Will the NBA open the pandora box with investigations on Clippers and Kawhi Leonard?
The investigation of the Podcaster Padcaster Pablo Torre and his team seem to reveal the striker of the clippers Kawhi Leonard who obtained a side agreement with a banking company called aspiration, apparently to circumvent the limit of the salary of the NBA a few years ago when he recorded the franchise again in 2021.
The investigations argue that the aspiration received a considerable investment from the owner of Clippers Steve Ballmer and the aspiration therefore decided to pay Leonard $ 28 million during the life of that contract … to do nothing.
Considering Leonard’s story with intake of accidents and preventive, it is easy to assume that he would have no problems collecting several million dollars a year in addition to his maximum contract to relax.
No damage, no foul, right?
Not really, since the NBA is launching an investigation, which was expected given the value of the alleged agreement.
[Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2025 NFL season]
The spokesman for the NBA Mike Bass said to Yahoo Sports: “We are aware of the media relationship this morning that involves the clippers and we are starting an investigation”.
The Clippers Issued This statement to Yahoo Sports: “Neither Mr. Ballmer Nor the Clippers Circumvented The Salary Cap or Engaged in Any Miseduct Related To Aspiration 2022–23 Season, when aspiration Defaulted on Its Obligations.
Removing the limit of salary is illegal in the NBA. The Minnesota Timberwolves and Joe Smith tried to get around the rules of Cap in a move under the table 25 years ago. Smith would have signed three one-year agreements at a lower rate to the market so that the Timberwolves get his bird’s rights and then signed him to a big problem on the back-end.
In a cause that involves Smith’s agents, these details have been discovered – almost by chance. Smith’s contract was canceled, the Timberwolves were fined of $ 3.5 million and attracted five shooting choices of the first round, essentially paralyzing the promising middle ground of Kevin Garnett’s career.
The fine meant something then, but now they would be peanuts. And that was David Stern’s NBA, where he ruled without cutting and gave that the owners of the impression team worked for him, not vice versa.
This is a different NBA, in which Adam Silver does not use that type of flexion with an owner of a new age club. And if Smith, there was a chiara steaming gun, a direct line. In this, are the trouble of aspiration filling the account in the same way?
Can you insinuate a lot of things and draw reasonable conclusions from the relationship, but will the League consider it as a super hardcore and irrefutable tests? And moreover, does the NBA want to go to the war for litigation with the richest franchise owner of the NBA (Ballmer’s equity is $ 152 billion), which is also one of the greatest ambassadors of the League and, above all, one of the closest allies of Silver in the room? (NBA owners will meet next week to discuss normal activities.)
“We will see who got the biggest war breast.” That was Avon Barksdale of the HBO classical series, “The Wire”, referring to a battle in the area between its organization and a rival Upstart. Here, the NBA war case is obviously deep. But who wants to push for this?
It is apparently difficult to believe that Ballmer has invented these machinations that involve team sponsors and deal with players. The NBA has numerous sponsors in which the players act as a spokesperson and the teams also have their commercial relations with the sponsors.
Do you remember the long NBA patch that existed on the left strip of each shirt? It has disappeared in the middle of the last decade, leaving the place to the sponsors of the team to put their logo there, a reminder every second of the “Team X presented by the Y.” It has long been part of professional sports, even if it seems a little loss. Who knows if this is a common practice, a bit like what happened to college before it became publicly acceptable. In this case, it does not seem something that the teams will push because Ballmer could open those other doors of the wardrobe and let the bones fall.
This does not feel good visually because it is Leonard and, according to the investigations, his uncle Dennis Robertson is somewhere near the center. Robertson is the closest consultant to Leonard but not an official agent. According to an Athletic report during Leonard’s free agency in 2019, Robertson asked Los Angeles Lakers extra benefits, including a private plane and home, the property in the same franchise and the money off the pitch.
You can ask the world even if it is against the statute – however, it does not mean that a team must accept.
Leonard rejected the Lakers, signed with the clipper and so he began this saga. One will look at the agreement slightly below the market that Jalen Brunson has taken with the Knicks as proof of something similar, even if his agreement prepares him to receive the profitable 10 years at the end, where he can lead to a greater percentage of the limit?
The pandora box has been open or is this activity as usual, only in a different way?