Pablo Torre on the delay in the Kawhi Leonard scandal

Summary

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The Athletic NBA Daily

Episode: Pablo Torre on the delay in the Kawhi Leonard scandal
Date: July 17, 2026
Host(s): Dave DeFore, Esfandiar Baraheni (aka Esperaheni)
Special Guest: Pablo Torre (Pablo Torre Finds Out, Pulitzer Prize-winning podcaster)

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Overview

This episode dives deep into the ongoing Kawhi Leonard-Los Angeles Clippers “Aspiration” salary cap circumvention investigation, exploring the true independence (or lack thereof) of the probe, recent reporting on suspicious sponsorship “no-show deals,” NBA politics, and how the drama is now delaying a high-profile trade. Pablo Torre, whose investigative podcast has been pivotal in uncovering the details, joins the show to break it all down and offer new insights.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Status Update: The Investigation’s Length and ‘Independence’

• Adam Silver’s recent presser: Summer League comments indicate the investigation could drag through the summer, not concluding imminently as once suggested (03:00).
• Who leads the investigation?
  • Wachtell Lipton is the law firm doing the NBA’s so-called “independent” investigation.
  • Pablo Torre: “Anybody who's done these independent investigations, when you get them in an honest moment, laughs at the premise of the word independent because literally...this is the NBA paying a law firm to do something within a Scope that the NBA itself sets.” (05:19)
• Not truly independent:
  • NBA lawyers are in daily contact with Wachtell, shaping what is and isn’t investigated.
  • Final decision, regardless of the findings, rests with Adam Silver: “It is Adam Silver’s call. This is his case.” (06:53)
• Historical context: Reflecting on Silver’s legacy—from removing Donald Sterling in 2014, to now setting precedent again with Clippers scandal (07:19).

2. New Revelations: More ‘No-Show’ Sponsorship Deals

• Athletic’s reporting (Mike Vorkanov):
  • Second no-show deal under scrutiny (08:00).
  • Pablo: “Would be virtually malpractice for them not to have heard some of the other things that are rumored...” (08:28)
• Absurd ‘Proof of Work’:
  • Early-stage AI images (Groot/Kawhi mashups) cited as evidence of player engagement, which Pablo calls “dog bleep early stage AI—horrific Nightmare Fuel.” (09:30-10:51)
  • Email chains showed marketing staff urging the start of actual deliverables as per contract; “Spoiler alert, it never happens.” (09:56)
• Payout magnitude:
  • Kawhi’s deal worth more than his actual New Balance sneaker deal.
  • “It was more than four times combined what Robert Downey Jr., Leonardo DiCaprio, Drake, Orlando Bloom and others made in totality.” (11:17)
• Intent or accident?
  • Internally, Aspiration employees described dynamic as: “not a quid pro quo...but a you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” (12:11)
  • Pablo: “I think that’s a scratch. That is exactly… yeah.” (12:15)

3. Legal & Investigative Gray Areas

• Evidence and Culpability:
  • “If they're not finding the IOU signed Steve with a heart, I'm like, I don't know. I don't really know.” (12:39)
  • Most evidence is circumstantial—“circumstantial evidence is not a slur against evidence...it's what most evidence is.” (14:56)
• NBA precedent:
  • Clippers previously penalized for cap circumvention (DeAndre Jordan/Alexis, $250k fine, 2015). (13:06)
  • Issues with demands made during 2019 free agency toward Lakers and Raptors for endorsement deals.
• The elusive “smoking gun”:
  • “A smoking gun itself is circumstantial...could there have been another gun off screen that shot at the same time?” (15:55, jokingly riffing on the conspiracy metaphors)

4. Trade Freeze & Raptors’ Involvement

• Potential trade: Raptors-Clippers—on hold due to investigation.
  • New precedent: Raptors received paperwork from the NBA, asking them to waive their right to legal recourse in case of a Kawhi-related punishment (19:46).
  • Raptors balked: “That is not what we were expecting...The Raptors are the team in 2019 that...tried to sound the alarm on this” (20:00)
• Speculation on league politics:
  • Would a tidy resolution involve “the former employer of the player in question...get[ting] the player back...and having their demands for accountability mitigated”? (21:59)
  • NBA appears eager to avoid liable complications downstream.

