[Pablo Torre] Steve Balmer paid Kawhi Leonard under the table to avoid salary cap

Not the evidence Adam Silver claims is needed to punish the Clippers though. He said "concrete proof" is needed and not just “appearance of impropriety”. Likely meant evidence of Ballmer or the Clippers executives telling Aspiration how much and when to pay Kawhi. Or records of Ballmer telling Kawhi, his agent, or uncle that he'll get paid his extra money through Aspiration. If any of those records ever existed it's probably long destroyed by now.

Since most of the NBA owners and Silver seems to like Ballmer, my guess is he and Clippers will go unpunished due to lack of "concrete" evidence or they'll just get a tiny slap on the wrist. Likely paying a fine and losing one or two 2nd round pick.

 

Adam SIlver also said - correctly - he is quite literally making up whatever standard he wants. He has wide latitude to do whatever. There is nothing about burdens of proof or reasonable doubt or anything like that in the CBA.

All this talk about "smoking guns" is pretty much bullshit and an object of crime novels and movies. Nobody is ever arrested with a smoking gun. But if this were a court of law, Ballmer and Leonard would *absolutely* be discussing a plea deal right now because the evidence is overwhelming.

I actually urge anybody to go & listen to both of the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcasts on this (the initial one, and the Dennis Wong one from last Thursday) for 2 reasons:

1) it is an entertaining, well made podcast (both episodes)
2) the evidence laid out is *way* more convincing than any of the news reports or hot takes on it can appreciably convey.

Again, I see KL2 Aspiration LLC - as an unsecured creditor of Aspirant listed right there on the bankruptcy filing on PACER, I have eyewitnesses telling me that it's a sham contract, I have the fact that Kawhi was paid 10x as much as Leo DeCaprio and Robert Downey Jr. for - infinity less percent work, I have the mysterious Roomate Dennis cash infusion a few days before Uncle Dennis is about to get paid. The whole thing is absolutely damning. The only way you let the CLippers off the hook is if you want to let them off the hook by making up a standard that is pure nonsense.