Transcript of Clippers Judgment Day, the NBA's Hammer and the Investigation That Never Ends: Kawhi-Gate, Part XV

Okay, um, I think we need to start, David Sampson, Amin Elhassan, by saying that I have missed you. I've missed you both, and my phone, uh, is basically a non-functioning object at this point. Um, holy shit, we've made it. to 364 days. And, uh, good to see you guys, Pablo.

We figured it would be at some point. Adam kept saying it's imminent, it's imminent, and I guess imminent was one year shy of the first show that we all did together on September 3rd, the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Edward Murrow Award-winning show that we did starting September 3rd. And I think people are expecting us to be doing the Snoopy dance right now, but I think it's important to note that there's 35 pages to go through, that there's a lot of both nuance and sledgehammer contained in the report that Wachtell released in full through the NBA. There's press statements already from the Clippers. So I, I think we needed to go live and wanted to go live, but wow, I'm still digesting.

Yeah. Ameen, how are you feeling, man, before we get into all of this?

Oh, I mean, in many ways overwhelmed, but at the same time kind of, yeah, that's what I expected. I go back to the very first episode that we did, as David mentioned, the Edward R. Murrow Award-winning, Pulitzer Prize-winning episode where I read from Article 13 of the collective bargaining agreement, and it said the words cannot rationally be explained. It was that and the part where there is compensation for services rendered that is not commensurate with fair market value. Those 2 statements right there, I said to myself, oh, I mean, there you go. And so we, in many ways, we spent a whole year compiling information and testimony and, uh, kind of just kind of the nuts and bolts of all the different things that were allegedly happening behind the scenes. But at the end of the day, it's all kind of superfluous, you know, in a weird way. You know, like, all, all that matters is those 2 lines.

Yeah.

If you can't explain it, if you can't explain to me why Drake, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Robert Downey Jr. make more than, than Kawhi Leonard does rationally, then I feel like there it is. That's the whole case right there.

So, so, so, David, before we get into any of this, I want to now acknowledge we've been letting people sort of trickle in. We've been on for about 3 minutes, I think, and I want to get to what I've been so excited to get to for more than a year, um, as I've been reporting a year in public with you guys. 2 things are true about what we're going to do here today. One thing is there is more to come than is in the NBA's report. This is not everything. There is still more. I don't even know if we're gonna get to that, but there's even more.

Pablo, can, can we pause right there? Just— I think that might have been the thing that took me aback the most, where Walk That Left is like, this isn't even all of it, guys.

There are things that we have been investigating, continue to investigate today. The SEC got involved with Daktronics, which we will get to. That was before all of this happened. There is more, and yet there are things that I learned for the first time in this report, and it's delightful. It's delightful as a journalist to see what was known, what wasn't. And we're gonna get to the 35-page report by Wachtell Lipton, David, which dropped 90 minutes ago. We've been reading. Forgive the sort of like scramble here. We've all been reading. We've all been getting texts, our phones are melted, and I think, David, we should just start with the NBA release. We're going to do a bit of a table read here. This is a way for you to catch up on what the NBA has ruled, which is not the same as our investigation, but you will see overlaps to a pretty incredible amount that will lead us to more discussion. So David, can you please begin?

Mr. Leonard through the conduct of Mr. Robertson— Uncle Dennis, for those of you who are just catching on— Mr. Leonard, through the conduct of Mr. Robertson on his behalf, violated the circumvention rules by pressuring the Clippers to assist him in obtaining off-court income opportunities, successfully obtaining those opportunities, and failing to reimburse payments by the Clippers for personal expenses. We could do a show just on those 4 lines.

Exactly.

I want to go to the last one first, if you'll let me, for just quickly here, Pablo.

Please.

We didn't talk enough about this. When you've got players and they want to take a private plane somewhere, and you are in a capped league, and owners have private planes, and they want their family to go in different places When we give that to a player in a contract, that is part of the contract. That is income to the player. It counts in our luxury tax. If a player gets 10 private plane flights, that is part of the calculation. You're not allowed, even in baseball, to have a player and then start doing all these things for the player and not disclosing it. And it looks like In this report, what Wattel is saying is Kawhi Leonard received tons of extra goodies, shall we say, from the Clippers and did not pay for them. That value of the goodies— if you fly from LA to New York on a private plane, call it $80,000— that counts toward the salary cap. If you don't disclose it, that is circumventing the salary cap. If Kawhi doesn't pay it back— and what this is saying is there was no payback. That's—

David, David, the most common— you know what the most common form of this is, which I think a lot of people don't realize, is tickets to the game. Players are allotted a certain amount of tickets, but sometimes players have big families, sometimes they have lots of friends, and they're like, oh, I, I I got 20 tickets every game.

You know, there's—

guess what?

Tax for that. I mean, we have to keep track of what tickets we give to players because players have to declare that.

Hold on, guys, guys, guys, we're starting— we're starting with the deepest possible cut of this report.

So much.

It's the— that's literally like the last thing that the NBA's investigation found. I should sort of frame—

that was the Kawhi thing though, Pablo.

Yeah, you know, no, no, I know, David. I, I— we're doing this with some sort of logic, but I just want point out that based on this misconduct, the NBA has imposed the following penalties.

Amin, the penalties are: the Clippers shall forfeit 5 first-round draft picks, one in each of the 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032, and 2033 NBA drafts. That's a lot of picks.

5 first-round picks is a lot. And we should point out that there are things in the collective bargaining agreement that outline punishments, that outline fines to players and to owners, which is something we're going to get back to, to explain to people what's going on with what the Clippers are reading and what's going on with what Wachtell wrote. But that is a major thing for a franchise to lose 5 first-round picks, quite obviously, without getting a concomitant player. I mean, didn't— who's the guy in the, uh, the big trade for the Heat? The guy got 5 first-round picks for a player in the Knicks.

He plays for the Knicks.

Think about how many 5 first-round picks.

What we're describing in the contours of it, and I'm realizing what I should be doing here is I should be the guy to read because you guys are going to react. Yeah, because that's, that's typically how this show has worked for a year. Um, But this is the largest punishment in the history of the NBA.

Yeah.

And so the Clippers get fined $30 million. Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is suspended from all league and team activities for 1 year for knowingly seeking to help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities, for approving a business deal that he knew was a precondition for Aspiration to enter into an endorsement agreement with Mr. Leonard. This is part 1 stuff, by the way. Here it is that the NBA has confirmed in their investigation. And for Ballmer's failure to create conditions under which his organization abided by the NBA's circumvention rules. And inside of this part, as we get to the other components of his executive structure and we show you guys on the stream like some of the excerpts and some of the elements and the tweets and all that stuff, this is where it gets to be sprawling in a way that is going to require all of our explanations.

I think Steve Ballmer, in this situation, when you're suspended from league and team activities, that means he doesn't go to owners meetings. And you could say that's no big deal, maybe he doesn't want to go. He can't be around the team. He can't go into his own arena according to this punishment, as you just read. He will be attending a total of zero games, zero practices, zero league-wide events, owners meetings, etc. This is a full 1-year suspension.

Yes. Um, Clippers President of Business Operations Galen Zucker is suspended without pay for one year. Clippers President of Basketball Operations Lawrence Frank is suspended without pay for 6 months. The Clippers organization and personnel are subject to a compliance and monitoring program. I mean, I mean, these are the— this is the right-hand person in charge of business who we've talked about at length, Gillian Zucker, and the right-hand person in charge of basketball, Lawrence Frank, who we've talked about at length.

