[Simmons] The Clippers story is 1/1000th as interesting as Mark Walter frantically selling his sports assets one by one right now…
Another big name trying to downplay the Clippers stuff. Pretty interesting.
Source
I certainly don’t blame him for finding it more interesting, but 1⁄1000 is absurd lol
Bill Simmons, famous for never using hyperbole
Top of the Least Hyperbolic pyramid levels in Redraftables
at least top 7
Probably top 11 on his list of things he does often.
If I was bill simmons I wouldn’t exaggerate. I just wouldn’t!
Bill is out there just doing stuff! But I have to say, I am even more impressed with the assets that Mark Walter didn’t sell
Rumour has it he once said he would eat his own head before using hyperbole and I for one believe him
Famous mathematician Bill Simmons
the Mark Walter thing actually has real world implications lmao
involves multiple nation states lol. its objectively more interesting/compelling from a news perspective.
Yup…those of us in the finance space have been quietly (and in some cases, not so quietly) keeping an eye on this stuff.
It’s gonna be a slow boil and MW probably isn’t the only one that’s going to be in unload szn.
Can you elaborate please?
right? this is worded so ominously and I’m pretty in the dark on this lol
Bad times are coming.
Storms a-brewin
This isn’t a perfect explainer but it works.
Other shoes to drop could include guys with ties to Guggenheim or anyone who has been around Mark or Todd Boehly over the past 10 years or so. Boehly’s dodged a few bullets in recent years around finance but him wanting out on Chelsea is interesting to say the least.
There are other issues within private equity liquidity and investors having issues getting money from some of the PE guys.
I’m not a super expert on this specifically but some of these guys have played very fast and loose in pretty unregulated spaces (private wealth) and some will FAFO hard.
Gulf nations were using Sports as a way to park money and grow it. But with refineries going up in flames they are going to need hard capital to rebuild those facilities. So they have to pull financing and funding from various entities for the rebuild. Financially they are fine. But its cheaper to use hard cash them to use debt that has to be paid back when your leverage is years down the line. Look at LIV for example as another party who will cease to exist. Basically if your franchise is owned or financed in part by middle east interest. That money is going to possibly flow out.
Worst worst case scenario this is the Lehman brothers for the 2008 housing crisis. Private credit company being exposed for a house of cards
I thought of Bill Ackman, though he is still early in his insurance scheme.
It’s Lakers v Clippers. Hyperbole yeah, but he right.
How is he right ? What Clippers/Ballmer/Kawhi did basically against core of NBA/American sports (i believe there is cap in any sports in US ?) Right now strongest team in NBA is Oklohama apparently one of the unpopular places in entire country. You screw balance up and lots of teams gonna get fucked by big city teams.
As an American maybe idk Walter thing is bigger but as a fan of NBA basketball Kawhi situation way more important
the Mark Walter thing touches multiple sports, he owns the dodgers ,who have made 6 World Series the last decade, primarily due to his seemingly endless pockets. Deferred record amounts of contracts, and now his entire financial history is under scrutiny, and turned owning sports teams from a point of pride into a quick flip with the most storied franchise in the NBA. the story touches the kushners, and the saudis.
the other, is the clippers, who didnt even win a title if they were cheating.
Also a good time to remind everyone that the Houston Astros were caught cheating in the fucking world series that they “won” and literally nothing came of it. So temper those expectations of punishment lol
there was a thread the other day where a poster was wondering if Silver would remove Ballmer as owner LOL
I want to live in the fantasy they exist in
The Lakers are one of the most storied sports franchises on earth.
Clippers are lil bro. No one gives a fuck.
And he’s a Clippers season tix guy too.
the cap is not the core of American sports. All these salary caps are relatively modern inventions anyway. Y’all have just been brainwashed by ownership to treat the cap as sacred.
