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Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (2:53)

Welcome to the NBA Daily. Welcome to the Athletic. Pablo Torre from Pablo Torre finds out. Got Sam Amick here. Pablo, you certainly kicked the door open on your way in.

Pablo Torre (3:05)

You know, I didn't want to do damage to the house. You guys, I know, have a very, very strict sort of like lease policy that I wanted to abide by. So sorry if things got a little messy as I joined the squad. It's really, really good to be here with you guys.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (3:19)

Yeah, I think you fit right in. You know, amazing work on obviously this newest episode about the relationship between Kawhi and the Clippers. If you could, for the folks who haven't watched on YouTube or listened, which we'll link in the show description, if you guys haven't seen it, could you give us just a summary of. Of what you found?

Pablo Torre (3:40)

Yeah, yeah. There are a couple ways I want to consider introing this, but because it's you guys, it's because its NBA actual fans. I can remind Everybody that in 2019, 1, Sam Amick wrote an article for the Athletic about how the NBA had investigated how the Clippers got Kawhi Leonard and there were complaints around the league. Were there sweeteners, these off the books deals, endorsement contracts perhaps? And of course at the time the NBA resulted investigation saying, nope, didn't find anything. Of course not. We found something. We found something, I guess is the burying of the lead I just did there. So there was a company called Aspiration and Aspiration was a climate change company, a quote unquote green bank. The basic premise of it is we plant some trees to zero out your carbon footprint. And their big endorsers were Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Downey Jr. And Drake. Drake is in this story. For those who were wondering, where is Drake in this? Well, he's. He's up there. You're the top.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (4:42)

But yes.

Pablo Torre (4:43)

And well, Drake's private jet, you know, needed to be zeroed out. He needed to have some trees planted to balance it out. But the biggest endorsement deal that Aspiration signed, which had never been reported until today on Pablo Torre finds out, in partnership with, of course, the athletic podcast Network, it went to Kawhi Leonard, who got $28 million for what can only be described, per seven sources, and over 3,000 pages of documents from inside the company, which we acquired as a no show job. And the whole Clippers part of it is that Steve Ballmer invested $50 million of his own money via his own LLC documentation on that as well. And also for those who may be vaguely familiar, Aspiration, familiar with the name Aspiration, this was a company that signed a 23 year, $300 million plus sponsorship deal with the Clippers as the Intuit Dome was opening. They were going to get the jersey patch. They had the thing on the back of the courtside seats. They were everywhere. And this was, according to these seven sources, all a deal to circumvent the salary cap. Is my long wind up of an intro.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (5:47)

Yeah. I mean, the visual elements of the show, beyond just the. The photos of. Of the Aspiration logo on the seats, the stacks of paper. I've just got to say, like, who was responsible for printing all of this stuff for the show?

Pablo Torre (6:00)

Yeah, yeah. My production staff has some of the weirdest, like expense reports, I would say they involve, in this episode alone, an Iron man costume. Spoiler alert. Which comes in in a crucial way near the end, involves 3,000 plus pieces of paper. Yeah. Look, this was a story. And you guys know this, right? Like, salary cap circumvention in the NBA has long been rumored.

Sam Amick (6:26)

Right.

Pablo Torre (6:26)

And there have only been a couple of instances in which the punishment is so significant that we remember it. And we can talk about that if you want. Yeah. This just feels. This one just feels different. Not just because of the story, the larger story. I'm talking about good guy climate change company leading to a secret no show job for $28 million. But also because of the documents, those pages on the desk that you'll see if you click on the YouTube channel. It's absurd. And it was meant to be visually portrayed as such.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (6:57)

Yeah. I mean, again, it was an impressive episode.

Pablo Torre (7:02)

Thank you, man.

Sam Amick (7:04)