You know, first blush at reading through the document, Pablo, Gillian Zucker does not come off Positively a whole movie inside of a movie with this. Yes, the full statement from— in the document from Wachtell Lipton says that she's suspended without pay for 1 year for being primarily and directly culpable for impermissible endorsement arrangements and for providing false and misleading statements to investigators. They made it a point— they even contrasted directly that the the, uh, statements from Ms. Zucker versus from Lawrence Frank, saying Lawrence Frank took culpability, he took accountability, he said it was on me, and, you know, he basically was upfront. And meanwhile, Zucker basically either blamed subordinates or said did not remember or would give statements that were contradicting to other statements he had given. I mean, it— reading through it, it was a tough read if you're a big fan of Gillian Zucker, because it was— it was— the investigators pulled no punches in letting everyone know.

Even more, I mean, what Wachtell found is that Zucker and Frank and Ballmer, they knew the rules. As Frank said, and we said it in one of our shows, we showed Lawrence Frank answering a question from the podium. We know the rules. Do you remember that? Do you remember that?

Everybody knows the rules. They know the rules.

We know, we know the rules. Everybody knows the rules. It turns out that Lawrence Frank indeed did know the rules and violated them. What Wachtell also said in this report is that what Zucker did is that she also knew the rules, and she not only misled the investigators, which is a big no-no when Baumer had said it's full cooperation. That's not cooperating when you lie to the investigators. Number 2, what Zucker did is she knew the rules and then violated them in plain sight. There is a paper trail. The report is amazing.

The question of documentation and evidence, right? There's a whole news cycle about is there evidence We have said for a year on the show, as we provide evidence, as we provide documents, emails, whistleblower testimony, all of that stuff, we've been saying there's evidence. What Wachtell has in their capacity to interview NBA employees specifically, as well as provide— I mean, the pressure of the NBA on companies that might want to do business in the future with the NBA was seek and find evidence. And so I credit the ability for us to read this 35-page report, because that was unclear to me, right? It was unclear, would we get an accounting of some of the accounting and some of the paper trail, which, as we'll get to, as you'll see, was allegedly a court— well, according to the NBA's finding, it is settled. The paper trail of emails that was set up to deliberately mislead people in the future who would see this and think, oh, of course this was done by the rules, when of course It was provable that it was to violate them.

Which of course is what Ameen said in one of our episodes when people have said to us, this is so obvious, or this is so easy to ascertain. It's the opposite. The way that it was done was in a way to not get caught, and they got caught. And what Wachtell is doing in this report is showing the way in which they got caught. which provided basically the buttress for the NBA to put this punishment on the Clippers, which I'm happy to argue with you both. I think given the Wachtell report that the punishment is light, and we can talk about that later.

Pablo? No, no, I mean, let's frame it, Amin, because one of the things that I thought is what David just said, which is when you get the sweep of this, there is, I would say, almost— what's the way I want to put this? If you had told me, here is a report, 35 pages, read it and tell me what you think the punishment is, I would read this as enthusiastically and as eagerly as I did, and I would say, I think they're taking the team away from Steve Ballmer.

Oh, that's—

I didn't go there, Pablo, because I think they go there for Sarver. I think they go there for workplace misconduct, sexual misconduct, and things, and racism, like with Sterling. So I didn't think they'd go there. I thought that it would be a larger fine because I believe, and sources are telling me, in the period after which 90 minutes— so this is very fresh. So I'll just say the collective bargaining agreement sets out a system for how you can dispute findings. It sets out a system for how players can. It sets out what owners can do. It also sets out what owners can get fined. And it is my understanding that this is larger than a fine that you would normally see out of a CBA, out of a violation of salary cap circumvention. It is the largest of all time. And the evidence was so overwhelming, but a factor to me has to be that $30 million is significant. Steve Ballmer is going to write the check. The bigger issue for Steve Ballmer is not the $30 million. It's the fact that from day one, when he sent you a statement that this is all provably false, he gives an interview to Ramona Shelburne day 2 that was all a lie.

He doubles down on it, doubles down on it, and all the evidence collected by Wachtell 200,000 pages, all of the 70 people interviewed, it all points to the fact that Ballmer led the salary cap circumvention campaign.

I, I think that's the big, the big reveal, right, is that there was a moment where people would push back. So is it possible that this all occurred while Steve was waving his hands and cheering?

There was a whole news cycle with ESPN reporting it, for the record. This happened like, you know, But I mean, to your point, that was the reveal, which is this is a story about an organized campaign to get something that they all knew not once but twice but 3 times since 2015, as we've been saying with the Andre Jordan and Capsule convention, that they should not be doing.

And that was another point made by Wachtell in the report, that Steve Ballmer is not a first-time offender. They went through in the report the ways that the rules are—

Recidivism. It's, it's recidivism. And so look, I should say here, as Mr. Leonard is required to pay the league $700,000, Mr. Robertson is banned for a period of 5 years, all that stuff, I also should say that the Clippers have now publicly come out with a response. And, uh, Amin, would you read this please? Um, The Clippers statement.

Yes. This investigation has been flawed from the outset, and your decision to issue this report without any— this, yeah, to the NBA. Your decision— actually, this is directly in a letter to Commissioner Silver, we should point out. This is a letter to Commissioner Silver. This investigation has been flawed from the outset, and your decision to issue this report without any notice to the Clippers or their counsel is inexcusable. This type of witch hunt flies in the face of fundamental fairness and of the integrity of the league and of the sport that we all love. We're exploring every legal remedy to address this gross injustice.

I cannot believe that the Clippers did not communicate with Kawhi Leonard. The first thing I do when I get this report is I am saying, hey, What are we doing here? Because Kawhi went the other way, the complete other way.

Oh, David, the question of what is the union going to do and Kawhi Leonard going to do, this was mentioned, foreshadowed, as if they were in lockstep with Steve Ballmer's Clippers, right? That was the whole thing, was come and try it, right? Come and try to punish this. This is clearly something that you can't punish without a reasonable arbitration process. And, and I want to point out that the Clippers released an earlier statement in which they said, we vehemently reject the NBA's findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence. And then we go on to say, for the past year, we cooperated fully and in good faith, and we will now fight just as hard to demonstrate our innocence. We intend to vigorously challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available to us and look forward to an ethical and impartial arbitration process. And I want to raise the question of, wait a minute, how are they going to arbitration now? How does that work, David?

So let me explain. I have no idea how the Clippers released this statement because you fire the lawyers. There is no arbitration process available to Steve Ballmer. And having spoken to people within the league and my experience in baseball, there are exact things that go to arbitration exact fights. This is not one of them. It's not allowed. The arbitration would be contained within the CBA and would be filed by the union on behalf of Kawhi, right?

That's, that's the big piece here, is that— I mean, the union and Kawhi said our bad, and now the Clippers are trying to activate an option that According to our understanding at this point, at 6:27 PM Eastern, they actually need the union to activate to get to the system arbitrator.

Well, to get— well, no, because— sorry, Pablo, but see, this is live. But no, the NBA and a team could agree to an arbitrator to submit to an arbitration process when there is a dispute between the league and the club. both sides would have to agree to that. That's number one. Number 2, what the Clippers say specifically is we intend to vigorously— I love when you use that adjective for no particular reason. That's as though sometimes you challenge findings in a not vigorous fashion. But they will vigorously challenge these findings where the only avenue available to them is the court, and not the podcast court. Not the arbitration system. I'm talking about the court court, the real court. So all Steve Ballmer can announce is that we intend to sue the NBA because of their findings.

