Ballmer basically dropped a quarter in the NBA tip jar. That’s wild.

It’s why Finland issues speeding tickets as a % of income/net worth.

Most people pay a \(300 fine, rich guy got \)120,000 fine for speeding

NBA fines should be based on % of team value or owner net worth

But prob like 90% of that is not in his bank account. He’s worth vs he has is very different. He’d have to sell majority of his assets and that isn’t easily at his disposal. I’m not defending him, your math is just wrong.

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He receives around $1.2 billion EVERY YEAR in dividends just from his Microsoft holdings. He receives checks for doing nothing that is worth more than Vivek Ranadive’s (around 800 million) entire net worth every year.

Its like 1/10th of a parking ticket. $5 is like the amount a place will make up on a fake ticket for violations that they can’t even legally enforce.

“I’m proud to announce that, in a move sponsored by Darktronics, we have paid the 260k” — Balmer probably

yeah nba team owners are more business partners than competitors. and unfortunately all other 29 teams benefit from having someone as rich as ballmer around.

Lower the banner

who did the Suns beat to get to the finals?

nobody

Lol, the Clippers need to be raked over the coals for this shit but this feels a little TOO punitive

And he didn’t have Balmer money. For all intents and purposes Balmer runs the league. It’s like Jerry in the NFL except he’s also far richer than the other owners

I mean they didn’t say that would happen just that they think it should happen

That’s just Season 2 of Running Point

GOAT uncle, tbh.

According to three sources with knowledge of the situation, the NBA conducted a formal investigation of the Clippers last summer where they emphasized that they better make sure that they don’t have anything written down OR any audio recordings of them explicitly saying they are taking care of Kawhi through other means specifically to circumvent the salary cap.

I still think they’ll be other cap circumvention through sham endorsements with other owners.

Too easy not to.

Spent the last decade scared of LeBron retiring. Now I am looking forward to it.

What do you expect us to do?

“Like the only response would be to stop watching NBA” as stated above. But yeah, other than a boycott, the usual avenues. Contact the league, contact your reps, etc. Those are obviously less effective.

What fans can do is just limited.

I guess we should just let them do it then.

reflecting what has already happened IRL to other avenues of people’s realities.

I mean, that was OP’s point, “the ability of the Oligarchy to just hand wave away smoking gun evidence is such bullshit.” But they get away with it because we don’t demand accountability because that’s hard and we’re comfortable saying “what can we do anyway?”

In criminal or civil law yes.

Not in American pro sports. Leagues almost never negotiate punishments with players or teams before they issue them.

It doesn’t “got to arbitration”

It goes to one Arbitrator who reviews all the evidence and comes to a singular ruling on whether there was a violation. That Arbitrator does not issue a punishment. All they do is say “violation” or “no violation.” They do not listen to arguments from either side. Nothing like that.

Teams/Players have no interaction until step 3, where the Appeals Panel comes in.

It doesn’t make sense because the reporting is that the league is afraid of being sued and this is what is persuading them to come to an agreement. But they aren’t under any real threat of being sued as long as the punishment fits within the terms of the CBA.

And no, this is not common in American pro sports whatsoever.

When the Sixers got punished in 2022 there was no negotiation. When the Clippers got dinged for D.Jordan there was no negotiation. When the Wolves got punished there was no negotiation.

When the NFL suspends players they do not negotiate before an initial ruling comes down. When they punish teams they do not negotiate beforehand. Take for example in 2008 when the 49ers were punished for allegedly tampering with Lance Briggs. The only evidence was a missed phone call placed to the agent (without a message) when the agent also represented multiple players on the 49ers.

Or take for instance Zeke Elliot, whose accuser admitted to completely fabricating the allegations. That still wasn’t enough for him to get out of punishment.

These CBAs are iron-clad. There is no way the NBA is afraid of being sued for a punishment that falls within the CBA guidelines.

We need to stop this “smoking gun” analogy. There already is a smoking gun, a smoking gun is circumstantial evidence. An email from Ballmer saying “circumvent the cap” would be the equivalent of video footage or multiple first-hand witness accounts of the crime.

The NBA can choose not to punish even in the presence of the smoking gun, which is the problem we’re all afraid of right now. They could have all the evidence in the world, meeting their own standards of the CBA, and still choose to let it go. That’s the insurmountable problem fans of this league are struggling with.

There doesn’t have to be a smoking gun. In the NBA’s own rules it says circumstantial evidence is enough, and there’s plenty.

The problem is the league office is there to support the owners. It’s basically Silver investigating his boss.

Also a pretty big difference between 30M and free sushi

That’s true, Kawhi’ne and dine. Was a thing all across the country. Im not sure if the league would have viewed that as circumvention if it was just free food, drinks and hotels but cars, penthouses and equity, that’s getting close to the line. But who knows apparently it’s not, so if your team aint offering big ticket gifts moving forward, then are they really trying to win?

It’s also one thing if he is receiving things as a way of promotion. The clippers issue is Ballmer funneling money to the sponsors to make it happen.

Stephon Ballmer

why would BI feel obliged to play for a team that shipped him off knowing there may be heavy repercussions on the player they traded him for

The Raptors FO made that decision while fully aware of the highlighted part. They always knew that Kawhi was using them to reduce his potential penalties. They took that risk with all that information, Idk why the rest of league should feel bad about them suffering from their own stupidity.

Also, there is absolutely no history of Ingram ever being that kind of player. He didn’t throw a single tantrum after being traded from the most storied franchise in the most luxurious city to basketball hell in the flooded wastelands. Then he got shipped out of the country and still never complained. If he has feud with the Raptors FO over anything, it’s the fact that they don’t wanna pay him on the next contract.

Precisely why all of this nonsense should have been taken care of months ago, before trading Kawhi to avoid punishment even bacame an option

Trade BI and Gradey elsewhere and sign Kawhi outright.

I’d love to see a sanction that gives Leonard the choice. You are either suspended for 20 games without pay, or you can play, but are fined half your salary.

The only thing funnier to me than making this guy play half the season for nothing, would be having him hurt his team by taking the 20 game suspension option, because this guy doesn’t work for free.

Well Ingram could just…not play and not get paid then. Chances are no one else is going to pay him what he’s getting paid right now so he’d just lose himself money in the present and future for being insubordinate

that’s not a crime, the NBA CBA is not the federal penal code. If they paid their taxes on the money they did nothing illegal.

Stern literally covered up officials fixing games for gambling interests. 

Some of you are just ignorant as shit. 

taking 5 picks and a fine.

….and suspended the owner, and suspended the GM, and voided the contracts