Clippers Get Hammered

[FNG]

This one is puzzling to me, perhaps because I haven't really dug into what the Clippers did. But we all know many NBA players supplement their reported pay through other revenues related to advertising and endorsements. Do we really think Ballmer and Glen Taylor are the only owners that have ever done anything to increase their player's income? I suspect it happens far more frequently than the league knows about. I wonder if there is now going to be a rash of reported violations and penalties.

It's worth remembering that the reason why Joe Smith stuff came out was that his agents were fighting and then info about the agreement was made known. Jon K pointed this out in his article about the Clippers situation.

If I remember correctly there are ways for NBA teams to work with players to get endorsements. The difference with Leonard was he basically did nothing after receiving the money. If Arod was like hey Kuminga we have a partner that wants to have you as a guy that endorses their product and Kuminga signed a 1 million deal and did a commercial and some public appearances...ok great that's probably fine. According to reporting I read this morning in one instance Leonard got paid like 10-20 times what Robert Downey Jr and some other celebrity that you might argue is more well known and Leonard did basically nothing for that money. I'd be curious where the endorsement money went. I wonder if the Uncle got a fairly big cut and that's why Leonard the player person is getting off kinda easy. If Kuminga signed 20 million dollar endorsement deal with Target and then did no promotional work for them that would be pretty fishy right? I mean obviously Leonard is a bigger name than Kuminga but the guy is absolutely not a guy out there doing public stuff.

Again fuck the Clippers unless stuff was absolutely made up (which seems very unlikely) this was blatant getting a player extra money for basically doing nothing. What's kinda funny about the whole thing is Ballmer got scammed...what is it they say about Karma?

There is absolutely plenty of shady stuff that goes on in various businesses and organizations and this is just another proof point of it.

I don't want to defend the Clippers at all, but I don't fully understand where the line is drawn here. There must be some athletes out there who are getting millions for endorsing a product and doing nothing other than lending their name to it. Does it make it okay if they show up for one public appearance and then deposit their $20 million in the bank? Maybe the issue is it's okay for an agent to arrange such a deal, but not okay for an owner. But does anyone really believe owners aren't whispering in the ears of players "Hey, I'm close to (name the CEO)...you oughta call him and see if he wants to endorse his product." I think it's naive to think this is not going on. And that's why I think there's much more to come out here.

[Q-is-here]

I gotta chuckle at Aspriration, the now defunct business in the middle of all of this. It checks almost all the boxes in being a politically-aligned business that is great at virtue-signaling and getting coastal elites to fawn over them, yet ultimately turns out to be a big scam.

Founders: A Harvard alum and former Clinton and John Kerry speechwriter

What service they provided: "Socially conscious and sustainable banking services and investment products". i.e. their customer deposits would never fund fossil-fuel projects.

Their Slogan: "Do well. Do good."

Prominent backers: Steve Ballmer, Robert Downey Jr., Orlando Bloom, and Leonardo DiCaprio

[Monster]

This one is puzzling to me, perhaps because I haven't really dug into what the Clippers did. But we all know many NBA players supplement their reported pay through other revenues related to advertising and endorsements. Do we really think Ballmer and Glen Taylor are the only owners that have ever done anything to increase their player's income? I suspect it happens far more frequently than the league knows about. I wonder if there is now going to be a rash of reported violations and penalties.

It's worth remembering that the reason why Joe Smith stuff came out was that his agents were fighting and then info about the agreement was made known. Jon K pointed this out in his article about the Clippers situation.

If I remember correctly there are ways for NBA teams to work with players to get endorsements. The difference with Leonard was he basically did nothing after receiving the money. If Arod was like hey Kuminga we have a partner that wants to have you as a guy that endorses their product and Kuminga signed a 1 million deal and did a commercial and some public appearances...ok great that's probably fine. According to reporting I read this morning in one instance Leonard got paid like 10-20 times what Robert Downey Jr and some other celebrity that you might argue is more well known and Leonard did basically nothing for that money. I'd be curious where the endorsement money went. I wonder if the Uncle got a fairly big cut and that's why Leonard the player person is getting off kinda easy. If Kuminga signed 20 million dollar endorsement deal with Target and then did no promotional work for them that would be pretty fishy right? I mean obviously Leonard is a bigger name than Kuminga but the guy is absolutely not a guy out there doing public stuff.

