BREAKING: LAC Kawhi Leonard Found to Circumvent Cap

[Chicagojk]

Haven't read or explored this, but if true....


https://x.com/pablofindsout/status/1963180670810767577

[omahen]

Haven't read or explored this, but if true....


https://x.com/pablofindsout/status/1963180670810767577

Interesting. I would assume this is far from an isolated event, as in reality it is probably not that difficult to pull it off and make it look legal. I am sure Clippers/Balmer will have plenty of explanations how this was perfectly legal. It would fall within the rules such as tampering - everyone knows it is not really enforced or that it is impossible to prevent and everyone is doing it. Or like resting players and tanking - something everyone does, but only Mavs somehow manage to get fined for that  

League is run by rich owners of the teams. My guess is, that these rich owners are much better at finding out shady things than any official legal investigation could be. But one thing is to find out and the other thing is to legally prove it. Based on that I would think that the owners are in quiet agreement that these things are tolerated as long as they are reasonable. For example, a star accepting a minimum salary to create a big three/four/five would likely be investigated/prosecuted big time.

It would be also possible that these owners would agree to strict enforcement against any side deals. But I think that would be difficult to keep, as temptations would always be high.

[SleepingHero]

@thedunkcentral
BREAKING: Kawhi Leonard allegedly signed a $28M “no-show job” endorsement deal with a fraudulent tree-planting company secretly funded by $50M from Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, per @PabloTorre

Sources say it was all “to circumvent the salary cap.”

[SleepingHero]

https://twitter.com/thedunkcentral/statu...34473?s=46


Tweet above has a video.

[SleepingHero]

@LegionHoops

BREAKING: Sports investigator Pablo Torre drops a bombshell report: Kawhi Leonard reportedly signed a $28M endorsement with a fraudulent tree-planting company, funded by Clippers owner Steve Ballmer "to circumvent the salary cap rules".

Shocking development.

[SleepingHero]

@KeithSmithNBA

Just in case, here are the penalties when the Minnesota Timberwolves were found to have circumvented the salary cap to sign Joe Smith:

-5 first-round picks forfeited (two were returned later)
-$3.5M fine
-Smith's most-recent contract was voided, and his Bird Rights were stripped away
-Wolves owner Glen Taylor was suspended
-Wolves GM Kevin McHale was forced to take a leave of absence

Important to note that this happened 25 years ago. In recent years, tampering findings have resulted in the loss of second-round picks.

[SleepingHero]

@KevinOConnor

This story is WILD. There is a clause that says Kawhi Leonard only gets paid as long as he is still with the Clippers. Great work @pablofindsout.

[Chicagojk]

richest owner, destination NBA city, a team finally being run smartly after decades of mismanagement...and now this.  I will try to listen to this the next few days.  

My first thought is the clear punishment should be send Leonard to Toronto, void the OKC Shai trade, void the OKC championship, and fire Nico.  That appears pretty clear to me.

[SleepingHero]

@TheSteinLine
The alleged violations in this incredibly detailed
@PabloTorre
report are staggering and without precedent.

The Clippers told Torre any assertion of wrongdoing involving Steve Ballmer or the team is "provably false."

A story that has shaken the NBA -- already -- like very few.

[SleepingHero]

@JonesOnTheNBA
Also, I guarantee that the league wants this to go away. Because if you try to get legal with Ballmer, he’s going to go nuclear and get every teams sponsorship books and sponsor correspondence opened up in court. He individually has more resources than the NBA itself.

[Jym]

Wild how easily they could have just made it a legit sponsorship.
a half day of work to throw him in a commercial or something for a few seconds, have his team send a couple copy and paste tweets and boom you're done

[rocky164]

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out and how Silver responds to it if proven to be true. In my mind Silver is gutless, so I really don’t expect much. BUT, again if this is true, the league should come down HARD on the Clippers, Balmer, and KL. If this kind of thing is allowed to happen and go unpunished, then the salary cap is meaningless and the NBA will become a league where only the extremely wealthy can compete for titles. Kind of like college football now in the NIL era.

[Smitty]

@Fullcourtpass
Raptors owner Larry Tannebaum called three sponsors to meet Kawhi Leonards demand of an extra $15 million in endorsement money, per
@Gambo987

He ended up signing with the Clippers and Tannebaum was “besides himself”

[omahen]

@Fullcourtpass
Raptors owner Larry Tannebaum called three sponsors to meet Kawhi Leonards demand of an extra $15 million in endorsement money, per
@Gambo987

He ended up signing with the Clippers and Tannebaum was “besides himself”

Same report also says that Silver was aware of this instance, but only warned the Toronto owner, because he thought he didn't understand the rules or something like that. In any case, these things are extremely hard to prove. As someone else said - Kawhi would only need to do a couple of media appearances and everything would be ok. That is why I think these kind of things are happening more regularly. But, as someone else said - if NBA lets this slide, it will be a problem for the league. As those cases of "too open" tampering they needed to punish to keep face.

I think it all came out only because that company bankrupted and based on this some papers became public and some employees got willing to talk.

[BoredAssistant]

I will wait to see what other information comes out but with everything else that has happened in the league recently this is all a little bit too bizarre.

[DallasMaverick]

Dang. $28 mil of extra cap space, and they still couldn’t win!

[RoyTarpleysGhost]

[Torre] “Jalen Brunson, how he arrived at the Knicks — This is where I will have to defer to the reporting I may or may not do on this, certainly was interesting… Anyway, I don’t want to get ahead of myself.”

https://youtu.be/dWcasEELmqM?t=572

[BoredAssistant]

I'm sure the nba will conduct an "internal" investigation.

[Halfnir]

Well, Kawhi is on a max contract though, right (35% of Cap in 24/25)?

So extra endorsements do not technically circumvent the cap, but the max contract money.
If Kawhi would have signed lower like 100m$/4 years, this would have looked much worse.

[DanSchwartzgan]

Well, Kawhi is on a max contract though, right (35% of Cap in 24/25)?

So extra endorsements do not technically circumvent the cap, but the max contract money.
If Kawhi would have signed lower like 100m$/4 years, this would have looked much worse.

I'm not getting your logic.

If I put capital into a company and have them pay my player under the table...payments that avoid the LT, avoid apron penalties and provide a way for my team to have an advantage in signing and retaining said player, I have absolutely circumvented the cap.  

This is so much worse than Joe Smith.  The only way this isn't a big deal is if so many teams are doing similar things that a majority of owners want this squashed.