3 NBA teams are under the cap, its not a cap its a suggestion
[deleted]
He’s still butt hurt about Torre documenting Bill Belichick’s cartoonish downfall and absurd girlfriend
Bellichick dating a 25 year old is a little creepy I guess but it’s more for tabloid shit and comedians than a scandal
iirc with Pablo specifically it was about her meddling in stuff behind the scenes at UNC when she’s not an employee, and Michael Lombardi told people she’d been banned from the football facilities (tho UNC denied this and Michael Lombardi is a sack of shit so who knows the truth)
still kinda tabloid stuff but it wasn’t about their age difference as much as what a control freak she is
He’s been a season ticket holder for clippers, of course he’s Ballmers ball boy lol
Yes. He’s a Clippers ticket season holder and a big Patriots fan.
He definitely acknowledged some or most of what Pablo said is true, but “Conspiracy Bill” wasn’t as active before as he was recently.
Well, Walter is selling his to the brother of the President’s son-in-law to curry favor with the administration tasked with investigating him for fraud. Also, the guy who was CEO of Disney for almost 20 years runs the Lakers because of this.
Steve Ballmer circumvented the NBA salary cap with a scoreboard maker, the governor of Rhode Island, and a tree company that didn’t plant trees.
Disney > Aspiration
President > Rhode Island governor
Walter’s legal trouble (years in prison potential) > Ballmer’s legal trouble (at most civil charges for contract breach)
Lakers > Clippers
Kushner’s dealings kind of have no comparison to the combined Ballmer scandal
This is missing the forest for the trees. The Ballmer/Kawhi thing can plausibly become an integrity crisis not just for this league but across pro sports. In terms of effect on sports and relevance to sports fans, the ballmer story is way way bigger
this comment is the first time ive ever seen anyone try to imply that Steve Balmer skirting the salary cap would create an integrity criss for all sports… because it wouldn’t.
Hockey players make nothing compared to other pro athletes in America, so it’s irrelevant in the context of this discussion.
The NFL is nearly untouchable. Their biggest risk is self inflicted harm through deals with gambling companies.
The MLB has an ongoing integrity crisis – caused by Mark Walters endless pocketbook.
You seem confused. How does hockey player salary comparison matter in any way? If the richest owners in the most premier markets can afford to pay players under the table more than what the buffalo and minnesota owners can pay under the table, it disrupts the systemic integrity and balance of hockey. Even if the numbers are scaled down from nba superstar numbers.
First we have to assume that it’s a rare breach of the cap. Second we have to assume that the forthcoming punishment isn’t adequate to stop other owners from breaking a rule they implemented solely to stop themselves from spending money.
The salary cap actually isn’t that impactful. The NBA cap until recently wasn’t even a hard cap. I’d argue that injuries and 3 point variance has created more parity than the NBA cap. After all, Kawhi would have gotten the same endorsement money if he had just done some work. As posters keep repeating, it’s all legal if he just did a few public appearances.
And the Clippers didn’t win anything. So what impact is there?
Seriously. The owners don’t want a cap for parity, it’s because they don’t want to pay the players, while the players are earning them billions in equity/valuations. Just go back to the old cap and let the players get paid. It’s obvious their market value is high enough to be getting paid on the side anyway. Same shit as college sports and it’s not like the old big money programs are running dynasties the moment the bags opened up anyway. If anything, the opposite happened.
People don’t realize all these pro sports leagues run solely due to anti trust exemptions granted by the government. The core of said exemption is “you guys are a giant monopoly and normally that’s illegal (because you can’t have mechanisms to limit franchises and player movement without having sole control over said market) but we will allow you to operate in the interests of business and fair play”.
If the league’s own teams in a closed league system don’t follow any sort of guideline or code, the core concept of free and fair play falls flat; why would gambling companies create bets when the game is inherently unfair? Why would fans want to watch, invest, or care about the result? The monopoly is now a structure to maintain power, therefore that anti trust exemption starts becoming real shaky under rule of law. No more trading, no more drafts, back to barnstorming and free challenging for the trophy.