Again fuck the Clippers unless stuff was absolutely made up (which seems very unlikely) this was blatant getting a player extra money for basically doing nothing. What's kinda funny about the whole thing is Ballmer got scammed...what is it they say about Karma?

There is absolutely plenty of shady stuff that goes on in various businesses and organizations and this is just another proof point of it.

I don't want to defend the Clippers at all, but I don't fully understand where the line is drawn here. There must be some athletes out there who are getting millions for endorsing a product and doing nothing other than lending their name to it. Does it make it okay if they show up for one public appearance and then deposit their $20 million in the bank? Maybe the issue is it's okay for an agent to arrange such a deal, but not okay for an owner. But does anyone really believe owners aren't whispering in the ears of players "Hey, I'm close to (name the CEO)...you oughta call him and see if he wants to endorse his product." I think it's naive to think this is not going on. And that's why I think there's much more to come out here.

It looks like I was incorrect when I thought owners could kinda help players get endorsement deals. Now do we think that happens on some level? Maybe probably? Yeah. The Clippers went pretty far beyond that though in addition to paying various personal expenses for Leonard. They were basically bankrolling the guy on multiple levels.

Below is the NBA official release and it includes a link to the report if you want to read it. What I think is somewhat significant the players association signed off on this. I mean of course they did since ownership and the team got the massive hit not the player but I'm not sure punishing the player is the route to go if you want to send a message.

https://pr.nba.com/nba-investigation-cl ... i-leonard/

[Monster]

I gotta chuckle at Aspriration, the now defunct business in the middle of all of this. It checks almost all the boxes in being a politically-aligned business that is great at virtue-signaling and getting coastal elites to fawn over them, yet ultimately turns out to be a big scam.

Founders: A Harvard alum and former Clinton and John Kerry speechwriter

What service they provided: "Socially conscious and sustainable banking services and investment products". i.e. their customer deposits would never fund fossil-fuel projects.

Their Slogan: "Do well. Do good."

Prominent backers: Steve Ballmer, Robert Downey Jr., Orlando Bloom, and Leonardo DiCaprio

Humans are interesting. Just reading the Wikipedia page it seemed like at one point he wasn't a terrible guy looking to scam people out of millions of dollars. Was he always a piece of shit or did something happen? Did the power and greed get to him? We will likely never know.

The other day at work we were talking and got onto the conversation about the cartoon Scooby Do. A coworker said that his dad appreciated how it (the villain in the shows) always looked like it was some supernatural monster, but the monsters always turned out to be the people.

I was not prepared for such a profound statement to come from a conversation about a cartoon but somehow it really hit.

[Coolbreeze44]

The NBA hates getting involved in things like this. The penalties here send a strong signal to the franchises not to make them go down this road ever again. I'm sure they will if they have to but this is not the business they want to be in.

[Coolbreeze44]

I gotta chuckle at Aspriration, the now defunct business in the middle of all of this. It checks almost all the boxes in being a politically-aligned business that is great at virtue-signaling and getting coastal elites to fawn over them, yet ultimately turns out to be a big scam.

Founders: A Harvard alum and former Clinton and John Kerry speechwriter

What service they provided: "Socially conscious and sustainable banking services and investment products". i.e. their customer deposits would never fund fossil-fuel projects.

Their Slogan: "Do well. Do good."

Prominent backers: Steve Ballmer, Robert Downey Jr., Orlando Bloom, and Leonardo DiCaprio

Good stuff Q. You said a lot in a few words.

[AbeVigodaLive]

The truth is that NBA teams skirt the rules all the time. They tamper with players on other teams. They embellish injuries and shut down stars to lose games and enhance their draft position. And yes, sometimes they find creative ways to get players a little extra cash outside of the salary-cap rules. But never on the scale of what the Clippers did for Leonard, a two-time Finals MVP who has earned more than $375 million in NBA contracts, according to Spotrac.

“No,” another team executive told The Ringer last year, “everyone is not funneling $48 million under the table through sham sponsorships.”

It would have turned into the Wild West if the NBA didn't react harshly. The rub is... I don't think the actual end punishment will be as harsh.

The Clippers will fight it and it'll get reduced while the NBA head office gets to look like it still has teeth.