5. NBA Power Dynamics & Owner Involvement

• Relationships influencing outcomes:
  • Larry Tannenbaum (Raptors chairman, Board of Governors chairman) is Adam Silver’s mentor; Steve Ballmer (Clippers owner) sits on the audit committee that decides Silver’s contract (24:09).
• Key overlooked player:
  • Dennis Wong (1% Clippers co-owner & vice-chairman) invested $1.99M in Aspiration days before Kawhi’s payday—amid company default and ongoing SEC scrutiny. Ballmer later adds $10M more (24:56).
  • “Please rationally explain that to me, anyone, anywhere, ever.” (28:25)

6. Players’ Association (NBPA) Response & Conflicting Incentives

• NBPA defending only Kawhi, not pushing for owner accountability:
  • “I think it's every union's job...to represent your members. But...shouldn't you also pursue [owner accountability]?” (29:18)
  • BountyGate NFL analogy—the union can defend players while pushing to hold owners accountable (29:18-31:03).
• This isn’t standard:
  • “$48 million for a no show thing, equity plus this endorsement deal is not representative of what most superstars are handling behind the scenes...” (32:19)
  • This is the “biggest alleged cap circumvention scheme in history of the sport as well as American pro sports.” (33:11)
  • “You’re not waiting, in my view, for the truth. What you’re waiting for is the latest decision that has been made about what you and the public are allowed to know.” (34:23)

7. Setting Precedents & Possible Outcomes

• Implications for league discipline:
  • Decision will be “a massive precedent in sports.” (34:33)
  • Torre: “I do think that when Kawhi Leonard changes representation...that says quite a bit about what he himself might be preparing for...who’s the easiest to punish here? It’s Uncle Dennis Robertson and Mitch Frankel...then you go up the chain...eventually you get to Steve Ballmer.” (34:55)
• Prediction:
  • “It would be insane if there were not consequences based on everything we've been learning here.” (36:47)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On ‘Independent’ Investigations:
  “Anybody who's done these independent investigations...laughs at the premise of the word independent...This is the NBA paying a law firm to do something within a Scope that the NBA itself sets.”
  — Pablo Torre (05:19)

• On the Nature of Evidence:
  “Circumstantial evidence is not a slur against evidence...it is really a description of what most evidence actually is.”
  — Pablo Torre (14:56)

• On the Scale of the Scandal:
  “Magnitude-wise, it’s the biggest alleged cap circumvention scheme in history of the sport as well as American pro sports.”
  — Pablo Torre (33:11)

• On Public Expectations:
  “You’re not waiting, in my view, for the truth. What you’re waiting for is the latest decision that has been made about what you and the public are allowed to know.”
  — Pablo Torre (34:23)

• On Owner Investment Timing:
  “Please rationally explain that to me, anyone, anywhere, ever.”
  — Pablo Torre (28:25)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:53] — Status update on the investigation and what’s truly “independent”
• [05:19] — Pablo lashes out at the premise of independent investigations
• [08:20] — Discussion of second “no show” sponsorship deal (“Groot stuff” and AI mashups)
• [11:17] — Outlandish payments compared to other celebrities
• [13:06] — History of Clippers’ cap circumvention
• [14:56] — The limits and meanings of circumstantial evidence
• [19:46] — Details on why the Raptors-Clippers trade is frozen
• [24:09] — NBA inside politics and the audit committee’s role
• [28:25] — Dennis Wong’s overlooked role and suspicious investment
• [29:18] — Union (NBPA) tension and precedent from the NFL
• [33:11] — Scale and uniqueness of the alleged cap circumvention
• [34:33] — Upcoming precedent and Pablo’s expectation for consequences

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Tone and Style

• The conversation is candid, skeptical, and slightly conspiratorial—reflecting the confusion and frustration surrounding the investigation’s pace and secrecy.
• Torre brings humor and sharp analogies—comparing murky evidence to botched AI images and making light of the NBA’s attempts to present independence while hinting at orchestrated outcomes.
• The hosts and guest openly question the motives of all parties (owners, league, union), keeping the analysis grounded in both reporting detail and big-picture league politics.

