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Clippers be cheating

gomretat said:
They may be correct but it does not change the fact that this will cause issues. You have a declining viewership as well as a number of people who think the draft and games are manipulated. I cant figure out why anyone would be a fan who thinks games are fixed but that is another topic. When the salary cap publicly becomes fake, it is one more strike.
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Whether it causes issues is really a separate issue all together. I don’t think anyone would disagree that it’s an issue. What people are saying is that, just because it’s an issue doesn’t mean the league will act in a particular way.
 
No billionaire just pays out $50 million without knowing it. That is ludicrous. People that are wealthy are very conscious of their wealth.

Claiming ignorance very likely spits in the face of his weekly meeting with his financial team that updates him on everything. $50 million dollar payouts surely require a capital call under normal circumstances. If they met about how to fandangle this one on a yacht then no notes were taken... however if the clippers or any other biz he owns authorized a $50 million dollar purchase without his authority normally it would be comical. No business runs that way without approvals by an authorized figure. If aspiration does and the rest of Ballmers businesses dont it is inconsistent and shows an intent to shield activity.

In short... EAT ALL THE BILLIONAIRES!
 
I had a legal fight with a billionaire over a housing project.

The shenanigans that went on were disgusting throughout the entire course of events.

He threatened to take my house along eith 14 grandmas who signed a petition for a referendum. The city threatened me with millions in damages. They had 50 top lawyers on their side and we had a pretty rag tag group of grassroots funded peeps.

If I hadn't have won that battle at the court level then we would have been on the street to the pleasure of a guy wanting to cram 100 people per acre while living with his wife and himself in a mansion on 6 acres.

500 million dollar project with GOBS of profits to be made make people force things to get their way. Money corrupts.

Billionaires blow.
 
https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2025/09/nba-hires-law-firm-to-investigate-clippers-leonard.html

"The NBA previously used Wachtell Lipton in a pair of high-profile investigations of ownership misconduct, per The Athletic’s trio, and both resulted in the owners selling the teams. The first case was back in 2014 with former Clippers owner Donald Sterling, and the second occurred in 2022 with ex-Suns owner Robert Sarver."

I think the NBA means business on this one. Wachtel Lipton did the NBA dirty work on Sterling and Sarver.
 
I knew the defense story would be BS, but I didn't think it was this weak. Really the only thing that Ballmer is saying is "they scammed me, they are scammers". It's really just a deflection technique, because the legitimacy of the company doesn't really matter. For example, Delta is a legitimate company and sponsors the Jazz. It doesn't matter that Delta is not a scam company because the charge is circumventing the cap. If Ryan Smith paid $50M to Delta and then Delta paid $48M to a player to sign a contract that he must play for the Jazz that is cap circumvention.

Realistically, what the Clippers will argue with the investigators is more similar to their initial "non-denial". There's no piece of paper that's going to directly say "this money goes to Kawhi Leonard", and therefore they will claim ignorance that they had no idea where the money was going. I don't know if that's enough defense from a legal perspective and the NBA only needs circumstantial evidence. If the league doesn't drop the hammer, it's complete BS IMO. But I'm expecting complete BS.
 
Also, as fishy as this looks from the outside, this story came from the inside. The reason scam tree company got outed is because there were innocent employees (that actually wanted to plant trees) who became whistleblowers and exposed the company. Why would the whistleblowers take down the scam company and then lie about the involvement of the Clippers? There is legitimate investigative reporting on this. I know we live in a world where we just say "fake news" to everything, but there are 7 former employees and thousands of pages of documents that Torre used to form this story. It's legitimate journalism.

You can see the disdain Cuban has for whistleblowers in the interview lol. Billionaires despise the working class.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
Balmer's defense seems to be that he was both so stupid that he got scammed, but that he would have never done this because he's too smart to ever get caught.

Nice.
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Yes, Ballmer appears confident that he has left no paper trails or unsilenced lips behind. But he'll be sweating for the next few months because when the NBA investigates why the deal between Kawhi and Aspiration was kept secret (never announced, etc.) (and why it included a clause stating that Kawhi didn’t have to do anything other than play for the Clippers), someone might spill the beans. Idk, I have a feeling Uncle Dennis will turn out to be the main character in this plot.
 