But, but this is the thing that I'm, I'm kind of circling here as we suss this out live, is that arbitration was contingent on the union, and the union is saying we're actually settling. And so the only available option, the saber being rattled, is literally suing Adam Silver or Wachtell Lipton. It's suing the NBA itself. And we, as David likes to say, I mean, wait to see if they're going to do that given what we're about to outline in this report.

It's Ouroboros. It's the snake that eats its own tail, right? You're suing, in essence, like David said, the arbitration exists between Because players, labor, and management—

that's why that's collectively bargained.

Yes, that's what this collective bargaining agreement is between labor and management. And so this is management suing other management. I, I just— I'm not, I'm not quite understanding. And David, like David said, you know, this is where you probably want to get on the horn with Kawhi before he puts out a statement.

a statement which says, quote, I accept full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle and regret the distraction this situation has caused the fans and my family. So we presume, by the way— There, there it is, Uncle Dennis. You know, the, the marks left on your back, that is what was just driven in the form of this statement. But as I return to Toronto, Kawhi says, I am focused on what I can control, closing this chapter, moving forward with the clean slate. And so here's the interesting sort of like thing, I mean, that you're noticing, right? Kawhi's like, so I can move on with this, right?

Peace, later. Hey guys, without draft picks and $30 million.

And well, there's something else though, guys. You know, the NBA gets to approve any trade. There is a world where the Clippers now trade Kawhi to the Raptors and the NBA does not approve that trade because what the Clippers are trying to do is restock their draft picks. But there was no scenario under which the league was going to grant Kawhi free agency. That— they would never do that to a player. He's got one year left on his deal. If he wants to sign a new deal, let him play healthy and play well and get a new deal when he gets it from wherever he gets it. But if the Clippers are allowed to get their first-round picks back from Toronto. And, and I mean, what was the deal with Toronto and the Clippers? How many picks?

I believe it was 2 first-round picks and a couple swaps.

So, so the question is, will the NBA be inclined to allow the Clippers— was that part of the negotiated settlement that we thought existed with the Clippers that the Clippers statement claims never happened?

So, so This is all sort of the framework for these findings, and the findings are, I must say this, truly remarkable in ways that I want to get to. The beginning of it, page 1, and I think this is— look, can I just say this? We're going to jump around here, but I just want to acknowledge that September 3rd, 2025, in the life of Our show is one thing, and it's an incredible thing to have done this for a year with you guys. This is part 15, maybe. I've literally lost count. I don't know what part we're in anymore. I think this might be part 15. But for David, Ameen, I just want to acknowledge September 3rd is a meaningful day, and I want to just stop here to acknowledge why that is.

Thank you. Our show, Ameen and Pablo, on September 3rd was the last show that my daughter ever watched. me do. She got sick on September 12th and didn't watch— wasn't able to watch any more shows. And she just passed away, as you all know, on June 23rd. And, uh, I wish that she were able to watch this show because we talked a lot about the, the Aspiration. As you know, we recorded that in the middle to end of August, and, uh, it was released on September 3rd. And I had spoken to Kira about it. And, uh, you guys have been— thank you for all your support. And, and I mean that. I love you guys and, and Metal Ark and all of you. Just—

The Kira Fund is the thing that we want to drive people to. Part of the reason we're doing this show live is also to draw attention to that, the fight for a cure.

We'd like to cure glioblastoma. I'd like there not to be another Kira. I'd like no family to go through what we're going through and what we've gone through, because to me It is just impossible to deal with. And, uh, all of the people who've given in so generously— it's raised over $700,000, and it's— we're just getting going. We've started to fund research projects. One is being announced again in the next couple of days called Project Rose. And I would just say that, uh, anything that anyone can do for the Kira Fund, every dollar matters. And we're going to keep going because During the past year, it's been very obviously difficult for all— for me, for— and I'm the least of it— for Kira the most, for our entire family. And, uh, it's gone exactly in lockstep.

Literally. I mean, it's a year, exact 365 days. Um, look, there is some, um, symmetry to all of this, and by that I mean what we're not sharing as we report this story and doing episodes with the public. what we are trying to confirm, what money we're trying to raise as we do a story that's about following money. And Amin, can you just read page 1, the start of it, and we'll get into the nitty-gritty of this thing?

On September 3rd, 2025, the podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out produced the first in a series of episodes alleging that the LA Clippers parentheses, the Clippers, and its owner Steve Ballmer violated the salary cap circumvention rules of the National Basketball Association, parentheses, the NBA or the league, through dealings with Aspiration Partners, parentheses, Aspiration, a now bankrupt sustainability services company. Among other things, the episode part 1 revealed the existence of a 4-year, $28 million endorsement agreement between Aspiration and Clippers player Kawhi Leonard. Part 2 asserted that the agreement was never publicly announced and that Mr. Leonard performed no services under— excuse me— under it. And Part 3 aired portions of an audio interview with an anonymous person asserted to be a former employee of Aspiration who alleged that the agreement's purpose was to, quote, circumvent the salary cap. Unquote. Shortly after the episode's release, the league hired Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz— parentheses, parentheses— Wachtell, Lipton— to investigate the alleged wrongdoing. In the intervening months, the investigation scope expanded to cover additional endorsement agreements and other potential improprieties.

And I just want to say, David, this is a story built on journalism. That's what this says. We are looking all—

the first line, Pablo, of the entire 36-page report is the name of your show.

But the reason we've been reporting it is because we think this story is fundamentally important. We think it's important to bring people what is not being told to them otherwise by some of the wealthiest, most powerful people in America who happen to control some of the most important institutions in America, as in sports. We're doing a story about accountability. We're doing a story in which people such as the source alluded to here, who we heard as source number 1 on September 3rd, 2025, took risks to talk about. This is a story about people who told the truth and people who didn't. And David, as we continue what this executive summary is saying on the backs of people who were daring to tell the truth, the sources that we relied on, please give us the accounting there.

The investigation finds that the Clippers organization violated the circumvention rules in numerous independent ways by one, affirmatively initiating off-court income opportunities between Mr. Leonard and 4 different companies doing business with the team: Aspiration, Boingo Wireless, Daktronics, and Lockton Insurance.

And I just got to point out, it hurts when you get scooped by a law firm. Man, you know how much time I've spent investigating Boingo Wireless?

Goddamn, we haven't even—

we didn't even get to say that in public.

I wanted that so badly for us. I have Boingo.

I don't know if anybody wants Boingo documents, but I got some Boingo documents.

Do you?

Of course.

Oh man, listen to the Boingo. That we should just know is that the NBA, the reason they were so concerned The reason why Anders wanted to meet with us— they wanted to not get rosiered. They wanted to make sure that if we're gonna drip death by a thousand cuts, when do they end the investigation? In the report, they referenced something that happened August 17th with the, uh, was it— was that the ESPN story? Something happened August 17th.

Yes.

And then we did the Daktronics episodes. They kept wondering, is there more? Is there possibly more?

The answer is there is yet more. There is, there is. And this report will acknowledge that as well, as I keep on referring to. But the point is, what we try to do here is we try to report everything to the level of satisfaction such that we don't actually get sued, such that we are correct. Like, the number of things— anyway, I don't want to— this is not about this is not about our process so much as it is what has been found here.

Um, I understand why you're doing this, Pablo, because it— you're human, and, and we have all been— our processes have been impugned.