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode is an essential update and explainer if you want to cut through the fog around the Kawhi-Clipper scandal. Pablo Torre, whose reporting has driven this story, pulls back the curtain on NBA investigative theatrics, reveals fresh facts about suspicious sponsorship deals, and unpacks why both the league’s integrity and future contract norms may hinge on the decisions coming this summer. You’ll hear about the politics at play, the choices facing Adam Silver, and why the union’s stance could have lasting consequences for players and owners alike.

Listen if you want:

• A deep-dive into NBA investigative process and league politics
• A journalist’s granular, evidence-based unpacking of the saga
• To understand the potential impact of this case on future league-wide discipline and cap enforcement

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Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

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[Pablo Torre]

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[Dave DeFore]

Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily. I'm Dave DeFore here with Esperaheny and special guest Pablo Torre. From Pablo Torre Finds out. We're going to find out the latest on the Kawhi Leonard investigation. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, guys. Pablo Torre, Pulitzer Prize winner for podcasting over at Pablo Torre, finds Out officially. Two congratulations, man. Like, it's amazing.

[Esperaheni]

Two Pulitzer Prize winners on the pod now.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, well, listen, as. As Tony Kornheiser said to me when I told him the news, they give out Pulitzers for podcasts. And so it's an honor, it's an honor to be reminded that, in fact, turns out they do. Thank you guys for having me.

[Dave DeFore]

That's awesome. I mean, you're a, you know, trailblazer here. So I just caught the new episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out. Can you catch us up to date on the Kawhi Leonard Clippers aspiration investigation?

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, so we're talking at a time in which Adam Silver is presser at summer league after the board of governors meeting on Tuesday is still fresh in my ears and simultaneous to that as he's saying that this thing is going to drag into apparently at any given point in the summer. So it was like soon, now it's the summer. That was sort of like the big takeaway of timeline of what he repeatedly calls the independent investigation. That's some of what we were talking about in anticipation of that. That's what we got. And then the guest on the show today on Thursday is Damor Smith, who is a fascinating guy to talk to on this subject as the quote unquote independent investigation is proceeding by Wachtell Lipton into all of this. And as the players union, by the way, the NBPA has seemingly pretty reflexively decided to just say we expect there to be no there there in effective agreement with the Clippers about what this investigation might find. I say all of that because the Morris Smith is a former federal. I mean among many things, he worked as a federal prosecutor. He worked as a independent investigator when he was at Latham and Watkins, another white shoe law firm that according to his accounting, you know, did hundreds of these cases during his time there. And he was involved in so many of them. How to service a corporate client to investigate their problems in the effort to clean up their problems. And so he's just very funny and blunt, candid really about like how this isn't exactly as independent as you think. And also he happens to have been the 14 year executive director of the NFL Players Association. So guys, just hard to find a better person to strip away the BS around. Who is the client? Who is the customer? Where is the money going? How do we follow it? And he was fantastic.

[Esperaheni]

Yeah. And look throughout Adam Silver's press conference at summer league, he mentioned that like at the end of the day, the decision is his right. He is the one who has to read and parse through the information that Wachtel Lipton eventually has to report and make a decision of sorts of does that, I guess the reporting, your investigation, your podcast recently about the independent aspect of things, does that clash with what, you know, the former NFL boss was talking about?

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. So anybody who's done these independent investigations, when you get them in, in a, in an honest moment, laughs at the premise of the word independent because literally this is the NBA. And actually in truth, Steve Ballmer, in terms of who gets billed in the end, this is the NBA paying a law firm to do something within a Scope that the NBA itself sets. And so the other thing to your reference of the presser that Adam Silver said, which I had been reporting, and it's sort of that thing of just like he came out and tweeted it I've been working on, he said that their general counsel at the league, the league's own lawyers, are in touch with Wachtel every day in which they know what Wachtel is finding at every point in this timeline of now 11 months. And the reason they do that is because they want to be aware of what the scope that they've given is producing in terms of information. And also because there is a back and forth. Again, this is a client paying a law firm, and the law firm is there to do the job the client wants. And if the client says find all the facts within a scope, then this is the very conversation that's happening. And so it's just not independent. It's literally not done by NBA employees, but it's done at the direction of the NBA. And so independent is a euphemism, in other words. But to your point, what happens in the end? It is a question that by virtue of his position and his job that has been collectively bargained and empowered by the Board of Governors. It is Adam Silver's call. Mm. This is his case. He gets the credit when Donald Sterling is defenestrated from the league. Right. Adam Silver rides in on the white horse as the progressive, enlightened commissioner at, at, at the Donald Sterling case back in, gosh, you know, 2012.