MLB is the only league with an antitrust exemption relating to players. The other leagues are legal because the anticompetitive actions are all agreed to with the players’ associations in a CBA. That’s why the NCAA can’t just do the same stuff.
(The NFL has an antitrust exemption related to broadcasting, as long as they don’t step on college/high school football, which is why they still don’t have Friday games.)
The Clipper situation is a league wide issue, the Mark Walter situation seems to be a 1 man potentially blowing up issue
1 man who owned a team for 9 months and already sold it.
I mean not really… this guy is responsible for the current dodgers, and the nearly 100% certain MLB lockout next season. There are implications that it involves the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, the Kushner family, and if a pardon follows, the US government.
It’s a more interesting story from nearly every angle, unless youre an NBA superfan.
it’s hyperbole, but yeah
It’s 1000 times more interesting to me that Simmons for once used a round number rather than like 3.8%.
He’s still mad at Pablo for saying mean things about Bill Belichick
Bill runs in rich guy circles. Makes sense he’s more interested in the Mark Walter piece
Boston Celtics lifer and Clippers season ticket holder Bill Simmons giving us his very, 100% unbiased opinion on what NBA scandals we should care about and why it’s actually the Lakers being a hot mess.
The guy who wrote the Book of Basketball is more interested in a billionaire’s legal issues than the NBA’s whole cap space mechanism, and the CBA is under threat of cap circumvention by extremely rich people. Even this shows his hypocrisy.
Hes not the same guy who wrote that book anymore
1/1000th of that guy roughly
[removed]
It’s certainly very upsetting that if you want to do crimes and get in no trouble for those crimes you can just associate yourself with the global child raping cabal. Isn’t that, like, the worst crime? We should prioritize punishing those people more so than Walters committing fraud, right?
I mean yeah, but it brings us back to the question of “who’s going to punish them?” It’s obvious that these laws were meant for the average Joe not for pieces of shit who can buy an island to fiddle kids on
Not saying it’s right, but it’s the extremely shitty reality
Don’t worry, your franchise just got sold to the Kushner family in order to get Mark Walters out of said legal trouble so you can pretty much guarantee you’ll have plenty of child-raping shitheels hanging around the building from now on!
Besides being rich, his real angst is that Pablo embarrassed Bill Belichick
I still can’t believe how pissed off he got about that report. I feel like the entire bit was how thoroughly Pablo researched such an ultimately dumb, inconsequential-but-mildly-amusing story
You would’ve thought Pablo outed him as gay or something. He found out details about their already very public relationship, like chill out Simmons
Nah, I think he’s just plugged in and sees the huge scale difference between stories
Reddit likes the Kawhi cap circumvention because it’s funny and easy to grasp
Bigger media sees the smoke of the lakers quick flip, the tax and loan issues, and this might be a much larger story in terms of scope, even if slightly more nuanced and boring for your casual /r/nba user
What I can say, pretty confidently, is bill isn’t trying to redirect because he “hates” the lakers. He’s just trying to put a stake on which story might go way higher than just nba rules
It also affects the product on the court. Who owns the Lakers does not really matter to me
fair point as well
I listened to the Simmons show about the Laker sale. I think what’s lost in translation in this tweet is that he’s saying “interesting” not “important.”
He lays out about a thousand angles that are interesting about the Lakers sale.
The Clippers story is not INTERESTING in that way; it is utterly predictable. “Wow, you mean one of the world’s richest men treated the rules like they don’t apply to him? You are KIDDING!” The mechanics of how they did it aren’t especially clever or novel. Just arrogant. The Clippers story is ultimately more important, especially to the on court product, but the details just aren’t as compelling.
This might be the reason why it hasn’t caught on here. Its more politics than basketball, its semi-NBA related compared to the Kawhi story which is 100% NBA related.
An owner being investigated for financial crimes and selling off his assets to Administration-connected folks should be moving the needle more here, but i don’t know how much the mods would tolerate the Cult of Donald coming into each of those threads to HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP BENGHAZI everything.
