[Pablo Torre] Steve Balmer paid Kawhi Leonard under the table to avoid salary cap

Can someone tell me if Cuban said anything worth a dime?

 

Skip this one guys it was the worst one of the bunch. It's an hour and a half of Cuban talking over Pablo.

 

https://www.si.com/nba/steve-ballmer-facing-new-lawsuit-related-to-kawhi-leonard-aspiration-scandal

I didn't see this posted. I'm not a lawyer, but I would expect a civil suit to have more ability to get information from Aspiration than the NBA.

 

I said it way back when this first broke but if indeed Aspiration execs were funneling $$$ to Kawhi when they were knowingly circling the drain bankruptcy wise, to the detriment of other interested parties such as creditors, Kawhi may have more to worry about than just the NBA investigation

 

Then they should find out where to draw the line being a victim or a fellow collaborator......

And is Kawhi really the criminal or his Uncle Dennis who is behind all of his deals......

 

Kawhi is a full grown adult.

 

All I am saying is that we have not even scratched the surface of it all.

The sports gambling, the Mafia controlled poker games, ....

Wouldn't surprise me if guys like Lebron were on it, or league officials.....

Fact is that NBA 'star' players earn too much money and their brands obtain too much power.

It is never enough. They want to be billionaires and trillionaires. One step away from shady businesses.

 

this still a thing? i thought sliver swept it under the rug and brehs forgot about it.

 

New PTFO just aired - the tl;dl is something like:

New emails implying the Clippers were aware of the KL2-Aspiration deal of the 2 sides trying to get the clippers to provide marketing schwag (directly refuting Ballmer's claim they had no idea the deal existed)

Someting about how Ballmer's story about the timing of the Aspiration deal doesn't line up with his foundation's contribuitions to the Aspiration' founder's charity (didn't pay close attention to this part)

A Doc Rivers angle - Doc Rivers had some previouslly unknown investment in Aspiration

Finally, When Aspiration sponsored the Kawhi bobblehead night and had its logo on the bobblehead, unlike all other bobblehead nights, the Clippers media team mysteroiusly scrubbed all mention of Aspiration from the bobblehead night promo material and even photoshopped their logo out of the pictures of it - very bizarre because that is the whole point of doing team promo items, obviously

 

My wild guess is Silver decided this story is either going to sit tight until after the season or it's dead and gone forever. We'll see.

 

I have a hard time thinking Silver will give Pablo the chance of dropping something during the Finals.

I think Silver is being pressured to hold off until LAC wins enough to keep to OKC from benefiting from LAC's punishment.

 

When Kawhi signed a sub-max extension in 2024, the Clippers created three new LLC’s, allegedly to funnel more money to Kawhi through his uncle, going beyond just the $48 million in no-show payments from Aspiration.

A personal friend and former high school teammate of Kawhi’s uncle says Jerry West promised him $2,500,000 to bring Kawhi to LA, records of West leaving a voicemail thanking him for all he did to bring in Kawhi.

Records of a whistleblower going to the federal government with concerns about criminal activity within the Clippers organization. Ballmer was basically courting Kawhi via "Uncle Dennis" for years.

He was also getting health updates and stuff via Kawhi's personal trainer Randy Shelton (who was later hired onto the Clippers, and who paid Dennis some of his Clippers salary as a "finders fee"). All while Kawhi was under contract with other teams.

Ballmer basically implemented this plan over years of very blatant tampering and then cap circumvention.

 

Source (Torre quote at 11:20, Mannix at 26:50):

 

if i were the tillmen id pay vanessa under the table too nameen?

 

No wonder kawhi didn’t play for the spurs ****er was being funneled money way back then

 

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7057133/2026/02/19/nba-intel-tanking-giannis-clippers-lebron/

 

sounds like a good buyout candidate.

 

The league's cover-ers were too quick to try to exculpate with nonsensical talk of "smoking guns" and "burden shifting" - none of which is required here.

The totality of the evidence amassed by the PTFO crew in the now (10?) part investigation is absolutely damning.

it's absolutely certain that Kawhi took a huge amount of money for nothing, that is not even in dispute.

The Clippers were either in on it and took many steps to cover it up - or via an incredibly improbable series of coincidences - taht Ballmer later lied about or misremembered - just *look like* they were in on it and covered it up. Their defenders try to hide behind the complexity of some of the transactions but it's really not complex if you think that the parties were doing exactly what Kawhi & Uncle Dennis wanted them to do.

 

As I understand it, if his contract is voided, he won't get paid for the remainder of the contract. So there's no buyout. He'll be a free agent.

IMO, he should be banned for at least a season. He is at least as guilty as the Clippers.