But, but this is, this is, this is what, this is what the report says to foreshadow. Quote, according to this witness— we'll get to the witness— the company was willing to enter into such a sham consulting agreement based on the promise to win a much larger, a much larger services contract with the Clippers This confidential information came to investigators late in the investigation, and additional steps are ongoing to corroborate it. There is more. And the story— and David, I want to get you back to the, to the bullet points here, but the point here, I mean, is that whenever someone has asked me, is the story over, the response has always been, there's more. And at a certain point, the tonnage of stuff that you find ends up being something you cannot sweep under a rug, something you cannot just dismiss, something that you cannot leak to some outlet to say there's nothing here. And this is what we're seeing, is what a parallel investigation was corroborating.

And Wachtell had to acknowledge that in the report, and they did. Yeah, they had to literally acknowledge that there's more and that there could still be more with investigators. He didn't mention our name a second time in the report, but he's talking about us in general. And I, and I would just say there could be more that investigators find, and we'll deal with that as it comes.

So, Amin, could you actually take over and read the next bullet point, bullet point 2, as we get to the executive summary here?

Facilitating the consummation of endorsement agreements between each of these companies and Mr. Leonard, including in some cases by participating in the Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen Katz September 2nd, 2026 Development and communication of deal terms. Do this part— point— do you want me to keep going?

I, I think that we should just keep going because there's a lot to get to.

Point 3, inducing the companies to enter into these agreements by offering and providing them with business from the Clippers.

Don't make them— can we please stop there, Pablo, and translate that one?

We—

I have to.

This is Yeah, go ahead.

Do you see what they, they're saying in the report? That what we said about Daktronics, when I told you in a show, I believe I was even in a volcano in place where it was erupting in Italy a couple weeks ago, Daktronics, there are deals all the time where companies give money back to a team in by buying tickets, by buying a suite. And those deals are done all the time, and that's acknowledged in the Wachtell report. What Wachtell is saying is that it was different. It was, we will do business with you if you do business with Kawhi. And that's what we had been talking about, dude, right here in the report.

It's wild.

The only logical explanation for what Daktronics did— there was no reason to have him as Kawhi Leonard as an endorser of Daktronics. Go back and listen to that episode, Pablo, that we did about Daktronics. It exists.

We were— I mean, I mean, I mean, we were— I would say this, in our attempt to be fair within the access that we had, I would say that we were even restrained.

Yes, yes, because what I said at the time was this is perhaps the most easily explainable version of capture convention that I think the layperson can understand, could wrap their hands around. Because Aspiration was just such a crazy company to begin with. You have to explain what the tree credit, carbon credit thing— and like, people are like, what? This was easy. He's like, hey, you get to build our video board. In exchange, we'll write into the contract where this extra money goes, and you just go ahead and sign our guy to a deal. And that was the important thing in the findings is them being able to create the trail of money from the Clippers to the vendor, from the vendor to Kawhi Leonard. That the Wachtell Lipton found that thread and connected it all in a way that I think we, again, being trying to be as inside the lines as possible, we led people up to that point and just said, huh? Whereas Wachtell lifted and said, no, here it is.

It's, it's, it's what— the question that Wachtell answered, and it's really impressive work when you see it laid out, it's what, what holes do you fill in to the story that we could not access because it relies on participation from the, from the one entity, David, that from the very beginning would not tell us the truth.

Well, and, and to, to jump in real quick The other thing was they got some cooperation from some of these companies, right? Some, right?

Daktronics aspiration in part.

Yes, but like, it makes sense. Like, if you're Daktronics, say I make video boards, you know who needs video boards? NBA teams need video boards. Do I want to play defense on behalf of the Clippers and then maybe perhaps excommunicate myself from this entire league, or do I just play ball?

There's— and we gotta foreshadow that one of the things that we underweighted, because it frankly was a reflection of my lack of cynicism, which is crazy to say, is how much every story that we've done is even simpler when you understand that the Clippers were dangling Clippers business in front of each of the companies in a way that feels so crazy to me when you see it laid out in a paper trail.

It's hard for me to imagine looking back, and we can just stick with Daktronics because they were in the news today where there is an SEC investigation underway.

Daktronics, the public company, their CFO said the SEC has requested information from us. This is following our episodes This is in addition to the NBA, which we now see what the NBA did with that information.

And so the SEC has to be interested in this because that's where it's also not podcast court. This is actual problem. When you're a public company, you can't do things like that. They don't— the SEC, I remind you, doesn't care about salary cap circumvention one bit.

People have been asking Amin, like, why do you— this story, why do you care about it? It's just like, because This is— I mean, beyond the fact that I don't think you need the SEC or Wachtell Lipton to validate what's been reported because it feels like we did a pretty decent job in laying it all out, it's because there's consequences. There was a set of consequences that the Daktronics CFO said when he said, uh, quote, we have received requests for information from the NBA. Additionally, the Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking information from us concerning the company and Mr. Leonard. We take these requests seriously and are cooperating. At this point, out of respect for the respective processes, we will not be providing further comment.

They can't. Their lawyers will not. There is not one scenario under which the corporate lawyers for Daktronics, a public company, will allow them to comment at all. And of course they're going to cooperate fully because again, Daktronics doesn't care about salary cap circumvention. They care about SEC violations.

It's how the salary cap circumvention speaks to everything else we've been saying. It's the story. It's the story of what an organization will do when the rules prevent them from doing it, and what else it costs them in the process of trying to get to— I think, I mean, part 5 of this list here, if you want to skip ahead down to, to that, past the expenses that we've already referred to.

Failing to report improper solicitations for off-court income opportunities made by Mr. Leonard's uncle. and business manager Dennis Robertson. The pattern of conduct reflected here, involving 4 separate arrangements sharing many common characteristics, further demonstrates the clear violation of NBA rules set forth in this report.

So Lockton Insurance Company, by the way, we hadn't even mentioned— that was merely— I mean, it's just they refused to cooperate. Boingo, again, more later on that. Daktronics, we've talked about at length. Aspiration, of course. Um, and it gets to the C-suite. It gets back to who was in charge.

Oh my gosh, there's something— there's something else that happened with Aspiration that I was not aware of, and I may have missed it while doing all of these shows. We always knew it was a $28 million, 4-year deal, $7 million a year. I read in the report, and I don't recall thinking this way, where did that $7 million come from? In the report, Wachtell says that the Clippers claimed that there was— they wanted $7 million of carbon offset credits. They said to Aspiration, we will give you $7 million to plant trees. And coincidentally, $7 million per year was given by Aspiration to Kawhi Leonard.

So this is—

Followed that sent and found that was no coincidence. And when Aspiration started not getting the money, they were like, we're not going to keep paying Kawhi if we don't get the money.

So this was part of a— the carbon offset for the Kia Forum. It's a forum deal. And what they did was basically said, all right, let's just buy $28 million worth of credits. We'll pay you $7 mil over 40 years. How's that sound? which is how no one does carbon credits. You usually assess what's my carbon footprint, and then you purchase said carbon credits to offset. Clippers said— wrote a blank check, basically. He said, here, take this, just, you know, keep the change, kid, or whatever.

What happens in this story with all of these companies, what's the pattern in the through line we will establish? It's that it wasn't just fake jobs for Kawhi, it was fake jobs for the companies. They invented jobs.

Consulting work.

