Adam Silver says that the NBA needs clear tests that you cut out to make a secret agreement before lowering the boom on Ballmer

On Wednesday, the NBA Adam Silver commissioner pulled the reins back while the accusations made themselves swirling on the trunks that wandered the wage cap orchestra by an approval agreement for the Star Kawhi Leonard striker.

Silver, speaking to the media after a previously scheduled meeting of all 30 team owners in New York, said that an NBA survey should have discovered clear evidence that the clippers violated the rules for the punishment of the owner Steve Ballmer.

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“The burden is in the championship if we want to regulate a team, owner, player or any constituent member of the League,” Silver said. “I think that, as with any process that requires a fundamental sense of equity, the burden should be to the party which, in essence, is bringing these accusations …

“I think it’s a question of fundamental equity, I would be reluctant to act if there was a kind of simple improper appearance.”

The Clippers and Ballmer Are Under League Investigation After It was Alleged Last Week On the Podcast of Pablo Torre That Leonard was Paid $ 28 Million for a D-Nothing Endorsement Role By Aspiration, A Sustainability Firm That Had Agreed To a $ 330-Million Sponsorship Deal With The Clippers and Had Offered $ 1 Billion for Naming Rights to the Arena that instead Became The Intuit Dome.

The aspiration proved to be a fraudulent company and the co-founder Joseph Sanberg agreed to declare himself guilty of fraying more investors and financiers.

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To find out more: Clippers took into consideration the name of the dome after a bankruptcy company at the center of the accusations of Kawhi Leonard

Silver said he would hesitate to act against the Clippers if even a little bit of doubt about the situation remains following the investigations, which will be conducted by a law firm experimented in probing illegal franchising sports, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz.

“Bringing a company specialized in internal investigations adds a level of competence and creates separation between the League and the investigations of a team,” said Michael McCann, a sports law expert and visiting Harvard. “Investigators have a background in judicial work, in -depth analysis on which documents require and questions to ask.”

McCann and other legal experts said that the investigations would focus on the fact that the investments of $ 50 million ballmer in the aspiration were a quid pro quo for the company to turn around and give Leonard $ 28 million in cash and $ 20 million in suction shares so as not to do nothing.

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Ballmer is embarrassed by the accusations and by its apparent infatuation for the aspiration-that has entered into a sponsorship agreement of 330 million dollars with the Clippers and was almost assigned the denomination rights to what became the intuit dome, just to be revealed as a fraudulent society managed by scam artists.

McCann said that investigations should discover concrete tests that Ballmer or someone else representing the Clippers have directed the aspiration to agreement with Leonard. The only test presented on the podcast of Torre was the feeling: an audio clip of an anonymous anonymous employee who told someone else in the company told them the approval agreement “was to get around the salary limit, Lol. There was a lot of lol when things were shared”.

Lol is generally used in written communication, so if the accusation was taken in an e -mail or a text, the next step for investigators would be to interview the person who wrote it and determine if Ballmer was involved.

To find out more: Questions about Kawhi Leonard’s payments focus on the NBA salary limit

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The investigation will presumably examine all this. Silver tends to be methodical when it leads a probe and should act on what can be shown, not on the perception of offenses. But it is also accused of protecting and growing franchise values. Everything that could damage the integrity of the League would be a great concern for him and team owners.

“Silver has some very interesting reports to protect and cultivate: other owners, its company sponsors, the media networks who are distributing the content,” said David Carter, a Usca and principal business professor of the sports corporate group. “All attached to the championship are interested in getting to the bottom of this. So he must balance different interests of the interested parties and is very good at doing it.

“So I have the feeling that it will do so – working with the law firm – it will arrive at the bottom and then decides to what extent if a punishment is guaranteed. It will do so with the intention of making sure that it is protecting the interests of the other owners.”

Leonard became part of the Clippers in July 2019 with a three -year contract of $ 103 million after led the Toronto Raptors to the NBA title. The 6-Foot-7 striker from Moreno Valley signed a four-year extension, $ 176.3 million in 2021, when the aspiration made his sponsorship agreement with the clippers and Ballmer invested and became minority owner in society.

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After signing an extension of three years of $ 153 million a year ago, Leonard will have been paid or is under contract for $ 375 million career salary in 14 years with three teams.

To find out more: NBA investigating the accusations that the company paid Kawhi Leonard $ 28 million to escape the salary limit. Clippers strongly deny the statements

The NBA examined the accusations according to which the Clippers paid Leonard or its representative and uncle, Dennis Robertson, a lateral agreement when he joined the team in 2019. No offenses were found, even if this week the Toronto star reported that Robertson made requests from the Raptors in 2019 “who are almost perfectly with what Leonard reported to aspire to aspire.”

The star reported that Robertson requested $ 10 million a year in sponsorship revenue, but that Leonard did not want to do anything for the money. The Raptors rejected the question and Leonard signed with the clipper.

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If the clipper should be judged to evade the salary limit, they could be forced to give up the pulling choices and be heavily fined. Ballmer and other team leaders could be suspended and perhaps Leonard’s contract could be canceled.

The silver will proceed carefully.

“The goal of a complete investigation is to find out if there was really an impropriety,” he said. “In a sport addressed to the public, the public sometimes comes to the conclusions that later prove completely false. I would like someone else to find Mr. Ballmer now, or Kawhi Leonard for that matter, to be treated in the same way I would like to be treated if the people were having accusations against me.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.