“They expect one of us in the wreckage, brother”

Jose from the Clippers custodial services have been let go due to his involvement this million dollar scam; In fact he is the mastermind of all of this! - Balmer and the NBA

Steve Balmer net worth ~$145 billion.

If the fall guy received \(5 million to take the fall, it would be equivalent to one of us making \)50k paying someone $1.72 to take the fall

The draft picks will be the real punishment

It will probably be Shelby Jacobs.

my old job fired the assistant for budget stuff too

It depends, how rich is their owner?

no because that fiscaso included the smoking gun and the ammo from where the bullet started.

David stern isn’t walking through any doors

That was a totally different situation.

They paid Joe Smith far below market value with the promise of a big contract when they acquired bird rights. Kawhi signed for a max deal and the team went and got him a sponsorship to cover more on top of that.

Nope. Different commissioner

Watch they’ll do a supplemental draft where you can pick between any players who entered the draft and weren’t drafted. You can have their rights.

You’re a small market you know the rules.

Other teams should refuse to play the Clippers until they get a punishment commensurate with both the level of offending and what other teams have received historically. It just fundamentally alters the league forever otherwise.

It’s like the Balogun red card thing. Just because it didn’t matter in the end, doesn’t mean it isn’t beyond the pale.

No, this is the old “we know nobody will believe we aren’t covering for the $100 Billionaire, so we’re looking into giving him a slap on the wrist”

The Al Capone strategy was designed to take down the top dog any way they could. This sounds like it’s designed to let Ballmer off the hook (while punishing a few underlings).

It’s a bold strategy, Cotton

Does the punishment for failing to supervise employees have any severity to it?

This feels less “we can get Al Capone on tax evasion”, and more “we can blame it on Al Capone’s accountant”

this is completely different. This is “we don’t want to really do anything but we don’t want to set any precedents either.”

Lmao this is more like the Epstein files lol. The top diddlers are still free to diddle

I mean the Clippers were fined for getting DeAndre Jordan a Kia sponsorship when Kia was a team sponsor.

I’m waiting for this potential development: “No show contracts are not an issue and banning them would’ve had league wide ripple effects.”

People are guilty

We just know it’s never the angelic and infallible billionaire overlords

It seems like there will be punishment but it’s going to be extremely underwhelming imo

Kawhi gets to pay restitution, Ballmer writes a big cheque.

Damn so ESPN found out something else before Pablo did?

Yes Ballmer’s LLC pol pat put in $50m.

Kawhi’s deals with aspiration was \(28m for “endorsements” and \)20m for equity in aspiration.

But clippers put in more and so did Dennis Wong.

Dennis Wong’s investment matches exactly what Kawhi was paid by aspiration

We know Ballmer put money into Aspiration nearly matching the exorbitant amount they paid Kawhi

Didn’t Balmer put significantly more in than what Kawhi was paid?

A) Ballmer invested way more than what Kawhi was (supposed to be) paid, and B) Kawhi wasn’t paid which is why his LLC was listed as a creditor

Ballmer invested over 60 million and Kawhi was only paid 28mil

Balmer is technically a frauded investor in that station. Officially, He was bamboozled

I think the trail was Ballmer > Aspiration Accounts > Kawhi. So I guess once the money hit Aspirations accounts it was technically theirs to do as they please and beyond Ballmer, in writing, saying to Aspiration to pay Kawhi with it, it doesn’t constitute him paying Kawhi.

His argument is probably that he gave that money to aspiration as an investment, not as sponsorship money. Aspiration then used that investment to sponsor Kawhi. But legally you’d have to prove Balmer gave them that money with the intent to give it to Kawhi not as an investment, which is really hard to prove without an email from Balmer saying that’s what it’s for. The person who physically sent the money through a wire or whatever was definitely not Balmer, and even if you can prove that guy did it with specific intent you can’t prove Balmer told that guy or knew what was happening.

Ballmer “it’s astonishing how badly my employees have behaved! I am deeply shocked they betrayed my trust”

Who else would be incentivized to funnel money to a 3rd party?

That’s the norm in California BTW. We legit have people driving who have had 25+ duis.

A famous old lady ran over and massacred an entire family of 4 in San Francisco. But she never faced prison and is back driving.

Yes this is definitely like when someone gets killed in a horrific accident

One of the biggest things Pablo has reiterated is that the CBA just requires a level of evidence where there is no other reasonable explanation. They’ve exceeded that significantly and Ballmer has proven to be unreliable on multiple occasions.

Sissy. Adam is a sissy

Exactly.

Allows Ballmer to save face. Allows nba to extract some punishment. Allows the trade to go through.

Ballmer gets no punishment, gets a new FO staff, and back to the next deal

Not necessarily. My impression from the article is that everything is still on the table. The aspect of Ballmer “personally funneling money” was probably incredibly difficult to prove, but he could still be punished for cap circumvention by introducing the sponsor to Leonard. I really don’t think the article is quite the bombshell many make it out to be.

If this is a Section 1 violation which is what the article frames it as there’s basically no punishment for Kawhi beyond contract voiding. The other penalties permitted are all team focused.

To be clear his reporting underestimated Ballmer’s investment. As Ballmer and Dennis Wong invested further amounts as aspiration approached bankruptcy. In an effort to continue payments to Kawhi and prevent bankruptcy which would reveal this financial information. Furthermore, Pablo hasn’t moved from reporting on the investment amount or method as he did a recent episode with one of the original federal investigators of Joe Sanburg and they spoke on the nature of Ballmer’s investment.

Teams are allowed to introduce sponsors to players.

Sponsors pay team. Sponsors pay players for branding.

But Clippers were paying a vendor. Vendor was paying player. And that’s fucked

The Mario brother strategy?

Kill Clippy?

Spanking

The ol’ dick twist!