Pablo, the. There's two layers and two directions. I think we want to go here. And I was excited to talk to you, reporter to reporter about, like, we. I want to get into the initial pulling of the thread on this story. Your curiosity that has become such an impactful part of your brand and your pod. And you've just done great stuff leading up to this point, but I. We're Sitting here talking on a day where you dropped a bombshell. And you know, in this business, we've all been there to different degrees. And it is always a surreal experience. Right. To, to finally, especially after seven months of working and investigating, to get to this point, to then see the reaction and then try to figure out what your read of the room is. Right. So I do kind of want to start with your opinion and your perspective of today. And I'm talking about the fact that as we talk, you know, we waited for hours this morning for the NBA to respond. They have not responded yet. The Clippers obviously gave you a statement for the piece in which they indicated that the assertions were provably false. Their terminology. But the key question, what do you think the NBA play is going to be here? What do you think the Clippers play is going to be here? And do you think there's a threshold between the common sense, you know, side of this where it really appears that we can see what happened and, and the, you know, are the Clippers in big time trouble and Steve Ballmer and Kawhi Leonard, you know, you know, the possible penalties if they actually decided this happened and that the evidence was there. You're talking about voiding of a contract. You're talking about executives possibly being suspended for up to a year. What, what do you think it happens from this point forward?

Pablo Torre (8:42)

Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's the question that my morning has been sort of devoted to. Is feeling out and by the way, feeling via sources this morning, just a level of panic from the NBA which might help explain why there is no statement to date. And we also, of course are awaiting something too. Nothing. Nothing so far. The provably false thing with the Clippers is also interesting and the bit of the journalistic background here for people to fill in the blanks is we gave the Clippers a list of detailed questions. We did not tell them, nor were we obligated to. At Pablo Torre finds out that we had over 3,000 pages of documents, that we had this signed and executed contract, that we had bank statements from aspiration, that we had in fact proof in documentation that Steve Ballmer's personal LLC put in $50 million. They didn't know that when we looked at the document for the contract and had it assessed in the episode, if you can hear by former president of the Marlins David Sampson, who used to sign these deals and pay players a lot less to do a lot more, that this was structured in a way that was fascinating because there were outs in the Contract in which Kawhi didn't have to do anything. Like Kawhi Leonard here to me is a guy and this is just the through line of him, right? The dude wants to get paid.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (9:56)

Yeah.

Pablo Torre (9:57)

And this is another athletic story, right? Board man gets paid. It has never been more true than in this story. Kawhi got a contract that legally he satisfied the requirements of. And what's crazy is that in the satisfaction of those requirements, he literally did nothing. There is no evidence. And this is where the absence of evidence becomes evidence, which is not easy, right. In the court of law.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (10:19)

Right.

Pablo Torre (10:19)

Absence of evidence is not evidence. Tends to be the aphorism absence of evidence. Here is evidence because this was specifically an endorsement contract, right? So the whole point is to be public in any way. And so the question is, why was it never made public in any way? And so already you're kind of boxed into a corner, right? Why would they not make that part public at all? No announcement, let alone no execution on deliverables, let alone, by the way, the structure of the deal such that he never had to actually deliver anything. And by the way, the clause in the contract around termination is fascinating because look, there are lots of sort of like spokes on the wheel of. Of sort of why this is fishy. But also, yeah, Aspiration could terminate the deal if and when Kawhi Leonard stopped playing for the Clippers. And so you're like, okay, so there's one thing they care about, the rest of it they pretty much don't. So why is that? And again, Sam, I don't want to just do the whole episode here, but like the Uncle Dennis part is also part of the IQ test, right? When you're thinking about this whole story and we give you the reporting from a source in the finance department of Aspiration who was saying as the company devolved into bankruptcy. And I should also say that the co founders of this company, one of them has now pled guilty to two counts of wire fraud in a nine figure scheme that he admitted to. That's the doj, that's the SEC investigating all this stuff that was earlier this month. I should say that all as all of that is happening and the company can't pay its bills, guess who comes calling, according to our reporting, Uncle Dennis. And guess who is characterized as priority number one inside of this broken company but Dennis Robertson, who they say we had to attend to as if he was the most powerful person in our Rolodex. And so there's a lot that you could claim about. We didn't know anything but big picture. The relationship between Ballmer as an investor and Aspiration, the relationship between Aspiration as a sponsor of the Clippers, the relationship between Uncle Dennis in the contract and Kawhi Leonard to Aspiration. I just feel like I can't. If I could get you 4,000 documents, I would. Yeah, I had to top out at 3,500.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (12:31)

You know, I think Uncle Dennis gets paid.

Pablo Torre (12:34)

Right?

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (12:35)

Like, I mean, that's the through line of this entire Kawhi Leonard saga. To a certain degree.

Sam Amick (12:40)

I might have joked with the guys offline. Pablo, I, you know, wanted to welcome you to the team and say thank you so much. I thought my days of leaving unanswered voicemails for Uncle Dennis were over until this. Got to pull that number out of the book.