He should have just left $50M in a shoebox. If Uncle Dennis collects the money from the shoebox, Ballmer can say “Noooo, I had no idea that money would go to Kawhi. I’m the victim! There’s no paperwork that says I knew it would go to Kawhi!”
 
Hearsky said:
https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2025/09/nba-hires-law-firm-to-investigate-clippers-leonard.html

"The NBA previously used Wachtell Lipton in a pair of high-profile investigations of ownership misconduct, per The Athletic’s trio, and both resulted in the owners selling the teams. The first case was back in 2014 with former Clippers owner Donald Sterling, and the second occurred in 2022 with ex-Suns owner Robert Sarver."

I think the NBA means business on this one. Wachtel Lipton did the NBA dirty work on Sterling and Sarver.
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I mean I hope so but Sterling and Sarver had so much other stuff going on that was bad and pretty well known... Ballmer is completely different from these two jokers.

We will see what happens here but maybe the other owners are truly willing to push the NBA and Silver to go hard here. Still so skeptical.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
Because you think everyone is doing it or because the Clippers haven't really won anything? Or something else?
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I'm going with something else. Apathy. Just generally not caring. Kinda of where I'm at. As I get older and see more and more corruption and cheating I care less and less.
Jazz sucking for a long time doesn't help

Sent from my OPD2203 using Tapatalk
 
fishonjazz said:
I'm going with something else. Apathy. Just generally not caring. Kinda of where I'm at. As I get older and see more and more corruption and cheating I care less and less.
Jazz sucking for a long time doesn't help

Sent from my OPD2203 using Tapatalk
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I had a good friend who sadly, passed away a few years ago. He was a retired US Air Force officer. I asked him which was the most competent, professional foreign Air Force he ever observed. It took him some time to decide, but he finally settled on the Chileans, calmly explaining their expertise. Then I asked him what was the least competent, unprofessional foreign Air Force he ever observed. “That’s easy” he replied. “The Saudis.” I asked why were they were so bad and he explained “The only qualification you need to be a pilot is to be a member of the Royal family.” He explained they were just wanna be playboys who had watched Top Gun but couldn’t even refuel their planes from an airborne refueling plane. The point being, that there is indeed a downside to nepotism, corruption, when it trumps merit and you are facing competitors who base decisions on merit. Long rant, maybe better directed at the Lakers drafting Bronny, but it does indicate that there is at least some upside to rooting out corruption.
 

View: https://x.com/TheDunkCentral/status/1965442675747811807



This is part of the reason I think owners will shy away from digging too hard. To me this is stuff that happens more frequently than we might think. Using 150k to get a guy on a minimum that has 10+ choices maybe... day to day circumvention worse or better than the mega circumvention? This hurts the player's pockets if this stuff gets more regulated.

We shall see.
 
fishonjazz said:
I'm going with something else. Apathy. Just generally not caring. Kinda of where I'm at. As I get older and see more and more corruption and cheating I care less and less.
Jazz sucking for a long time doesn't help

Sent from my OPD2203 using Tapatalk
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Ive become so jaded and skeptical. I think all these MFers cheat in their own way and bend the rules.
 
The Jazz Wonderbra said:
I had a legal fight with a billionaire over a housing project.

The shenanigans that went on were disgusting throughout the entire course of events.

He threatened to take my house along eith 14 grandmas who signed a petition for a referendum. The city threatened me with millions in damages. They had 50 top lawyers on their side and we had a pretty rag tag group of grassroots funded peeps.

If I hadn't have won that battle at the court level then we would have been on the street to the pleasure of a guy wanting to cram 100 people per acre while living with his wife and himself in a mansion on 6 acres.

500 million dollar project with GOBS of profits to be made make people force things to get their way. Money corrupts.

Billionaires blow.
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Sheesh, I'd love to hear more about this story. Did you guys have any publicity or were there any news articles about it?
 
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