Consulting. I mean, like apples to apples, round peg, round hole, completely timed exactly in conjunction. And as Joe Sandberg says at one point, which I, I hate to step on the aspiration story as we're still like, we're still on page 1 basically, but Joe Sandberg at one point, it's revealed texts quote, should I call Dennis and Kawhi and tell them that deal is off because we got fucked?

He's— he turns into Nino Brown at the end of New Jack City. He says, I'm gonna stand up and I'm gonna name everybody.

Everybody. And so, and so here's the thing about Joe Sandberg that everybody leaned on was the guy's convicted felon, he's going to federal prison. And in fact, he is. He was sentenced to 14 years. And everybody— not everybody, I'm overstating it— but lots of people were saying But he's a scammer. He scammed everybody. And, and on some level, of course, what we've said from the start is it is entirely possible, of course, that Joe Sandberg scammed all of his investors along the way. Both can be true. And yet, and yet, what he was doing was partnering with Steve Ballmer and Gillian Zucker and Lawrence Frank and the Clippers to deceive the NBA. And when you get to Daktronics and apparently Boingo and Locked In Insurance, the same playbook is run.

Well, that, that was the other amazing part where the 4 deals before Aspiration were all initiated, negotiated, and executed within basically a couple of weeks during the middle of the pandemic, during the, like, the depth of the pandemic. when people didn't know whether their companies would survive or not, right? It was— again, it goes back to, I don't know if this was magnificently orchestrated or just sloppily executed, because when you look at it in the context, it becomes so obvious. Oh no, of course. But this is a pattern.

That's us, guys. That's a lot. No, we— I want to go through 7,000 pages of documents. And find sources.

And it's finding—

getting this—

it's finding people who said this is what's really happening. And the question is, how do you corroborate that? And this is the story of corroboration.

And, and that's another thing that Wachtell put in that 36 pages. When you sit— when you do an investigation and you have witnesses come in, you evaluate their testimony, which is what we've been doing the entire time, by the way. So I would just point out, when you have a convicted felon, a fraudster, a liar And the liar tells you the sky is blue, you do not conclude the sky is blue. You try to find corroborating evidence, corroborating witnesses. Wachtell specifically said in the report that everything Joe Sandberg said to us, we discounted because he's a felon. But it turns out that we had corroborating evidence from witnesses and documentation that everything this convicted felon said happened to be true.

That's— yeah, that's exactly the point. It's a, hey, we get it, this guy is unreliable. That's why anything that we took from him had to have another kind of corresponding corroboration from someone like a journalist. Well, no, no, beyond us, from the internal documentation.

I'm saying journalists get more than one source. Oh yeah, or you're gonna go with something, you're gonna get a source. Then you're going to find corroborating sources.

It's why we haven't been able to unveil everything that we think is true. It's because we didn't have the sourcing nailed down.

Right.

It's why I applaud on some level. I mean, look, there are 2 things I applaud. I applaud the ambition of the Clippers because holy crap, man, you guys went for it. And I applaud Wachtell for telling us in detail what they found so they could show that this is something that they couldn't just dismiss. And so look, it gets to Gillian Zucker, the president of business, and Lawrence Frank, the president of basketball. Quote, in addition, Steve Ballmer, owner of the Clippers and its affiliates, knowingly sought to help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities and at least in one instance engaged in a significant act of team felicitation. Mr. Ballmer also failed to create conditions under which his organization abided by the NBA circumvention rules, an especially egregious lapse because the Clippers are a prior offender of those rules and were previously and specifically investigated by the NBA with respect to Mr. Leonard.

This goes to our show where Steve Ballmer has been very clear, and we talked about this so many times, guys. Ready? Off to the races. That was Steve Ballmer's number one defense. We are allowed to facilitate an introduction, but that's all you're allowed to do. And then Steve Ballmer, quote, Aspiration and Kauai, they were off to the races. What Wachtell found is the races were rigged, that not only were they not off to the races, the races were being run by the Clippers and by Zucker and by Frank and by Ballmer. And that is a really, really important thing to note, in my opinion.

The, the other thing is, one of the big defenses that Steve Ballmer had was, I was scammed, this guy's a scam artist, these people were, were people who are taking advantage of me and others, other investors. Well, when you put it like that, and then you look at what happens in the document and you say, well, no, the initiation comes from the Clippers end. And oh, by the way, it wasn't just that scam company, but several real companies, real businesses that aren't doing, you know, uh, some weird tree thing. That's the part where it's like he's presenting it as a victim. That was a big part of his defense, Mark Cuban's defense of him when he came on.

I miss Mark, by the way. I miss Mark Cuban.

He sent you a very nice message. I hope you saw it on Twitter.

He, he, he wished us congrats, and Team Shitting Bricks appreciates the message.

But by the way, about Mark Cuban is he said, to his credit, while he told you that this is ridiculous, what he did say is, Pablo, if what we said on September 3rd is true then they should basically throw the book at Baumer. And what Cuban, by saying congrats Pablo, is saying, yeah, team shitting bricks turned out to be the right team, and it was true.

I'd just like to point out also that, you know, we don't say this for credit. We don't need congrats for this. The trophy case is full. An Edward R. Murrow Award, a Pulitzer Prize— those are our prizes, those are our trophies. This, this is just—

oh, this is, this is, this is a dessert. This is, to me, like, what else? If we had the powers of the NBA, what would we want to know? And we got today, like, it's, it's been so fun to read.

My regret is that we didn't have more information, or I didn't have more on Zucker, because for me, as a team president for all those years, I would love to have done a show with you talking about all the things that we figured out or found out that she did versus what you're supposed to do, how you're supposed to do it.

So let's, let's, let's wait. Let's get to—

okay, how, how you're supposed to do it as in following the rules, or how are you supposed to do it as in skirting the rules, David? Both. Okay, I want to do that show. Not today, but we got to do that show at some point.

Yes. What was being described in the report was the Clippers did know the rules, and what they did, what Gillian did is that she created a paper trail of emails in which the introductions were manufactured so as to provide legal cover by the NBA rules in the future, so that if called to the mat, they would say, of course, this is how it happened. And of course, what was also findable if you dig deep enough is that none of this passed the smell test. And in fact, there were other communications that showed that this was all orchestrated for exactly the reason of circumventing the rules. So look, I want to get to— man, there's— do we get to— here we go. Um, there's a quote. There's so many. This is— and by the way, I'm referring there to the introduction emails, which were written to appear responsive to requests from partners. In fact, the Clippers initiated all of it.

Let's explain what that means, because that was confusing what you just said, Pablo. There is a rule in the CBA of how you are allowed to act. when it comes to players and team sponsors, players and team business partners. What the Clippers did is they thought that they could get away by being involved. We read emails that were back and forth. Remember, we had the Clippers redacted emails? When is Kawhi going to do this? Do you need help with Kawhi doing that? And the reality is what Zucker did basically said I know the rules, but I gotta find— I gotta do the job for Ballmer here as a team president. That's what I would have told you on my show. My job is to do something for the owner, and I know what my job is, so I'm out there trying to make sure that we're able to get these deals done for Kawhi. And she violated every rule with the emails that she sent.

David, my favorite part was basically you're not supposed to initiate the the third party is supposed to ask, and then you could say, oh yeah, I'll make the introduction. So the workaround was in essence to say, oh yeah, following up on that conversation we had the other day. So there's no original paper trail of, hey, how can we get Kwai on board with us? It's always, oh, I'm following up on that thing that we talked about that we didn't email about, we talked about on the phone, and here's our introduction.