The thing too about the Kawhi thing is it’s juicy but it’s a pretty simple story
Yeah it’s super easy to digest and keeps the drama insular to the NBA to a degree that feels accessible and less scary. The Mark Walter story feels like one of those where you might start pulling on a thread and find some shit that reminds you that justice doesn’t exist on a fundamental level anymore.
ya, exactly. and that’s fine, no shame
but to the guy I’m replying to, it’s just that simple. this isn’t BS-lakers-hater stuff
I personally feel a federal fraud investigation into the Owner of not only the Lakers, but the Dodgers as well is a much bigger deal. Especially when he owned them for such a short time frame.
A big part of the reason is the Clippers isn’t interesting is they cheated but didn’t have success.
He’s not a clippers fan
he just has season tickets. but in no way a fan. the nfl rob lowe of the nba.
I mean he has season tickets because he lives in LA and they’re cheaper and more accessible than Lakers season tickets. He’s right, the scope of the Walter story and what happened behind the scenes there is infinitely more compelling than clippers cap circumvention because it involves the federal government and potentially the literal president, but the likelihood we hear anything deeper about the Walter stuff, let alone that we hear about punishment, is infinitely smaller than learning what the aspiration investigation will lead to
It’s cuz he lives in LA and he wouldn’t be caught dead as a Lakers season ticket holder. Trust me, he could afford them.
To be fair, he would be lynched by the Celtics fans if he was caught.
If the Trump DOJ is using threats to coerce a sale, and then dropping charges or investigations as a result, then actually the two are connected. Both are about it wealthy people being able to break the law, corruption, and bribery. So they have to be pretty close actually in terms of interests
I mean he shits on the Clippers all the time and brags about not going to the games
Hardens gone from the team so he should be coming back to the games any moment now
He hated the team for a long time now even before harden
Yeah people always bring up he has season tickets to imply he’s a big fan or somethin when he’s actively shitted on this team since the lob city days lmao he’s just there to watch the other teams and doesn’t give a fuck about the clips lol
Does he really brag about that lol?
As much as I hate the clippers and other franchises, I would be at every single game if I had NBA season tix.
We do the all-star package for a team and cancel real life plans to make sure we’re there to see them lose most games.
Maybe I’m not busy enough lol
Yeah he talks about it all the time that he only goes to see other teams lol.
Do you even listen to him at all? He doesn’t give a shit about the clippers lol. That’s definitely not his motivdtion
I don’t think he gives a shit about the Clippers
Simmons is a total sell-out corporate shill now. Guy got too rich. Got any more gambling ads for us, Bill?
Bill Simpons. Ballmer going all out to control the story, nothing sus about that.
I think the Mark Walter thing is more interesting in the grand scheme of things, but the Clippers-Kawhi thing is more interesting from the NBA angle.
I mean, there isn’t much point in discussing the Mark Walter thing in an NBA forum to too much of an extent, the team is already sold. The Clippers-Kawhi thing however is not over, and whatever its conclusion is will have an effect on the NBA in the future.
Luckily we can discuss both things, we don’t have to pick just one.
Are you new on the internet? If one thing is important, it means everything else either sucks, doesn’t matter at all, is a smokescreen, or is gaslighting.
Even from an NBA perspective, the Lakers being owned as part of a massive insurance fraud scheme and then sold to PE (disguised in some way, with $ from mysterious places) is a more important story, then Ballmer dodging some internal NBA salary cap rules together with unc, tree planting and scoreboards.
The Lakers story is where all big time sports is going. It’s more important (if not as funny, and the characters aren’t as colorful).