Pablo Torre (12:53)

Oh, I, I wish I had the privilege. We called, we left messages. Nothing from Uncle Dennis. And by the way, like, you know, the guy is, he is both the loudest possible and worst possible ambassador you could have as a guy trying to do secret deals. But also to his credit, like, not a lot of photos of him online. You kind of got to, if you know, you know him, it's been strange. He's been dancing between the raindrops. Sam. I feel like he has a little.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (13:21)

Bit like Worldwide west used to be, right before he became a little bit more well known.

Sam Amick (13:27)

No doubt. I mean, world wide west is, you know, reach was farther, but in the Kawhi scope, no question, let's stick with that because I'm just so locked in on, on whether it's going to stick, if I'm being honest.

Pablo Torre (13:38)

You know what I mean? Yeah, please, please.

Sam Amick (13:40)

And, and so a couple thoughts come to mind. You just highlighted the characters here. So we got Uncle Dennis with a long track record of, of if nothing else, he is a, you know, call him shameless, call him savvy, whatever adjective you want to put on it. You know, my reporting in 2019, Capitalist, was that with the Lakers and the Raptors and then presumably the Clippers? I never got all the way to that info that he asked for. Everything from part ownership of the team to houses to private planes to more specifically and Jermaine to your reporting is the fact that he requested a specific amount of off court endorsement money that he wanted to know what that number was. And some of the teams involved thought this was ludicrous and told him these are way outside the boundaries of the salary cap rules. So you have that character with that track record. You have Steve Ballmer, who and this Actually hasn't really been part of the discussion that much today. Who in 2015 gets slapped on the wrist for the DeAndre Jordan free agency situation?

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (14:42)

Yes.

Sam Amick (14:42)

Third party endorsement offer as part of the Clippers pitch to DJ for a Lexus deal that was going to pay him $200,000 a year. You know, 250 grand to Steve Ballmer is nothing. But. But for the purposes of the here and now, I do think that becomes part of his track record. So now the question becomes, you know, is there daylight between the reporting and the league's, you know, attempt to maybe let the Clippers off the hook here? If you had to pick the one or two the smoking guns that you think they cannot run from for you, what are they?

Pablo Torre (15:15)

I mean, I have to say that it's literally the fact that we had seven sources, including one on tape saying we were told it was to circumvent the salary gap. That, that to me as a journalist who of course vetted and trusts the reporting that I put out into the world, it's literally the answer to the question. But because I know that that's not enough in the court. And by the way, it's funny, Sam, you outline it all and of course what we're talking about here is Adam Silver making a call about how to punish effectively the richest owner not only in the NBA, but all the sports. And so what do you need to be forced into something is really the question that we're asking, right? It's not right did it happen? It's what do you need to have to force it into a reality. And I think that if you were looking at the just letter of the law of. And we can pull up the cba, right. It's not merely this is a side deal with a random company somehow vaguely associated with the Clippers. This is a company that Steve Ballmer was $50 million of his own money into and was the most influential investor behind the scenes. And we have emails to show that Ballmer was instrumental in using the Intuit Dome for business development with the company, which again, when you look at the media Day from 2021, there is Joe Sandberg, there is Steve Ballmer, there is the richest owner in all the sports, the seventh or sixth richest person in the world, next to the guy who by the way just pled guilty to two counts of wire fraud in a nine figure scheme. I'm just saying, like what we do not have is Steve Ballmer putting into an email this was to circumvent the salary cap, period. Send. I would say that that would be shocking for reasons just having to do with like the most common sense test of how not to do this. But what he didn't count on, I think is the fact that there would be eventually a bankruptcy filing with an LLC managed again, paperwork by Kawhi Leonard and Uncle Dennis. And so yeah, I just feel like the Clippers and aspiration cannot be divorced from each other. And in fact we're financially so enmeshed that I challenge anybody to show me an example of a sponsor and a company that had more enmeshing financially. As again, on this crazy zoom call I'm doing in which I feel like I'm in a fever dream because of the way this day has been, I'm just like mashing my hands together violently. Like it's all up in each other's stuff. So it's not just one thing, it's kind of everything. Only Boost Mobile Boost Mobile will give you a free year of service. Free year when you buy a new 5G phone. New 5G phone enough. But I'm your hype man. When you purchase an eligible Device, you get $25 every month for 12 months with credits totaling one year of free service taxes extra for the device and.