[Dave DeFore]

Yeah, yeah.

[Esperaheni]

2014. Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Excuse me, 2014. Because that's the same year that Steve Ballmer becomes the owner of the Clippers, of course, record price, $2 billion. That was what that sold for in 2014. And a dozen years later, now this case bookended, of course, by the Clippers again. And that's also Adam's call. You get to. You have to make the ultimate decision here and how that decision is made and who he listens to. Of course, the Board of Governors figures in. Right. These are the owners who he talks to.

[Dave DeFore]

Yeah. There's also been some updated reporting on the investigation itself over at the Athletic.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Dave DeFore]

Mike Vorkanov said that there's potentially a second no show deal that involves Kawhi Leonard and Steve Ballmer met with Wachtal Lipton for a second time again last week. What do you know about this second no show deal or potential second no show deal?

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, the reporting by Vorkanov, which I read quite eagerly, of course, referencing the second sponsorship that Wachtel's been investigating. I mean, let's put it this way. If Wachtel is spending 11 months to look into all the things that I have been hearing about, it would be virtually malpractice for them to not have heard some of the other things that are rumored. Let's just call them rumored about when you dig into what the scope of Kawhi's business interests were overlapping with his time as a Los Angeles clipper. So my reaction was totally unsurprised on the one hand. And yet on the other, great on Vork. Great on I call him Vork as if I got permission formally to call him Vork. But great on Mike Vork.

[Dave DeFore]

We'll call him Vork.

[Esperaheni]

We'll give you the per. It's all good.

[Dave DeFore]

Yeah, it says Vork on my notes.

[Pablo Torre]

Very good. Great. Great on Mike. To get, you know, for publication. And so the thing that was so fun inside of that, by the way, of that report was, of course, the Groot stuff.

[Esperaheni]

The Groot stuff is incredible.

[Pablo Torre]

And for people who didn't see it, I just urge you to see what truly dog bleep early stage AI was producing. And I just laugh uproariously because of course, and I give credit to Vorkage, I did not have that for publication, but I had heard about the ways in which, you know, people in the marketing department at first were like, great, we're going to have Kawhi do some stuff.

[Dave DeFore]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And we did an episode on my show about the bobblehead of getting him to sign and autograph these basketballs. And we had email chains among aspiration employees being like, I know we're not announcing. This is literally written in emails we obtained on the show ptfo. I know we haven't announced this deal, but we should get Kawhi to start autographing stuff as per his contract. And spoiler alert, it never happens. And everyone realizes this doesn't feel like a real sponsorship deal. And. And what that reporting in the athletic indicates is that he was as real as these like AI Dolly sort of like horrific Nightmare Fuel Groot Kawhi mashups indicate that seemed to take. If I were to estimate the amount of time that would be required to generate that 0.1 second. That would be what I think a

[Dave DeFore]

human labor spaghetti eating video. It's that bad.

[Pablo Torre]

Ask yourself what level of work was required to generate that proof of work on the aspiration side. And then I turn to the quote that was in the article in which effectively, and I'll just Paraphrase the marketing people who generated this were told we should stop working on this Kawhi sponsorship arrangement because it's a dead end.

[Dave DeFore]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

To which is of course the story here, which is he never did anything, got paid beyond fair market rate to a comical degree. I just keep on having to stress this. It was more than his New Balance contract, which he actually did stuff for a sneaker deal. And. And it was more than four times combined, what Robert Downey Jr. Leonardo DiCaprio, Drake, Orlando Bloom and others made in totality, more than four times, all of them combined. Right. So the question of just like, what was this from the beginning? It was a deal that raised questions inside of a company in which people were also suggesting, according to Mike Vorkanoff, which I was so delighted to see the idea of, like, there's one very funny laugh out loud portion of. In which it was an aspiration store saying, I don't think this is a quid pro quo. I think it was more like a you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

[Dave DeFore]

And I'm like, people don't read anymore, Pablo.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm like, I think, I think that's a scratch. That is exactly. Yeah. That feels like literally what it is. But anyway, in. By the way, in the devil of that detail may be what the NBA and Wachtel Lipton potentially is puzzling over. Right. It is this, obviously, but no one explicitly has written down that it is that.