I wanna, I wanna skip ahead a little bit forgive me, because we're in the pandemic now. It's April of 2020 according to the report. And what happens here— this is, this is how it happens. Dennis Robertson speaks to the Clippers, to Steve Ballmer, to Lawrence Frank, and says, hey, we made these demands, how are you going to fulfill them for us? And Robertson complained to Mr. Ballmer that Ms. Zucker was making introductions for bullshit deals and that I, Mr. Robertson, can't Wait on, Miss Sucker, I have to get paid. And what—

I love that, dude.

What Steve Ballmer responds here, this is a quote. Mr. Ballmer responded by telling Mr. Robertson then that he and Clippers personnel were all collective workers to try to help Mr. Leonard achieve his financial goals. I'm just like, what? How many smoking guns are we supposed to need here?

Like, can't do that.

And, and Ms. Zucker assured Mr. Robertson that Mr. Balmer would follow through on his promise. Like, the whole idea of like, what do we— what's the threshold of like clarity here? We're so— I mean, look, anyway, I don't want to just continue to, to say we told you so, but like, this is how the reporting came together.

Let's, let's talk about one thing as it relates to Balmer and some of his other quotes that were problematic. When he started with the provably false That was the first statement, as you recall, to you and to your show, Pablo, before September 3rd. He said that he will be able to provably show that all of— that he did nothing, that our assertions are provably false. Then he got rid of the provably false in later statements, but kept hammering the fact that he did nothing wrong. It was off to the races. Wachtell was very clear in this 36-page document. that Steve Ballmer's culpability is significant, and that is why the fine is $30 million, the 5 draft picks, the suspension of a year. Which I reiterate, when you suspend an owner for a year—

It's enormous. It's enormous.

It's enormous. And so I believe, having read the report, that while it is enormous, that he could easily have suspended Ballmer for longer, not forced to sell, but made him give up control as a possibility. Suspend him from being a governor for 5 years or more could have been a punishment. His president of business operations, Gillian Zucker, fired. Remember what happened with the Astros when the GM and the manager got fired for the garbage can banging? Remember that? But the owner No, we're good. Wattel did not find that in this report.

You know, it's funny, Pablo, going back to, you know, him saying we are collective workers trying to help Mr. Leonard reach his earnings, it reminds me of the scene in Role Models where, uh, I think, uh, is Elizabeth Berkley— is the— not Elizabeth— Elizabeth Banks is the lawyer And she's got the guy in there and he says, we're going to plead innocent. And they say, what do you mean? They have you on tape doing this. It could have been anyone. And then they play the tape and he says, who would believe it? Me, David Garvin, stealing TVs. And it's this— it's— we are collective workers trying to get this.

What?

Like, how is that?

I mean, it speaks to the desperation. We said this at the beginning of our whole series. How desperate was Steve Ballmer, the richest owner in American sports, one of the richest people on the planet, to get a superstar that would allow him to compete as owner of the Clippers? And the answer was, look at what he was doing for— not— look, the whole thing about— it's interesting, the whole thing about the Timberwolves, which is the previous precedent, right? The reason the Timberwolves is small potatoes and why when I read this I was like, this feels like the definition of what you can't do as the owner of a sports team is that this was vast. I mean, and this is the explanation. I just want to quote this part. As the evidence mounted that the Clippers had again stepped over the circumvention line by providing improper assistance to Mr. Leonard, the Clippers advanced a novel theory: affirmative, not responsive introductions of players to business partners for the purpose of helping them generate off-court income If such introductions are requested by the player's representative, that's, that's, that's cool. You could do that. And if you have that understanding in your mind, then you're trying to drive 4 different deals through that framework.

Or alternatively, right, we can't psychoanalyze the Clippers. I don't know what they would say. Or that's what they made up when they were caught red-handed doing something that obviously was never even vaguely okay to them. So anyway, we move down as the Clippers appear to double down on this theory by issuing all of these publicly worded statements. This was the August 17th thing. This is normal, we introduce stuff, players and teams are introduced all the time, blah blah blah, partners, all that stuff. Um, based on the foregoing evidence, investigators find these statements to be inaccurate at best with respect to Mr. Ballmer and clearly false with respect to Miss Zucker, whose name I'll begin to pronounce correctly thanks to David Zerjig.

I was— the way they treated her cooperation, or lack thereof, was so scathing. I was taken aback, David. I don't know if you felt the same way I did. I was, I was shocked. I'm like, they did not mince words at all. They felt that she was, as it says, misleading them in the investigation.

You know, there's no penalties in the Wachtell report. There's no punishments. That is their report of the findings. The NBA takes that report and then decides on punishment, negotiates with the union on the Kawhi punishment, settles, either does or does not negotiate with the Clippers. We need to find that out because the Clippers clearly are acting like they're reading the report today for the first time. which I think is straight horse hockey. That said, you don't—

hold on, you don't think they had their hands on this? You think they had their hands on this?

I think that they did not read the report the way we read the report at 4:30 or 5 o'clock.

I think, I think, I think that there was a fundamental misapprehension that is baffling to me. It's about— I mean, look, I can't— I, I just We'll leave it at that for now.

We'll leave it at that for now. But the Clippers statement is major. The Clippers saying they are going to fight.

Yeah, yeah.

The NBA, when they do this, if they— let me just talk about baseball for a quick second. If you think a team's gonna fight the league, you start by talking to the team and trying to settle it before it's a fight. You don't want there to be a fight. You don't. If something's not covered by the CBA the way steroids is, can't fight when a player gets suspended 80 games. That's the CBA. That's the rule. But if you think there's gonna be a fight, you do a negotiation. Did the NBA and the Clippers negotiate? The Clippers are saying, we had no idea that this was the report and we are gonna fight it vigorously. They, they're saying, well, that means they gotta file a lawsuit and they're working on it right now. And they're gonna have to sue— I mean, maybe us, but certainly Adam Silver, the NBA. I don't— they try to put Wachtell in that, but I don't think that works at all. But in any case, that is a huge burden for Steve Ballmer to try to get over in terms of successfully overturning the punishment. And the punishment is not Wachtell-based.

The NBA chose it. Wachtell doesn't say in here, take 5 picks away.

By the way, by the way, I will say for the record here, whenever we got asked, whenever I got asked at least, like, what should the punishment be? I don't know. I, I'm not— that's not my job. My job is just tell you what the story is. It's to report, and then what happens after that you can discern. But like, I mean, so like, Pablo, remember the Astros result was a suspension.

of Hinch and a suspension of Lunau, but Jim Crane then fired them the next day. What I'm waiting for, and what I thought was coming before I read the Clippers statement, when I assumed the Clippers were acknowledging, I figured that they would fire Zucker tomorrow the way the Astros fired Jeff Lunau the next day, that she was suspended by the league and that they would— and now she would just get fired. And I would expect that to still happen.

I, I know we'll probably get to it later in the document, but how do you think it feels to be a subordinate under Gillian Zucker, to find out that when she talked to them, she was like, ah, it's one of these guys probably did that, I didn't do that? That's got to be the worst, because, because I think that that's got to be— because, uh, you know, David, I'm thinking about what you're saying, and in a, in a way, I could see Lawrence Frank not getting fired. Because good soldier. I went there and I did what the general asked me to do, and, and they did— they said I would get suspended and I took the suspension on the chin.

Well, let's hold on a second with that because we also reported, and then it got announced, I believe. Pablo, did Lawrence Frank get a big extension recently?

Sure did.