Also Simmons has been an idiot about his actual sports analysis for a decade or so, but he understands rich guy circles. He’s worth listening to on this
Meh. He sold and the future of all sports is sovereign wealth funds and PE firms, but the fraud behind Walthers purchase is unique to the that ownership and technically are no longer owners. Unless you’re implying all future purchases are only possible cuz of fraud…. Not sure it’s shows anything about the future of sports, but yes the story is very interesting to follow if you’re a dodgers fan. Ballmer’s case may set precedent for future actions owners will take regardless of what ownership group is in place. Of Ballmer gets a slap on the wrist, get ready for mass circumvention with salary cap. One story impacts one ownership group that is no longer on the league. The other will def impact all teams and players. It’s why from an NBA angle, it’s more important.
If the NBA hadn’t kicked the Kawhi can down the road this far, it would’ve had room to breathe.
Honestly, this feels 1000% like they pounced on the Mark Walter thing to try and bury the Kawhi stuff.
Every nba team needs to have an aspiration now
To be fair, I do agree that is ALSO extremely interesting, and is more urgent since its an ongoing situation while the Clippers stuff happened years ago
Obviously 1/1000th is downplaying but I do see where he’s coming from
The Clippers thing directly impacted the product on the floor. A billionaire having financial issues isn’t nearly as interesting to me personally.
If the conspiracies about Kushner utilizing the DOJ to bully Walters into selling are true, then that’s a diff story
The sad thing is that this isn’t even top 200 on the list of corrupt shit that has happened under this administration.
I’ve heard about the DOJ thing, but this is the liberal black sheep Kushner of the family. How much sway does he actually have in getting the DOJ to bully Walters?
The liberal thing is a PR thing. The oligarchs don’t have senses of personal politics and idealism, just self interest to their own finances and power.
Josh Kusher is as much of a liberal as Elon Musk is a libertarian. He’s worth 5.2 billion dollars. He’s, at best, a typical Clintonista/Hollywood type of Democrat.
If you ever watched Succession, he’s probably the Shiv of the family lol.
Every Roy family has a Shiv
The typical token “good billionaire” of a family of ghouls but will fall in line when it counts.
No it didn’t what are you talking about? Kawhi signed to a max and the clippers were the 2nd or 3rd highest payroll in the league well over the cap and into the second apron and they still lost if anything it’s direct evidence that spending doesn’t equate to championships
“Directly impacted the product on the floor.”
Except it didn’t? The investigation for 2021 and Clippers got no real financial flexibility because they were still a 2nd apron team despite Kawhi taking what? $2-3M off the absolute max? LAC was no better on the floor from this.
That’s not to undersell how big of a story it is, but pretending like this made LAC good (when they’ve sucked anyways) is wrong.
The outcome is irrelevant to the point. Just because the Clippers were incompetent does not mean they’re free to engage in behavior that would stack the deck
That’s kinda ignoring the fact that they had to do these deals to get kawhi in the first place. In hindsight he didn’t really have much success on the clippers but at the time he was the marque free agent and signing him was a direct result of these forbidden practices
Purely from an NBA fan’s standpoint, the Mark Walter thing is vaguely interesting to the extent that a major team changed owners, but not much more beyond that.
But an actual NBA cheating scandal is way more relevant IMO.
The same way the Donaghy scandal or the Joe Smith scandal would be bigger stories in the NBA than the Enron scandal that’s totally unrelated to the NBA.
They’re both interesting stories that have huge potential impacts to the league.
Will the league not punish teams for circumventing the cap? Or only certain teams/owners? It also opens up a lot more consideration for NBA rumors/conspiracy theories.
Is the sale of the Lakers on the up-and-up, or is there more happening behind the scenes? Will we see more control from entities that most regular people should not be happy about? Private Equity/Saudis? Will we start seeing more changes in pop culture and the economy as the Saudis buy more things? I believe they bought EA. And the Paramount/Warner Bros situation has a lot of political factors to it.
Bill Simmons isn’t the one posting this to r/nba though
What is the conspiracy here? Bill has been an absolute thorn in the side of all commissioners, now we’re claiming he’s some sports Illuminati trying to sweep this under the rug?