[Esperaheni]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

If they're not finding the thing that they're looking for, this is just my inference. If they're not finding the IOU signed Steve with a heart, I'm like, I don't know. I don't really know.

[Dave DeFore]

Well, I thought that. And demora Smith made this quote, like, from the Wire. Right? Are you from the Wire? I was just about a criminal conspiracy. And I think that they're smart enough not to have done that.

[Pablo Torre]

And I think that's really important to know in terms of what we anticipate from this report that Wachtel may ever produce with the NBA's direction. Right. Because the cleanest way to do this is a settlement with Steve Ballmer in which he agrees to whatever punishment or not they find. But I find it very hard to believe that we will get the depth of note taking that says, here's everything we found. And so on. Every part of this dynamic, the investigators who D. Smith warns, don't expect them to produce the notes of everything they found. There's that note taking and then certainly there's the thing that they're supposed to be investigating, in which you might imagine if you're the Clippers. And I just got to remind people of this because there's so much going on in 2015, you're punished for cap circumvention being attempted with the Andre, Jordan and Alexis sponsor, which was a team sponsor, right. $250,000. There was a penalty there. The next thing that happens Then is 2019 when the NBA hears from the Lakers and the Raptors and they say, hey, Dennis Robertson and Kawhi Leonard, they're coming to us asking for all of these cap circumventing benefits, like endorsement deals that we direct. And then we get to what I'm reporting. And so I guess the question I always have to ask people is, if you were the team that got punished in 15 and got investigated in 19, when it came to what we are reporting, begins in terms of the evidence that we've provided in 2021, in terms of just the aspiration contracts, right. Would you expect them to be writing stuff down? Like, I just think that's kind of like the table stakes is like, that's why it was such a fascinating story to investigate, is that, yeah, you gotta show this without the signed confession. And that's, again, how it gets to where we are.

[Esperaheni]

Basically, you have to find out if a murder happened without the murder weapon. Right.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, I think if I. This is a interesting metaphor because I think we have all of the weapons, right? And we even have the fingerprints. The question is, why were your fingerprints there? And. And the smoking gun metaphor is. Is always funny. And I was talking to Dee about this yesterday, and you talk to any criminal, you know, anyone who worked in the actual legal system, and they will tell you that circumstantial evidence is not a slur against evidence. Is that it? Is it? It is really a description of what most evidence actually is, which is it's not a video of someone taking a gun and shooting someone, killing them and saying, this is me, not a fake video. Typically what you have is even. And again, this is like where we get into the stoner dorm room phase of, like, interpreting Adam Silver's words. But like, a smoking gun itself is circumstantial. You know, could there have been another gun off screen that shot at the same time?

[Dave DeFore]

Second. Second shooter.

[Pablo Torre]

A second shooter. A second. I mean, truly, like, that's where nothing is as clean as I think some people maybe assume, based on television, what the evidence might suggest. What really we're talking about is what the CBA has, has put in front of us guys, which is is there a rational explanation outside of cap circumvention? Does this break any norm around fair market value in terms of what the player got compensated for is their influence from the owner upon the entity that paid the player and agreed to these deals. And at every phase what we hear is that Steve Ballmer's Clippers had influence over what aspiration was doing, as evidenced by the fact that they operated in such a contorted way to continue to pay them. The Clippers and Kawhi as everything around the company collapsed in a timeline that we have again the weapons on the table for you to examine. And so you know, It only happens every four years. And this time it's here. The biggest tournament in the world, stadium shaking, flags waving. This is history and you want to be there. But real life can make it tough. Work busy schedules and the price. That's where Priceline comes in. Priceline has millions of deals on flights, hotels and rental cars. So you can go see it live. So find a great deal and make the trip happen. Rally the crew. Go see the game live. Turn your dream trip into reality. Book. Now with Priceline,

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[Pablo Torre]

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[Pablo Torre]

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[Esperaheni]

So now we have to talk about the trade that is on hold from the Raptors and the Clippers perspective, waiting until this investigation pans out in whatever way. I think the question a lot of fans are wondering is why there weren't safeguards in the first place to maybe prevent it to getting to this point. Have you maybe explored or investigated on that front as well?