Sure did. A 4-year extension. When? What month?

December, I believe, but we'll fact-check that.

The investigation is ongoing at this point. Lawrence Frank knows what happened. Baumer knows what happened. He gets the extension. You can fire Frank, but you can still pay him out. You can fire him for cause and then you don't pay him, or you fire him without cause and you just pay him.

Is it just—

That could be the reward for Lawrence Frank for being the good soldier. He gets suspended for 6 months and then gets fired but paid that 4-year extension. It'll be separate.

Is it just to separate yourself from, from the bad PR, the bad juju of this scandal?

The Astros did with Lunow and, and, uh, and their manager, uh, AJ Hinch. You gotta separate yours. Here's Steve Ballmer. If I'm the owner of a team, I want to separate myself from all of this stuff.

Well, but this is so— but this is the challenge, right? So as we go through this, and we'll not get to all of it because it's way too much, and I encourage people to like dig in as we continue to cover it and investigate. still, especially now that it seems like the story isn't over yet, which is perfect for what this story has been this whole time. The question is, so how do you explain all of this? Like, you can go and go to court, and I perversely, of course, want more documents. I always want more documents. Somehow still I'm unsatisfied with the documents. But I mean, how do you rationally explain What is in the documents?

This, this is what I go back to. It's Section— uh, it's Article 13, Section 2, Part D. Violation of Section 2A to B above may be proven by direct or circumstantial evidence, including but not limited to evidence that a player contract or any term or provision thereof cannot rationally be explained in the absence of conduct violative. That's all we're talking about here, guys. Give me a rational explanation for all of this. So, uh, if, if I may push this, nudge this thing forward, Pablo, in the efforts to get to as much as we can. A lot of people kept asking, what's taking so long? What's taking so long? Why is Wachtell taking so long? Pablo and his crew are running rings around you guys. What's taking so long? Well, it turns out Wachtell did not pull punches on that either. Quote, this effort was challenged by, among other things, the approach of the Clippers and their outside counsel, who at times delayed in responding to requests for information and operated in an adversarial or obfuscatory manner that slowed investigators' ability to gather the facts. Thank you.

I'm glad you got that word. I couldn't do it.

From the perspective of due process, however, the Clippers were zealously represented throughout this investigation by outside counsel seeking to protect the team's interests.

I mean, we read in the episodes we've done— in, by the way, there's a civil trial happening, Aspiration investors suing Steve Ballmer, 11 of them by the way— and in the filings provided by Steve Ballmer's attorneys, his personal lawyers, not only are we trashed and the whole thing dismissed, but to say the least, it was quite zealous. how they've done this. I know that the Clippers have been working with their own PR outside people.

Sure.

I have not talked about this because I'm not trying to whatever, but like, they have been working behind the scenes this whole time trying to zealously create a story favorable to them. And so when it comes to what did they know and how did they choose to hide it or obfuscate it What everybody knows who's been plugged into this doing interviews this whole time is that they have been remarkably strategic. And the lack of plausible explanation, of rational explanation for a year speaks to what this report and our reports and anyone who does actual legwork on this begins to realize, which is, of course, it's going to be a story about salary cap circumvention.

People really were confused a lot. I, I, I'm now thinking back to the last year where my head was spinning for most of the year and still is. But when it came to this story, where the real confusion was, is people would come up to me all the time, and it really happened a crazy amount of times. Are you just after Ballmer? Like, is that what you're doing? Or are you—

David hangs out with different people than me.

Yeah, I though, you know what I got all the time, David, was like, why are you guys hating on Kwai? I'm like, This is not a—

so funny. I got all bomber and you got all kawaii. By the way, that—

I got— I, I just, I just got, aren't you just prostituting yourself for clicks?

Oh, listen, by the way, 3, by the way, ain't bad. Meatloaf.

We're at an hour and 7 minutes. There are more clicks that I want to get out of this. Um, but listen, here's— here, I want to get to the part that is so remarkable, and this is where, again, tip your cap to an investigation that surfaced new things, right? And so this, again, stuff that's existed in the realm of rumor that we could not publish. I, I want to— I want to get down here. Consulting. The consulting contracts, because this is maybe my favorite part. Um, I'll just read this. In early June 2020, at the time of Ms. Zucker's introductions, none of Boingo, Daktronics, and Lockton had commercial agreements with the Clippers. but all 3 companies were in active discussions to provide business services to the team or its arena. We've been saying this for a while. The Intuit Dome's construction was this gateway to get all of these business deals. But I proceed to quote, within weeks following the introductions, either before or on the same day as the company signed endorsement agreements with Mr. Leonard, each company entered into a multi-million dollar consulting agreement With the Clippers. 2 of the companies received almost the entirety of their consulting fees upfront in payments of $10 million each, delivered prior to these companies entering into endorsement agreements with Mr. Leonard.

The 3rd company received its first annual consulting fee of $2 million one day after making its first payment to Mr. Leonard under the endorsement agreement it had entered into with him. And what does that say, David? It says that these companies were themselves getting no-show fake jobs to funnel money to pay Kawhi Leonard.

Well, but they also were getting more than that. And because if they're getting an opportunity to be a part of Intuit's construction— so don't say Daktronics got nothing, they got to do the Halo scoreboard. Don't say Boingo got nothing if they get to be Oh, David is—

David has stopped.

Frozen.

I will pick up the thread as David hopefully resets.

Let me, let me ask— let me, let me play my role as the dumb observer, Pablo. But these consultancy gigs happen all the time. I'm sure these companies have done consultancy before with other vendors.

Yes? No? Yeah, it's so clear that there is no real precedent for the types of jobs that these companies got.

There was an exec who told the Wachtell Lipton investigators, like, we've never done that. We've never had a consultancy gig.

Indeed, a credible witness with direct knowledge told investigators that the consulting agreement one company signed with the Clippers was in fact a ruse designed and intended to be a vehicle for the team to provide the company with funds to be paid to Mr. Leonard. According to this witness, the company was willing to enter into such a sham consulting agreement based on the promise to win a much larger services contract with the Clippers. This confidential information came to investigators late in the investigation. This is the additional steps being taken to corroborate it. So, David, where you dropped out was the point of they were doing nothing in these fake consulting jobs, but what they were doing by funneling money to Kawhi was putting them in play. In the case of Daktronics, for literally a $100 million deal to build the Halo board, which, as we've established in our episodes, kind of saved the company.

This is no small part of this finding by Wachtell, because this is what I have been describing to you on this show and on Nothing Personal. When you're building a stadium or a ballpark, or you're doing any sort of business with sponsors There's a lot of room to fudge numbers. There's a lot of room to hide money. There's a lot of opportunity to do things that may violate rules. And what Wachtell found very clearly is that there was an immediate causal relationship between Daktronics getting the business of the scoreboard and doing a endorsement deal with Leonard. That is a violation on myriad levels.

I mean, could you read this part here in the doc? I wish we had folders, but we gotta obviously do this jerry-rigged. But it's the part where I'm highlighting it. It's at page 19 at the bottom. Page 19 of, of the document. But if you just click to me, it's under the Daktronics section.

Ah, gotcha.

I got it if you need it.

What, what's the first couple?

Daktronics believed that failing to enter into a commercial relationship with Mr. Leonard could jeopardize its ability to win the bid for the Intuit Dome. Later in May 2020, in a call with a senior executive of Daktronics, a senior Clippers executive specified the precise financial terms that the Clippers expected Daktronics to provide to Mr. Leonard in the endorsement agreement, $3 million per year for 2 years.

