Proper in regards to the time the preliminary response to the Kawhi Leonard story was lastly dying down on Wednesday, with Pablo Torre’s podcast making a case that the richest proprietor in all {of professional} sports activities — the LA Clippers’ Steve Ballmer — may need circumvented the wage cap and the NBA asserting its investigation consequently, the workforce that was already within the worst form of highlight determined to hop into the headlines but once more.
They despatched a second assertion.
Following on the 82-word, preliminary response from the day earlier than, by which the Clippers denied any wrongdoing in Torre’s report whereas claiming that “any opposite assertion is provably false,” they upped the ante with a 199-word denial that included this line within the third paragraph:
“There may be nothing uncommon or untoward about workforce sponsors doing endorsement offers with gamers on the identical workforce.”
On its face, that’s true. However what the Clippers selected to not acknowledge was the suspicious nature of Leonard’s reported contract with the now-defunct former workforce sponsor, Aspiration, the one which was set to pay him a whopping $28 million over a four-year interval in alternate for what seems to be nothing in return and dwarfed offers given to higher-profile celebs like Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr. and Drake who really supplied endorsements. And take into account, this assertion was launched earlier than a Boston Sports activities Journal report emerged on Thursday alleging that Leonard really had two offers with Aspiration that would have totaled $48 million mixed.
There was no point out within the Clippers’ assertion of Ballmer’s involvement in stated firm, both, the reported $50 million funding from his private LLC that was deposited roughly three months earlier than Leonard’s deal was executed (in April 2022) and two years after a league investigation into Leonard’s free company ought to have impressed most discretion. No reference to the seven former Aspiration staff who selected to anonymously help in Torre’s reporting, considered one of whom shared tales of how the cost of Leonard’s profitable contract was at all times deemed a prime precedence for the finance division — whilst the corporate was careening out of business — as a result of his notorious and influential uncle, Dennis Robertson, would name to gather.
Amid this newest spherical of great accusations lobbed towards Ballmer, and with a lot at stake on this delicate state of affairs, the handy omission of such key info solely worsens the already-poor optics. Particularly contemplating so a lot of their opponents consider there’s actual motive for the Clippers, and Leonard, to be involved right here.
In terms of the worthiness of the investigation, and the league-wide response to the main points which have emerged thus far, rival executives who spoke to The Athletic on the situation of anonymity made one factor abundantly clear: No, this isn’t the norm. The executives have been granted anonymity in order to permit them to talk extra freely.
For starters, as one identified, the mix of Ballmer’s vital funding in a workforce sponsor and Leonard’s curious contract (or contracts, maybe) have been motive sufficient to place them in hurt’s approach with the league. A number of famous the dimensions of Leonard’s deal as a crimson flag all its personal — even earlier than the BSJ report, and impartial of the truth that he didn’t present any providers in return.
Others puzzled aloud if this defined why Leonard, who has traditionally pushed for each penny in his private negotiations, would later comply with an extension in 2024 that was under maximum-salary stage and afforded the Clippers extra roster flexibility. There was way more shock and dismay than there was apathy or empathy.
“This (type of endorsement deal) doesn’t occur,” one long-tenured basic supervisor stated of the character of this association.
“I’ve by no means seen it,” stated one other government.
Former Dallas Mavericks majority proprietor Mark Cuban was among the many few who took the other stance, defending Ballmer on social media and pointing the finger on the Aspiration co-founder, Joe Sanberg, who agreed to plead responsible final month to defrauding traders of $248 million.
“Scammers do scammy issues,” wrote Cuban, who even joined Torre on a follow-up podcast Wednesday night time to debate the matter.
All of those questions coming the Clippers’ approach are honest, simply as they have been six years in the past when Robertson’s outlandish requests for unlawful perks in free company — homes, personal planes, half possession of the workforce, a assured quantity of off-court endorsement cash, and so on. — compelled rival house owners to share their considerations with the league.
Most of the identical themes that raised suspicions again then stay. And whereas the NBA didn’t discover proof of the Clippers granting improper advantages, it’s price remembering that the message despatched from the league workplace ought to nonetheless be seen as a North Star of kinds.
Per my Dec. 23, 2019 report …
(Silver) sees wage cap circumvention as a cardinal sin within the NBA, and can at all times hold a watchful eye on that entrance. If any related proof of improper advantages surfaces sooner or later, the league will re-open the investigation and pursue the costs but once more.
And … right here we’re.
As Torre and I mentioned on the Athletic NBA Day by day podcast, we gained’t know for fairly a while if these accusations stick. There are nonetheless many questions left to be answered that may decide whether or not commissioner Adam Silver drops the hammer, most notably regarding Ballmer’s stage of affect inside Aspiration or, doubtlessly, in his attainable procurement of Leonard’s deal. The Clippers are those who claimed on the outset that they might show these allegations false, and could have each alternative to just do that.
For Silver, it’s time to drag the curtain all the way in which again right here and at last separate the info from fiction. You’ll be able to’t have a luxurious tax system just like the NBA’s that’s primarily a tough cap — a construction designed, partly, to stage the taking part in area with less-wealthy house owners — solely to look the opposite approach when there’s proof that one of many richest individuals on the planet is perhaps discovering methods round it. And contemplating Ballmer already has historical past right here even earlier than the summer time of 2019, there ought to be much more incentive to do a radical and definitive investigation.
Lest anybody forgets, Ballmer was fined $250,000 by the league in the summertime of 2015 for providing DeAndre Jordan a third-party endorsement deal from Lexus as a part of the workforce’s free company pitch (Jordan reportedly would have earned a further $200,000 yearly). Ballmer addressed that superb with workforce staff on the time, when his inner memo despatched the form of message which may maintain true as we speak.
“We believed we have been doing this the best approach, and any circumvention was inadvertent,” Ballmer wrote again then. “In our effort to assist our gamers in each approach attainable, we as a corporation have to be diligent in complying with the CBA.”
More true phrases had by no means been spoken. Now, we wait to search out out if he heeded his personal recommendation.
(Photograph by Ronald Martinez/Getty Photos)