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, the thing that I had been told and has now, I think the Toronto Star, I wanna give credit to them for publishing it just yesterday. I think the thing that changed in terms of the material process of the trade call being made in which you report, hey, official league office, here's the paperwork is that the NBA provided the Raptors something that the Raptors had not ever experienced before, didn't know the precedent for, apparently which was actual physical paperwork that they needed to sign which would remove their ability to pursue legal recourse in the event that there was a punishment that affected Kawhi's contract and therefore what might be fair compensation for a player that might not be playing all the games or had a contract voided or whatever. And the Raptors balked at that and they said we can't sign it. I mean this is a new development. The paperwork in which we do not have that ability to pursue this is new to us. That is not what we were expecting. And the context and the subtext really, again, I said it before to you guys. The Raptors are the team in 2019 that went to the league and said we, we are trying to sound the alarm on this. They have been throughout. I can say this also just in my reporting for now, the last couple years, there has been no team more aggrieved by the Kawhi Leonard aspiration Clippers salary cap circumvention scheme that my reporting has suggested than the Toronto Raptors. And so the question behind what is this paperwork telling you is do you believe as an organization that it's plausible that something happened that was worthy of punishment and the Raptors more than any team in the league, according to my reporting, should believe that, have a conviction that something did happen. And so that's, that's why it's a yes and story.

[Esperaheni]

Right?

[Dave DeFore]

Yeah.

[Esperaheni]

And I think I will say from, again, from a fan perspective, the tinfoil hat theory was once this trade went through, it's like, is this behind the scenes workings of sort of trying to retroactively maybe help a little bit of back scratching? Yeah, a little bit of quid pro coin, you know what I mean?

[Pablo Torre]

Like, I think the thought, of course is, is, is an intuitive one and one that I contemplated and I've been pressure testing as well, to be blunt. Like what I land at here. Because I don't know, by the way, I can't tell you what lurks in the mind of Adam Silver. Yeah, frankly, like, I don't know that. But what I can tell you is that from a pure level of what is the most convenient outcome if this can all get to the finish line, Having the former employer of the player in question that suffered in their own mind the most of any team in the league when it came to the allegations being investigated, having them get the player back and having their concerns and demands for accountability mitigated and even legally hamstrung, that would be the most convenient cleanup. On what internally to league dynamics would we wishcast? It's like, what if the rafters suddenly were on the side of. Let's just keep it moving. Nothing to see here. And then the follow up question is, what happened in the course of. Again, let's take the investigation at face value. They were just interviewing Steve Ballmer last week. What has been developing on the Kawhi Leonard front, particularly, because that's what matters to that negotiation is the contract, not the Clippers punishment, but the Kawhi punishment stuff. What is developing there that is making the NBA want to give that paperwork and the Raptors not want to take it. And so these are all active, active inquiries here.

[Dave DeFore]

There's a lot of us also outside moving parts. Kawhi Leonard seems like he has new representation.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes, yes.

[Dave DeFore]

