supports the use of circumstantial evidence in determining cap circumvention.

Forensic is always circumstantial.

Sorry, best we can do is 250k fine and two second round picks (from Toronto) -Adam Silver

Why is the fine only $7m 💀

This punishmentsounds about right to me if allegations are proven to CBA standards.

People keep saying this stuff, but with the way the CBA is, there are limits, and they can’t go beyond it, because it will be very easy for them to fight it considering the CBA is binding for all sides, at least until the next one (where I’m sure they will get more strict)

Kawhi punishment:

- Contract voided (he can still play but can’t for the team his contract was voided from, so he just can’t sign with the clippers, but can for another team and play)

- they can make him return or forfeit the money he earned from the endorsement deals

- I could be wrong but I think they can also fine him up to a specific amount as well

- his agent can also get punished as well

Team punishment:

- the team can get fined a specific amount, between 4.5 to 7.5 mill

- they can lose 1 or more first round draft picks

- although players involved can’t get suspended, team personnel can, so executives and staff members, can get suspended for up to one year

As outlined in the current CBA, these are the punishments, they go beyond it, it will be easy to fight it.

I’ll give you that uncle d no cap

Cuban is a dumbass tbh.

Crooks and billionaires don’t snitch each other out

(via Toronto)

It’s potentially that they’re finding more stuff. When the daktronics news broke there were reports that this wasn’t new information for the law firm investigating.

Possible that they’re already two or three more deals down the road than Pablo.

Integrity

The value in Pablo going public w/ what he knows is that it opens the door to previously unknown whistleblowers to come forward w/ information. Wachtell may have already known about this angle, but we don’t know who they interviewed or had access to within the company. Pablo’s efforts widens the net of sources and possibilities..

“it’s been reported they already investigated this Daktronics thing”

That’s false. It’s been reported that they already investigated a 2nd deal, but no one has said it was about Daktronics.

The fact most ppl here think the NBA doesn’t know is…… wow. The NBA knows what side of the bed Kawhi likes at this point

That has got to be Adam Silver and the NBA’s fear.

If you remember it wasn’t until a video came out that the Ray Rice situation with the NFL exploded. He had been given a light punishment (2 games maybe) and then was essentially shadow banned from the league as the league scrambled to contain the PR disaster of new evidence becoming public.

Or Kyle Lowry

Very well put. Gonna slide you an upvote big dog.

I think there will be a punishment, the hard part for them is getting one done that won’t lead to arbitration from either side which is super hard, at this point send the punishment, if the arbitration process takes time it is what it is, based off reporting seems like the result will happen sometime in September before training camp, so Raptors and Clippers can figure out their trade stuff

It’s insane to me the level of evidence it takes to convince normal ppl that ppl with money and power are doing something illegal. This is your smoking gun? What changed?

I think it may have actually been kawhis camp that was a total ass hole. Uncle denis was a weird dude.

They mainly just want the investigation over with, hear what the punishment will be, and move on. Some people on r/nba get upset with that as they see that as white washing/discrediting. Its not. I think its reasonable to want to hear the investigation and punishment after all this time.

Who does zero work for them while earning millions.