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Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (19:27)

What'S to stop the Clippers and Ballmer from saying I really believed in this company. I gave them this money because I believed in the company. The Kawhi thing is a separate deal. I mean you know this is what teams do. They, they have team sponsorship deals. Players sign contracts with these team sponsors. It's quite common around the NBA. What's to stop the Clippers from. From having that sort of cya, you know, out there in the public.

Pablo Torre (19:54)

I think this is where admittedly the reason we told the story in the way we did is to introduce people to who Steve Ballmer is. Right. So Steve Ballmer is the guy who was, like, measuring how many feet the toilets were from each other in the Intuit Dome. Steve Ballmer is the guy who. I think, Sam, the 2015 DeAndre Jordan story is really important. And it's kind of what I was sort of like, holding in the holster for whatever. And I'm glad to be working with you in this larger network because our brains are sort of aligned, like the next step. If you're going to say they would never do anything like this.

Sam Amick (20:28)

Yeah.

Pablo Torre (20:28)

It's like, why did you investigate in 2019 and why did you punish him in 2015?

Sam Amick (20:33)

Right.

Pablo Torre (20:33)

It's not. It's not an abstract hypothetical. It's literally the missing piece in your 2019 story. That's sort of like, here's the round hole, here's the. You know, it's not a square peg is what I'm saying.

Sam Amick (20:46)

Not to mention, you know, some of the conversations I've had today, Pablo, with feedback from people around the league. Is that okay? Because, you know, again, it's. It's tough to be you on a day like this because you put seven months of hard work, and then the first thing everybody does is going to.

Pablo Torre (21:00)

Try to rip it apart.

Sam Amick (21:01)

But that's. The stakes are high. That's what's going to happen.

Pablo Torre (21:03)

Of course.

Sam Amick (21:04)

So I've had some people say the timelines don't add up. Well, you've addressed that in your reporting, where the LLC gets built a couple months after free agency. The deal doesn't happen until the following year, but you can see the wheels in motion. You know, that is a concern that has been brought up to me.

Pablo Torre (21:24)

Can I also one, because I. Like, I didn't. I didn't. I love this because I didn't. I didn't get to read the story yet. So this is me coming, coming in cold. And I love the 2021 late summer. Fall is so interesting. Right. Because it's not merely a time in which stuff is happening with Kawhi and Steve. They're opening the Intuit Dome.

Sam Amick (21:47)

Right.

Pablo Torre (21:47)

Right. So. So all of it is, actually, you could argue, even higher stakes in a way than the acquisition of Kawhi Leonard from the Raptors because the building is about to open. Steve Ballmer has put this all private. I mean, again, personal money. No, public money. It's just to his specifications, every little detail. And the timeline is. Kawhi Leonard starts the LLC with the word Aspire in the name, which is just a great Little detail, right? Like, you can't spin it as like, oh, that was an LLC for something else. It has literally the word aspire in it. So that's November 2021. The extension, which at the time was covered as mysterious because Kawhi didn't go the shortest or the longest possible length. That was September 2021. Intuit Dome was right after that. And so the point being that, like, how to pay a guy through a company that simultaneously that fall was signing the deal at media day 23 years, $300 million. Like, all of it had to happen after the dome with the sponsorship deal was set. Right. And so the fact that it's ready.

Sam Amick (22:58)

Not to mention one. Just a quick interjection once the dust had settled on, on the other allegations. I mean, you just had the entire spotlight of the NBA on you in the summer night 2019. Steve is, you know, smart enough to know you might need to give it some time if you're going to go down this road.

Pablo Torre (23:14)

I think that's also true. And so I guess what I'm saying is that was in the episode we sort of like, thought about this. Like, is this. Is this too far off? And it's like it's kind of, again, a missing piece that only explains things in retrospect. In fairness to everybody. I didn't know this at the time, but now you see it and you're like, oh, but I interrupted you now, Please.

Sam Amick (23:35)

No, you're good. The other. This is related. And I know we got a lot of balls in the air here.

Pablo Torre (23:39)

Yeah, yeah.

Sam Amick (23:40)

Did you happen to see and. And do you have thoughts on. The Clippers had a tweet in 2023 where they.

Pablo Torre (23:49)

Birthday tweet.

Sam Amick (23:50)

Happy birthday, Kawhi. Yes. How does that fit in? You know, because you're looking. They're going to be looking for outs. Is that a way for them to.