The, the head of the board of governors, the relationship with the Raptors. I mean, I, you know, you did, you did the tinfoil hat kind of video, which, you know, I, I really enjoyed. I thought that was a lot of fun. But it's hard to watch all of these coincidences and feel like coincidences. Yeah, I'm supposed to act like they don't matter.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, I think there's a world in which all of it coexists. And the Larry Tannenbaum thing, the chairman of the board of governors being the guy who Adam Silver has called, according to very public documentation, his mentor. Adam calls Larry a mentor. Adam has said that he wants to model his like, like his life like Larry's life. The idea that the chair of the board of governors in general is the guy who the commissioner negotiates with when it comes to his own salary. That's what the chairman really does, is he handles the commissioner's contract and the audit committee, sorry, the audit committee, which Steve Ballmer is a part of, by the way. They're the ones who help vet the contract, too, which is all very fun backstage, right? Dynamics. This is politics. I think the answer to the question of why does this feel so conspiratorial and why can we not dismiss these coincidences is because what we're talking about is a political dynamic in which power is competing against other sources of power with different agendas and self interests. And the commissioner's job is to sort of manage and balance all of it. And I think the criticism that's fair is this has apparently spun out of control in a way that has become public. Because what you're also getting are the Clippers effectively litigating in their own statement about the trade being frozen. You know, they're talking about Joe Sandberg, aspirations co founder. They're talking about how they didn't know before the trade call that the Kawhi punishment would transfer to the Raptors, which is very interesting, right? As the team that would, you'd imagine, be very happy about not being liable for whatever Kawhi punishment individually he might receive. And I just got to say this before I forget the name that has been flying under the radar this entire time, because it's been 10 months, 11 months, is the name of the only co owner of the Clippers, Dennis Wong. And Dennis Wong is so obscure to most NBA fans, but he's so essential to my curiosity around what Wachtel is investigating and what the NBA takes interest in. Because this is the guy who has served as the alternate governor of the Clippers. This is the vice chairman of the team. This is the guy who holds 1% to Steve Ballmer's 99%. And Dennis Wong, according to our reporting and according to the documents we have the bank statements, the money in money out financial flows, we have the signed purchase agreement. And what you see in those documents is that nine days before Kawhi Leonard got paid $1.75 million by Aspiration after being three months late. The payment was three months late. Nine days before that, Dennis Wong invested for the first time in his life $1.99 million into aspiration. And by the way, aspiration at the time was in default. Dennis Wong was told in writing, which we obtained, and he signed the paperwork. Aspiration was in default. It was already being probed by the SEC and finra. It was a company in free fall. And Dennis Wong became the only new outside investor that entire round because Everyone else in the market saw this as radioactive, but Dennis Wang goes in with that timeline. Kawhi gets paid the same day. They lay off a hundred people. In December of 22, they pay him. They lay off all of these people. And then In March of 23, Steve Ballmer himself puts in for $10 million more with the same disclosures about how absolutely screwed this company was at the same valuation as if it was not screwed. Right. So he knew the before $2 billion valuation via SPAC. I'm going to go in on that with the premise. Now the company's broke and he's still putting in money at the same sort of rate as if it's still all good. And I say that just to say, please rationally explain that to me, anyone, anywhere, ever.

[Dave DeFore]

I want to gamble with this guy. I mean, poker.

[Pablo Torre]

A very. A very. I do like how the masters of the universe in the NBA and in business can suddenly be little babies.

[Esperaheni]

Right. Understand? Yeah, exactly.

[Pablo Torre]

Your world frightens and confuses me. And I'm like, I thought you guys are good at money.

[Esperaheni]

Yeah. You know, it's funny.

[Pablo Torre]

It's.

[Esperaheni]

We just talked about murder weapons and fingerprints like that. It's hard to, you know, look at all of this evidence and not have some sort of idea of what might have happened. I. It's. It's fascinating. I want to also ask you about the MBPA side of things because you get into this on your podcast, your latest podcast. But I guess the preconceived notion is that the MBPA will back Kawhi and the likely scenario is that they will. That is part of their responsibilities. But. And I want you to kind of get into the but aspect of that.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, look, the. I think it's every union's job and it's really hard to do to represent your members. And Demora Smith told us this story on the POD today, how, you know, he represented the players in Bounty Gate, the Saints players, and that was his duty as the executive director of their union. At the same time, though, what he was also doing was pursuing scrutiny of the team, of the owner who oversaw that whole scheme, which violated the NFL salary cap. And I thought that was a fascinating example to apply to the NBA's dynamics here, because in that scheme with Bounty Gate, you had players getting paid beyond the cap sheet. And the question was, do we just defend the player or we do the thing that we should do as a union, which is hold the rule of law, sacrosanct, and in the process also hold an owner who you are in constant, perpetual, forever tension with, in the push pull of negotiations, should you also hold that billionaire accountable? And what the MVPA is doing so far is signaling they're only going to do the first thing and that they support the investigation finding nothing, and that this feels like a precedent in terms of punishment for Kawhi, that they just want to preempt and fight. And that's all the signaling. And I will simply say that there is an argument for why a collective bargaining agreement should be defended as a matter of what the rule of law is in sports. And I like to clarify. And the reason I had D on the show was I did not want somebody here to just be a pro owner guy who's like, the cap is the most important thing.

[Esperaheni]

Yeah.

[Dave DeFore]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

Because that's like the most elementary level of the analysis. Right. And I get if you don't care about salary caps, cool. But the question is, if you're the union and there is credible and perhaps increasing evidence that there was a breaking of the covenant you have with ownership by ownership, shouldn't you also pursue that interest in a parallel way? And so far, the MVPA is not doing it. I think that is a philosophical and strategic and perhaps financial mistake. And I will simply say, when it came to Kawhi Leonard's personal situation, my understanding from my reporting is not that his arrangement is symptomatic of what lots of other players were getting. You could also argue, in fact, that lots of other players, including some I've heard from, are like, well, well, how can I get some?