Anyone who disagrees with you has some secret angle/agenda they’re pushing. It couldn’t possibly be he just simply finds one thing more interesting than the other
Redditors love digging one layer deeper than facts would allow for and pretending they’re smarter than everyone else
These idiots don’t understand how crazy the Mark Walter thing is going to get. Madoff levels of fraud.
Kawhi cap circumvention and Bill’s weird beef with Pablo aside, he’s right. This is going to be interesting.
He’s talked about the Clippers situation as the single biggest decision Silver has had to make as commissioner and an extremely big deal.
I promise you he spent three seconds tweeting this and went back to splitscreening the Sox and Lethal Weapon 4
They both can be big. I would argue the Clippers story is bigger for the league and its fans but the Lakers shit is interesting to everybody since politics and corruption involved.
Part of me thinks Simmons still has some weird/aggressive feelings towards Pablo ever since the Bill Belichick stories he covered. If it was a ringer guy covering this we’d know Bill would have gave it its deserved shine.
Both are about corruption at their core, although yes the national angle of the lakers and how the most corrupt president in US history is doing yet more corrupt shit for which he needs to end up in ADX Florence after his term is quite interesting too
An aside but I feel like calling Trump the most corrupt President in US history is greatly underselling the situation. He is the most corrupt person to ever exist on Planet Earth and second place isn’t in the same universe
This is exactly it. He got sideways because he was mad about the UNC reporting, and he’s downplayed the Clippers reporting at every opportunity. Including on his damn movie podcast, this summer I think.
The clippers outcome has been predictable for over a year now.
Hey they might have lost a single first with a small fine if the league really wanted to go hard on them. I might have even guessed they would lose a second for failure to properly supervise someone or something.
I think the Clippers story is more interesting to every day fans considering its impacts on-the-court.
The Mark Walter stuff is more interesting from a business point of view that most fans can’t and don’t relate to as much.
When you’re so zig and zag brained you don’t realize 2 things can be fun and interesting at the same time. You just know he’s playing down the clippers story cuz he’s jealous of Pablo lmao
So wild to me that he can’t just be a journalist and explore what he finds interesting. I can’t imagine being this useless.
No hyperbole whatsoever 🙄
He committed tax fraud at a mass scale and needs a shitload of cash. Doesn’t seem all that interesting to me. Seems like it’s been going on for a long time, NBA probably should have taken a slightly closer look at his finances.
What’s also interesting is that federal investigators are going after Walter and a few days later Walter sells to somebody who’s related to the President.
Simmons is a SPORTS fan, not just a basketball fan, so this take makes total sense. He’s also not wrong, I’m very curious what’s going to happen to the Dodgers now.
I bet it is, noted Celtics lifer, Bill Simmons. I bet it is.
He also has Clippers season tix
and he jokes about not going to the games he lives in LA and you know he’s never gonna buy lakers season tickets, so he’s gonna have tickets to the other team in the city
The sports angle of the Mark Walter story really isn’t that interesting.
I think it’s just a reflection of the fact that sports rule doesn’t actually matter in the real world. The NBA is a closed system.
Meanwhile you have here a national and geopolitical corruption scandal implicating the federal and Saudi governments and high level officials. Bill is right
i mean… i agree with him. the kawhi stuff is funny and stupid, but Mark Walter frantically selling his assets is even funnier and an even crazier story. doesn’t mean the clippers stuff should be buried by any means– just means we are eating good these days.
Bill Simmons is a Reddit mod with a podcast
Both at interesting lol but one has more info and the other we have to wait for it to come out
Simmons has such an hateboner for Pablo
Sorry, I’m gonna wholeheartedly disagree and it’s not because I follow the Lakers. I think the Walters stuff is interesting and fucking clear corruption at the highest level. But the Clippers situation is more problematic for the NBA because it’s about gaming the sport and creating a competitive advantage, where the Walters situation doesn’t really have anything to do with basketball directly. If you’re more interested in political corruption, sure. The Walters situation has you covered. But I’m here for basketball and watching the league turn a blind eye to a billionaire owner breaking the league rules is just more salient.
compromised bill should be his next alter ego
PLEASE SELL THE DODGERS TO ROBERT SARVER
I mean, the Clippers broke league rules by giving Kawhi millions
Walters allegedly acted as a front for Arab money funneling billions of dollars to buy the leagues premier franchise and is under federal investigation
Bill Simmons is a corporate stooge at this point.