Pablo Torre (23:59)

So I again, I just sort of like, anyway, I don't want to be so precious with, like, why I put things in the episode and why I don't. Of course I had seen that. But the reason I was sort of like hoping someone bring it up is because Kawhi Leonard didn't retweet that. He didn't fave it. He didn't do anything with it. You know who else got that same aspiration?

Sam Amick (24:18)

Happy Birthday tweet.

Pablo Torre (24:20)

Nick Batum. Don't look up all the. I mean, it's just like, this is. What are we doing, guys? What are we. I mean, and so just from the level of like, Nick Batum, by the way, not an aspiration partner. Right. Like, it's just. I love, I would love for someone to show me the provably false stuff. I'm just telling you I'm the sort of psychopath who combed through every tweet and it just, it's just not there.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (24:44)

Let's circle back to the sponsorship.

Pablo Torre (24:46)

Also.

Sam Amick (24:46)

Brandon Boston, by the way, he also got a tweet.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (24:50)

There you go.

Pablo Torre (24:51)

So I just. Worthy celebrity endorser.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (24:54)

A lot of players, A lot of players have sponsorship deals with team sponsors and a lot of those deals include out clauses if the player leaves the team. What makes the Kawhi deal with. With aspiration different than those deals?

Pablo Torre (25:11)

Yeah, I think the. If you look into the language of the contract, I think this is probably part of what the CBA is sort of actually going to ask the law firm that vets this to do is find fair market value. I think one of the funniest parts about this whole thing is that you had Leonardo DiCaprio, you had Robert Downey Jr. You had Drake, some of the most charismatic again, Drake notwithstanding these days, but whatever communicators in public in our country and the guy making more than four times as much as everybody, including Cindy Crawford, blah blah, blah, blah. Orlando Bloom as well, was the worst of all of the athletes in that regard. And so I guess with no deliverables and also just like didn't do anything again. So like the market value aspect, it's like what's the, what's a fair market value for a guy who did zero? Is it $28 million? Because it's not merely. This is a lot in a vacuum. It's a lot given the particulars. And so I think that particular amount, plus the contractual language which gave everybody who has seen it an eyebrow raised in terms of like this seems like Kawhi didn't have to do anything and in fact didn't. That's where it just feels like a unicorn of a contract in a couple of different ways.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (26:36)

I think he's living the dream is what it is. The last time we saw something like this, Joe Smith signed with the Timberwolves in 2000. The penalty was a three and a half million dollar fine. They voided Smith's contract, he lost his Bird rights. They suspended owner Glenn Taylor, forced the leave of absence for Kevin McHale, who was the GM at the time. And Joe Smith had to sit out a year or leave the Wolves. He wound up leaving, went to a different team. What sort of penalties? And. And Sam you can jump in here too. What sort of penalties would you guys expect if the league does an investigation and can tie this back to the Clippers?

Pablo Torre (27:14)

I'll let Sam go first. I think you, you're far more qualified today to know what's on the table, but I'll jump in after.

Sam Amick (27:21)

Well, I mean, Dave, the, the last, you know, the if is obviously the, you know, bold underlying all caps. And that's what we're going to wait and have to find out if they, if they did decide that, like we alluded to earlier, the series of events has reached a point where Adam Silver's had enough and he's going to stick it on him, then you're talking about, I mean, listen, when I wrote that piece in 2019 and Pablo gracefully or graciously referenced it like it was in no uncertain terms told to me that Adam sees salary cap circumvention as the cardinal sin of the NBA and they had their ears wide open, eyes wide open going forward. And just my commentary on that experience was I definitely left that story going for lack of a better way of putting it. Holy shit, they are, they are still looking closely at this and, and basically it's to be continued. I mean, that was the vibe at the moment. So if they're going to follow through on that energy during, you know, after this era where they tried to clean up free agency discussions and you know, in the league office's words, to have it not be as messy with some of these situations, then you, I mean, voiding of a player contract is on the table. You know, executive suspensions are on the table. I mean, the contract in and of itself, like if they can prove that Kawhi was incentivized to not only stay with the Clippers, but to sign team friendly deals that gave them more flexibility and, you know, by proxy, more ability to compete, that's runs counter to what Adam has tried to build and cuts at the fabric of the league that he's tried to grow off of David Stern's tenure. And I will add that last part because Joe Smith is one of the litany of examples of David Stern having the iron fist. And Adam has long been accused of being much softer than his predecessor. And I think this is yet another time when we're going to see how he plays it.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (29:17)

I mean, there's so much more money involved now that.