[Monster]

The truth is that NBA teams skirt the rules all the time. They tamper with players on other teams. They embellish injuries and shut down stars to lose games and enhance their draft position. And yes, sometimes they find creative ways to get players a little extra cash outside of the salary-cap rules. But never on the scale of what the Clippers did for Leonard, a two-time Finals MVP who has earned more than $375 million in NBA contracts, according to Spotrac.

“No,” another team executive told The Ringer last year, “everyone is not funneling $48 million under the table through sham sponsorships.”

It would have turned into the Wild West if the NBA didn't react harshly. The rub is... I don't think the actual end punishment will be as harsh.

The Clippers will fight it and it'll get reduced while the NBA head office gets to look like it still has teeth.

Just watched Pablo Torre's appearance on the Dan Patrick show. The more I hear about this the more mind boggling it is. Torre said the NBA findings in the report were 66 million but there definitely could (VERY likely) be more.

I realized the other day I could be using other apps websites etc other than ESPN for box scores news etc. For example I downloaded the WNBA app. I'm gonna try and use ESPN even less now. Of course not every journalist there is garbage or whatever but it's been heading the wrong direction for a while and this is an even more blatant situation where it's hard to take them seriously at this point.

It will be interesting to see what's next. I don't know if this is the end of this for the Clippers and I wonder if we are gonna find out more about other NBA teams. That Gary Trent Jr contract is sketchy as hell but maybe the best consequence is the Bucks having to pay what might be a kinda terrible contract.

[Lipoli390]

This one is puzzling to me, perhaps because I haven't really dug into what the Clippers did. But we all know many NBA players supplement their reported pay through other revenues related to advertising and endorsements. Do we really think Ballmer and Glen Taylor are the only owners that have ever done anything to increase their player's income? I suspect it happens far more frequently than the league knows about. I wonder if there is now going to be a rash of reported violations and penalties.

It's worth remembering that the reason why Joe Smith stuff came out was that his agents were fighting and then info about the agreement was made known. Jon K pointed this out in his article about the Clippers situation.

If I remember correctly there are ways for NBA teams to work with players to get endorsements. The difference with Leonard was he basically did nothing after receiving the money. If Arod was like hey Kuminga we have a partner that wants to have you as a guy that endorses their product and Kuminga signed a 1 million deal and did a commercial and some public appearances...ok great that's probably fine. According to reporting I read this morning in one instance Leonard got paid like 10-20 times what Robert Downey Jr and some other celebrity that you might argue is more well known and Leonard did basically nothing for that money. I'd be curious where the endorsement money went. I wonder if the Uncle got a fairly big cut and that's why Leonard the player person is getting off kinda easy. If Kuminga signed 20 million dollar endorsement deal with Target and then did no promotional work for them that would be pretty fishy right? I mean obviously Leonard is a bigger name than Kuminga but the guy is absolutely not a guy out there doing public stuff.

Again fuck the Clippers unless stuff was absolutely made up (which seems very unlikely) this was blatant getting a player extra money for basically doing nothing. What's kinda funny about the whole thing is Ballmer got scammed...what is it they say about Karma?

There is absolutely plenty of shady stuff that goes on in various businesses and organizations and this is just another proof point of it.

That’s right Monster. In a nutshell there were two things that make what the Clippers did a clear transgression of the salary cap very distinct from what some other franchises might be doing:

1. The amounts paid were way above market; and
2. Kawhi didn’t do ANYTHING for most if not all of the payments he received.

On top of those two things, one of the vendors that paid Kawhi provides the Clippers’ arena video screen. The company is in the arena video screen business. You don’t hire celebrities to advertise your video screens! I can’t imagine a more blatantly fraudulent contract than that. And as if that weren’t enough, it does appear that Ballmer lied. The fact that Ballmer so aggressively denied wrong-doing in the face of such compelling facts against him is the height of arrogance and lack of respect for the rules. I’ll give Glen Taylor and McHale credit for staying quiet through the whole thing and then simply accepting their punishment.

I’m still not a fan of Adam Silver but like Cool my respect for him has gone up as a result of this decision.

[Coolbreeze44]

If I'm the Clippers I hold a firesale and start over. They need a completely new start. Any player they have that can garner draft compensation should be moved to the highest bidder. They will have to field a G league team for a few years but they should empty the roster of all money and come up with a strategy on signing one or two high-end free agents each year. If done smartly they can bottom out this year and then improve every year thereafter. I think it could almost be fun to build something completely from scratch. What choice do they have?