Will always glazed a corporation over being even a little bit critical of capitalism.
They are both connected. Franchise valuation have be come so high it’s actually takes a real stretch to own them. Ballmer is richer than multiple teams combined, other teams are owned by over leveraged consortiums that can fall apart on a whim. Dundon is rich enough to own a team, but “poor” enough to have to gut it financial and fight the city tooth and nail for every dollar.
Ownership quality is becoming an issue again.
That is interesting but the Clippers say there’s no evidence and ESPN running the story and the NBA saying we’re not done is interesting as well.
This PR blitz is hard to keep up with
Maybe at this exact moment it COULD be seen as slightly more interesting. But one of these has leaguewide ramifications around how teams function, the other is an owner dealing with his own, separate legal issues.
Simmons knows when to bend the knee and lick the boot.
He just hates Pablo because he was mean to Bill Belichick. Bill Simmons is an emotional idiot.
At least he’s simply an idiot and not a shill like every other NBA talk head including his Ringer partner Zach Lowe.
This past year a lot of talk heads showed their true colors.
Outside of NBA circles he’s right. Watching CNBC and Bloomberg they’re talking about Mark Walter’s issues far more than the Clippers.
He’s not wrong, and it would have a ripple effect acrossultiplr leagues in multiple countries.
God I hate saying Simmons isn’t wrong.
It reads like hyperbole. Like he’s probably correct that Walter flipping the biggest franchise in the sport in less than a year is a bigger overall story. I think BS is one to embellish and use more superlative language than one might use to be 100% accurate. It think this is in line with how he tends to act.
I mean the ratio is off but he’s right. The Clippers are irrelevant and incompetent as always, this is just further embarrassment. The Dodgers and Lakers owner getting squeezed by <redacted> out of his holdings is far more interesting and will have longer term consequences.
I don’t know, I find the NBA abandoning the salary cap kind of weird.
That’s not how journalism should be determined.
Breaking: Clippers season ticket holder mad that people think his team cheated.
it’s maybe more interesting as a one-off. but the Clippers thing is way more interesting because the sort of shit the clippers pulled has the ability to be pulled by every team in every league. Circumventing the salary cap and the penalties around that are WAY more important to the future of the league than a sketchy 1-off sale.
both can be interesting – they aren’t mutally exlcusive where one can be and one cant
Do yall really have to post everything this jaundiced fool types?
BS is a closeted Clippers fan who hides behind the “I’ve bought season tickets for 30 years so I can watch other teams I like!” shtick. He’s also a rich white dude so naturally he has to help his boy Balmer whenever possible.
Fuck Bill Simmons
I disagree.
Clippers story is much more interesting.
Eat a dick, Bill.
bro if anyone out there is paying people to say that the clippers thing is boring and not news fuck it dm me ill fuckin post that shit idgaf
The Walter thing is pretty self-explanatory. Homeboy isn’t hiding much. He bought shit with money he didn’t have, and now he’s fighting for more liquidity to pay off his debts. There isn’t much intrigue here.
The Clippers thing, on the other hand, is all cloak and dagger, and no one on the Clippers is admitting that there’s anything there. Depends on your definition of interesting. One is a mystery and one seems to be a plain truth that no one is denying… to me, the Clippers thing is more interesting.
The Walter thing is a compelling story, but there isn’t a whole lot of mystery to it.
It’s a shame we can only talk about 1 thing at a time eh?
Abso-Lutely!
The Clippers stuff is important, obviously teams and players need to follow the agreed upon rules.
BUT how many teams sell, the year after they were purchased?
BUT how many teams sell, the year after they were purchased, while the owner is under investigation by the Federal government.