Pablo Torre (29:20)

Well, that's where I was going to go. That's where I was going to go is that, you know, when I think about this and I think about the Iron fist of David Stern versus the velvet glove of Adam Silver, let's call it, to borrow sort of a political sort of image, I think, about the second apron. I'm like, what are we doing? Like, do you guys care about this at all, or are you just doing stuff to do stuff? I just feel like we're in this era in which the salary cap has never been more meticulously enforced to the detriment of teams that can't spend. And so the question I would have, if I'm an NBA owner, hypothetically, is here's the richest owner in all of sports coming around and doing whatever he wants, it seems like, with slaps on the wrist as the consequence. Are you the type of sport whose owners all fear being maybe accused one day of something parallel? Or are you the type of sport where people have the courage of their convictions that they complain about in league meetings, in these board of governors meetings, where they're like big market teams, all these rich guys are trampling on the small market teams. Like, that's the oldest saw in sports, the difference between the haves and the have nots among billionaires. It's just a fascinating. To Sam's point, we're going to isolate some variables here, you know, like, how much does Adam really care? How much do other owners really want to make the block hot on this particular issue? I think it's going to be very instructive about what actually is a priority from a league office perspective.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (30:45)

Yeah, I mean, I. The worry to me is that there's enough teams that are engaged in this sort of behavior that there won't be a lot of boat rocking. But, like, this sort of deal isn't available if you're the Memphis Grizzlies. I mean, it is. It is in direct competition to actual fair competition in the NBA. So I don't see how the league can get around just the PR aspect of it. I mean, I mean, Sam, you, you know, you talk to more people in the league office on a regular basis than I do. I mean, can you see them getting past the PR of this without having to answer, Well, a lot of questions?

Sam Amick (31:21)

I mean, and Dave, you. You kind of just alluded to this. Dave, one of the possible outcomes here, and this is from today, this is the community of cynics who just will never believe that the league is going to truly come down hard in this era, is that, let's say, hypothetically speaking, that a, you know, that a bunch of teams have got similarly shady deals with their team sponsors, taking Steve Ballmer on in this type of way, the sixth richest man in the world could certainly wind you up, you know, put you in court with Steve Ballmer. And at that point, disclosure can be a scary thing where, you know, I had somebody put it to me that the league does not want the curtain pulled all the way back on all of their teams. So, you know, there's no way of answering your question, Dave, without knowing how many of the owners are clean and how many are dirty. You know, I mean, I happened to run into a few franchises during my reporting that they certainly weren't all the way clean, but they were pissed off enough about the level of dirtiness that the Clippers had that they were vocal and they wanted to do something about it. I haven't gotten a read of that room again right now, but that's a key question here. If Adam looks at his league landscape and says, the toothpaste is out of the tube and I can't clean it all up, there's just nothing I can do, then maybe they roll over or maybe it goes the other way.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (32:40)

I don't know how you could do that without adjusting the entire CBA to a certain degree.

Pablo Torre (32:46)

You know, I think that we're circling though this operative question, which is how does Adam Silver make a problem? He wants to be non existent, as small as possible. And that speaks to the PR of the future, the PR of like, what's happening today, in which I've been. Frankly, guys, it's been cool to like join the athletic podcast network in this way. I really wasn't sure what the broad sort of like normal fan reaction would be to a story like this. I just. You never know, right? You're sort of like, you're putting content on the altar and the algorithm is sort of like this sun God and you're just sort of like, are you pleased with what I've given you? Will this go viral? And I would say that I'm pretty shocked by how viral and how everywhere it's been. So from a pure, just like finger in the wind, NBA PR staff and God bless Tim Frank. Tim, I'm sorry, if you're listening to this, I've. No, I love. Tim's great. But at the same time, I also understand that, like, if you're going to play the game of people are going to forget about this, I don't know if that's true. And so the question then is, how do you broker. And this is the real politic of this, right? How do you broker an agreement with Steve Ballmer? Which you both agree this is the maximum pain you will tolerate for the maximum shrinking that we can achieve as a sport in terms of the PR problem here. And that's. That's Sam. I mean, I think both of us today have been hearing from people around the league. It's going to be very interesting. Right? That's. That's a negotiation, by the way, is my point.

