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Clippers be cheating

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
 
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