[Dave DeFore]

Right. Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And by the way, that's what, effectively, if you're, if you're a, a player who wasn't offered that or worked for a team that wouldn't offer that, your guy, your colleague Kawhi Leonard, is getting stuff that you, as his fellow union member, is not able to.

[Esperaheni]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And so I merely say that to say Kawhi Leonard is a player who deserves defense by his union. But the extremity of what this scenario is, $48 million for a no show thing, equity plus this endorsement deal is not representative of what most superstars are handling behind the scenes, according to my understanding. And so there's only so much representativeness. This extreme end of the spectrum, I think actually signifies. I think it's actually quite off the graph.

[Dave DeFore]

Yeah. I do know a lot of people will say, oh, well, of players do this. You know, they brought up the Knicks and how the team sponsors, you know, do a lot of stuff with, with those players. But this is got to be an aberration. I mean, it's such a huge amount

[Pablo Torre]

of money, magnitude wise. It's the biggest alleged capture convention scheme in history of the sport as well as American pro sports, according to all of the examples. And by the way, I've been waiting and part what's fun about this, guys, after 11 months is like you sort of wake up if you're me and you're like, is someone finally going to rationally explain this? And you wait 11 months and no one is like, here's the comp for why this is actually standard practice among the players. And then the question is, what's the reason why we all got into this mess with totally pure motives as well as strategic decision making? And it just hasn't come. And I think that is so telling. What people are waiting for from this independent investigation is something that I think needs to be recalibrated. You're not waiting, in my view, for the truth. What you're waiting for is the latest decision that has been made about what you and the public are allowed to know. And mileage varies. Right. We seek to trust, but verify. I just think this is all worthy of that level of context.

[Esperaheni]

I'll just, I'll ask one more thing to wrap. And I think it's very important to set the precedent. I mean, this is. This whatever decision it is will set a massive precedent in sports. What do you think the prediction. What's your prediction for a punishment or some sort of decision? I know it might happen this summer, but what's your eventual prediction for what it shakes out to be?

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, so I don't have preferences beyond. I hope this is treated with the proportionate level of seriousness that I think it warrants. So there's just like that general guidance that I would offer. I do think that when Kawhi Leonard changes representation to pick up that breadcrumb you dropped earlier, and it's not Uncle Dennis anymore and it's not Mitch Frankel anymore. These are the two guys who were on the documents negotiating, steering, processing the aspiration payments and the whole deal. When Kawhi drops them for the first time in his career and gets this other guy, I think that says quite a bit about what he himself might be preparing for. And I would say that in the order of operations of, like, who's the easiest to punish here? Who has the fewest defenders via their own equivalent of a union or political clout among the board of governors, it's Uncle Dennis Robertson and Mitch Frankel. They're the easiest guys to say they need to face some accountability. Right. And then you go further up the chain at some point then you get to Kawhi Leonard himself. Right. We just spoke to, just spoke to that with the Raptors frozen trade call. And then eventually you get to people who are working in the Clippers front office. You get to eventually Lawrence Frank, the president of Basketball Ops. You eventually get to Dennis Wong, the 1% owner. You eventually get to the richest owner in American sports, Steve Ballmer. And so my expectation is that there should I'll phrase more, I think usefully it would be insane if there were not consequences based on everything we've been learning here.

[Dave DeFore]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

But I, I'm eager to find out.

[Dave DeFore]

As always, we are Pulitzer Prize winner Pablo Torre really rolls off the tongue, you know.

[Pablo Torre]

Nice alliteration. Yeah. You know what guys? Your lips to independent investigators ears, Pablo Torre finds out.

[Dave DeFore]

Fantastic. Show everybody. If you're not listening to it, I don't know where you've been for the last year. I'm looking forward to the Gary Trent episodes that are sure to come. Pablo Torre, thanks for hanging out with us. For Pablo Torre and Esperaheni, I'm Dave Dufour and this has been the NBA Daily. Thanks for waking up with us. Thanks for listening.

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[Dave DeFore]

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[Pablo Torre]

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