Sam Amick (34:25)

Right? 100%.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (34:27)

Yeah.

Sam Amick (34:27)

Without tipping your hand too much, you kind of mentioned it earlier that you. You might have more coming down the pike, just in vague terms, you know, what is your editorial plan when it comes to this storyline that's not going to go away?

Pablo Torre (34:42)

Yeah, we tend to do sequels on my show. I've appreciated the value of staying on a story. I always want to ground it in reporting. I just. What I'll say to you guys for the time being is that I've heard from people that I hadn't heard from before today, and they are coming to me with things that I'm very interested in. So we'll leave it at that for now.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (35:04)

Before we get out of here, I just need to ask, how the heck did this even start? Like, how did this land into your lap? Did you find this? Did someone call you? I mean, you've been doing this now for a while, but you worked on this story for seven months. I mean, kept it secret. How did this happen?

Pablo Torre (35:23)

Yeah, I'm the weird guy who remembers a 23 year, $300 million sponsorship deal. I really think business and sports and politics are all kind of connected in ways that sort of light my brain up. And so here we're again. The political side of this is again, good guy. Democratic donors start this company to save the planet. And all these celebrities are there. And I'm like, okay, what's that about? Forget about it. Then see headlines. Oh, wait, they're going bankrupt. What happened there? And then you look into the public filings and you're like, oh, there's an LLC that I just don't recognize sandwiched right above the Red Sox, right below the Clippers and the Forum and meta. So it is the pulling of a thread. I just tend to be a guy now who leaves lots of, you know, tattered pieces of furniture in all the rooms I enter. I'm always just, like, pulling at stuff.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (36:20)

Unofficial member of Weezer.

Pablo Torre (36:24)

My sweater. Yes.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (36:25)

Yeah, yeah.

Pablo Torre (36:25)

My sweater is also deeply tattered.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (36:27)

And for folks here at the Athletic that are listening to the. To the NBA Daily that maybe haven't listened to your show before, hopefully they'll go and check this out. But is this what they should expect from every single episode? Just some sort of bombshell once a week, three times a week?

Pablo Torre (36:44)

This is, this is, this is the, this is the curse. Right?

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (36:47)

This is, yes.

Pablo Torre (36:48)

Of doing a story like this is how can you, how many more you got in you? I'm very proud that what we do is a form of investigative journalism that also feels like we're melting some cheese on your broccoli. So there are some real stuff here that sports has to react to, but it's also funny and absurd in ways that I hope people appreciate if they are to go and check us out. Our show is a bit of a look. I love RIP Real Sports. Sports Illustrated is where I grew up writing at the magazine. I just think that in this podcast setting, doing these docu style, sorts of like we're opening a mystery box today, what's inside, what they can expect, I think safely, is that every episode we put out, some part of you should be, what, what is this? Because I think in there, sometimes it's some breaking news, other times it's an interview, other times it's, it's a video that I want to talk about for a really long time that I think is important in ways that people don't get. It's just, it's, it's, it's a mystery box that journalism opens up in a way that tries to pay tribute to the journalists who taught me how to report stuff.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (38:01)

Well, you did an amazing job. Excellent episode. Everybody go and check it out over on YouTube. Wherever you get podcasts. Pablo Torre finds out at the Athletic. Pablo Torre, thank you so much. Sam Amick, thank you for joining us. Sam's still going to stay on top of this story too. He'll be working it from his angle. So hopefully we can reconvene in a few weeks and maybe will be talking about penalties for the Clippers. I don't, I don't know though.

Pablo Torre (38:25)

I, I, I have a feeling that we'll be seeing each other again. It would be a pleasure to do that. And again, just to reiterate, happy belated birthday to Nicholas Batum.

Host of NBA Daily / The Athletic (38:39)

Thank you guys for listening. Thanks to Pablo Torre from Pablo Torre Finds out for joining us today. Thanks to Sam Amick for joining us. A little bit of a note. Pablo Torre Finds out is independently produced by Meadowlark Media and distributed by the Athletic. The views, research and reporting are solely those of Pablo Torre Finds out and do not reflect the work or editorial input of the Athletic or its journalists. Thank you guys for listening. We'll be back later on in the week.

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Yes, Chef.

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Terms apply. See capital1.com for details.

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Pablo Torre (40:51)

Com.