Simmons kink nickname is Bill the Bitch
I bet Pablo got an offer he can’t refuse
he’s 100% getting a tug job from Balmer or Silver or both
How much did Ballmer pay him to say this?
Ballmer wealth is a helluva drug.
The fact that literally anyone here thinks Bill gives half a shit about the Clippers makes it clear how many here don’t actually listen to Bill’s show.
He’s not wrong about this - this Clippers/Kawhi is not even vaguely interesting until there’s some actual hard conclusion to this. The Walters stuff is batshit.
Folks it actually is 1⁄1000 as interesting, Mark Walter has committed an insane amount of fraud and is intertwined with so many huge sports franchises. Trump might sweep stuff under the rug but the scale of this is crazy. The Kahwi shit is amusing because it’s so so stupid but is absolutely a drop in the bucket compared to Walter’s situation.
Edit: I get it from a basketball integrity perspective the Leonard stuff is closer to home but this Walter stuff is far more impactful outside of basketball. And the fact he sold to a guy connected to Trump means we probably get to watch full on corruption occurring in real time.
It is definetly more interesting that a billionaire in legal trouble is selling a sports club to the President’s son-in-law’s brother.
1000x more interesting than a billionaire paying an employee under the table. How do you think all these houses are being built in Texas?
Who
Bill goes nuts over rich guy investment news
He’s not totally wrong, Ballmer is just league drama and him making a mockery of it. Walter’s might actually be up to some illegal shit with jail time involved.
Simmons is a clown. We have a basketball story and financial crimes story. NBA media really should focus on what’s important here.
I was just thinking “ let’s see what angle Simmons takes because he a season ticket holder and I’m sure in ballmers pocket. I assumed this was his take.
Full court press for Ballmer
I mean we all knew Ballmer wouldn’t get smacked down by a league that needs him a lot more than they need him.
Especially when you realize most of these owners/ownership groups finances are held together by bubble gum and duct tape, various fraud schemes.
both can be interesting, astonishing that the “media” suddenly can’t cover two newsworthy things at once… These “Journalists” need to learn how to multitask.
Clippers season ticket holder, Bill Simmons? Color me shocked.
Is there a reason the Walter stuff would be interesting other than if it’s found out the whole Luka trade and the Mavs #1 pick somehow was actually orchestrated by the league?
The Clippers stuff involves a player, why is Mark Walter selling his teams because he needs the cash for some illegal billionaire shit at all interesting?
“Frantically” sold the Lakers for a $2B profit. All Above board.
Is he wrong? The mark walter story is legit insane
Another reason to hate ESPN for making this clown possible.
It’s like with Oprah and Dr Phil and that other quack doctor she made famous.
Seems like Bill has some personal gripes with Pablo too.
What’s the TLDR on Mark Walter liquidating?
I lowkey started suspecting Simmons once the Rhode Island stuff came out. He’s always been a big Clippers guy, wouldn’t surprise me if Pablo finds some connections between Bill and the RI governor who was helping the Clippers & Kawhi…
It’s the offseason, Bill. We can follow two controversies at once.
This is absolutely false. The clipper cap circumvention attacks the idea of fairness of the league. Imagine if Kawhi stayed on the spurs or the raptors. Any team that had to leave because of the salary cap or aprons is potentially harmed. You can disagree with the rules of the CBA and want them to change and that’s also an interesting discussion here. The Lakers ownership change may be more important outside of basketball reasons but as a basketball thing it’s not that important necessarily even if Mark Walters goes to jail for fraud which seems unlikely.
No matter what the Clippers do the Lakers always manage to upstage them
Bill has season tickets, he doesn’t want the clippers to be a bad night every night
Or, hear me out, we have enough NBA journalists and enough brainpower in our heads to cover and learn two different stories at the same time.
Y’all suffer from amazing levels of brain rot.
Lolol of course it’s avowed Laker hater Bill Simmons. Fuck off, Bill