If you fast forward to February 2021, this time the Clippers executive told Daktronics that because the team had decided to increase the amount it would spend on the scoreboard, Daktronics should correspondingly increase the amount it would pay to Mr. Leonard. After some negotiation, and again based on its concern that failing to comply could jeopardize its business With the Clippers, Daktronics ultimately agreed to increase its second-year payment to Mr. Leonard by $2 million. In return, the amended agreement called for Mr. Leonard to provide additional services. This arrangement was reflected in an amendment to the Daktronics Leonard endorsement agreement executed on May 20th, 2021.

And this is what tells Reed, quote, to underscore the point, the impetus to provide this additional $2 million payment to Mr. Leonard Did not come from Daktronics. Instead, it originated entirely from the Clippers.

I, I'm smoking the gun because it, it's all anyone said to me. Are you after Ballmer? What are you doing? You have no smoking gun. You guys are not journalists, you're morons. Wachtell, in their ability to spend Ballmer's money, which we need to re-point out that Steve Ballmer paid for this investigation. Just a quick side note for everyone to remember.

We'll do— we'll do this via full accounting at some point in the future when the legal bills are all tallied, because they're not over yet. We learned today.

No, they are not. So it's just very clear. And when the evidence becomes that clear and then you have it again happen— and what Wachtell said in the report is it wasn't just Daktronics. They went endorser by endorser of Kawai and showed the same pattern. And that's how you end up with this penalty.

And that's how you end up talking about aspiration, where we started this story, as almost like, you know, close to the end, I think, of what we can do here in one episode, which we'll of course follow up on. But the summary here, as we get to aspiration, is a Gillian Zucker story here. And look, we've had emails in which Joe Sandberg is talking about how helpful Gillian is going to be, we should activate all this stuff. I don't want to do the Aspiration series again, but here is the summary from Wachtell, which is that it's October of 2021 and Ms. Zucker raised the topic of endorsement agreements between team sponsors and players, and she used Mr. Leonard and another player— foreshadowing— as examples of players with whom Aspiration could partner. Ms. Zucker told investigators that she told Mr. Sandberg that NBA rules prevented her from providing such assistance, but the record establishes that she acted otherwise. And this takes us to Joe Sandberg, the aforementioned convicted felon in federal prison who said to the NBA something interesting, it seems, because, quote, indeed, in that very same— in that very same conversation, and rather than simply supplying Mr. Sandberg with contact information for Mr. Leonard and/or his representative, which is all that is permitted by the CBA circumvention rules, Ms. Zucker told Mr. Sandberg that she would enlist a particular business agent to assist Mr. Sandberg in structuring the agreement, a business agent who was then under a retention agreement with the Clippers, end quote.

And just to spell that out, there was an agency working for both the Clippers and for Aspiration, and we will Again, have to hold on some of the reporting here, but that agency ended up being a nexus through paperwork and money to flow.

When you look at that part of the Wachtell report, and again, we just got it an hour and a half ago, and I've done— I will admit that I've only read the report once and I will have to read it again. But one thing, another thing that came to me while reading this report is that a conversation with Joe Sandberg— Wachtell's the investigator— had to find another way to get at the Clippers and Zucker, to get at the truth. They weren't just going to base it on any testimony from Sandberg. And what Wachtell said in the report is, hold on a second, Zucker did the same thing with 4 companies exactly this way. What are the chances that As that Joe Sandberg's line, but yet the other 3 companies, it's exactly the same. Well, maybe— wait a minute, maybe Joe Sandberg is telling the truth about this specific part, which is not an SEC violation. I remind everybody, this is salary cap circumvention, not SEC violation for Zucker and the Clippers. No criminal issue whatsoever. But this is a damning paragraph. When a convicted felon is explaining to the investigators something that is so easily corroborated, that is when, if you're Steve Ballmer, you say, I can't go forward with my president of business operations.

Of course. I mean, unless, unless all of this was also something that was cool with him.

But it doesn't matter. You still sell her down the river.

You don't blame yourself.

It's like saying Jim Crane— I had no idea they were banging.

No, no, but, but I mean, there's an email here. Yes, we love documents. Yes, October 28th, 2021. Could you please read?

Yes.

Subject line: Aspiration and Kawhi. Joe is making an offer to Kawhi to be a spokesperson for $5 million cash plus $7 million in stock per year for 4 years, as long as he's with the Clippers. Can someone please come up with a wish list Joe should ask for from Kawhi? Joe doesn't really know what to ask for.

Which is the definition of a fake job.

Yeah, it's even— it's even better because it's better. On September 3rd, one of the areas where, interestingly enough, that Kira was involved when she heard the episode was the thing we talked about where I focused on that line, as long as he is with the Clippers. And people were saying to me, yeah, that's not really any big deal. That's normal. You wouldn't be a sponsor if you're with a different team. And I said, hold on, this is not normal at all. And there were people who came out publicly who said, oh, David, of course it's normal. No, the reason why it's as long as he is with the Clippers is that if Steve Ballmer is not paying Kawhi Leonard, then he doesn't need aspiration to pay Kawhi Leonard. It is right there as clear as day in the Wachtell Report.

Yeah, it's— it is normal, David, when you're talking about like Dodge of Dateland or whatever. Like, yes, that makes sense that the local car dealer does not want to, uh, you know, endorse an athlete who is not local to the area. But when you're talking about big national brands, the example I use, uh, when confronted with the same kind of pushback was Steph Curry and Chase. Obviously there's a connection there between Chase as a team sponsor and Steph Curry. If Steph Curry were to go to Charlotte, it's not like Chase says, well, that's it, rip that up, don't want anything to do with you anymore. We were going to pay you all this money if you stayed here. It's Steph Curry. That's the whole point. And so when you talk about national brands and presumably national name superstar players, these— this, this, you know, term is it has to be a Clipper becomes very suspicious indeed.

We have been saying this whole time for a year, $28 million over 4 years for a no-show endorsement job, plus this $20 million in guaranteed stock. And here it is. It's just— it's, it's, it's just— it's all— the math is adding up. And so we go through, there are more emails between the agent. Gillian was the person who wrote the email that Amin just wrote. The agent and Gillian, they're talking about how they want their thoughts on all this stuff. Agent writes back, Gillian shared with me that you guys spoke. She asked me to help you draft thoughts for the Kawhi offer. Please review and let me know if this is how you were looking at this. The next day, Zucker requests a call with Uncle Dennis and Mitch Frankel. Remember him? Kawhi's agent. Kawhi claims to investigators— excuse me, Zucker claims investigators that it's a quote preview. And one day later, November 5th, 2021, Gillian Zucker sends a formal quote-unquote introduction email to Mr. Robertson and Mr. Sandberg, which you may recall from the interview Steve Ballmer gave to Ramona Shelburne that first week of September. That is the bleeping email that has been cited as exculpatory evidence this whole Bleeping time.

Off to the races.

This was the introduction, right? And, uh, by the way, when she gets on the call, when asked about that call, she said she does that always before an introductory email. She gets on the call with the people, let them know, hey, this introductory email is coming. Which reminds me of the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where, uh, Jason Alexander and Larry David have an argument about having a meeting to set the meeting. No, we just had the meeting. No, no, this is the meeting to set when the meeting is. What is that? What, you're calling someone to let them know there's an introductory email happening? That doesn't make any sense. But in essence, that introduction email is what we talked about earlier in this episode, which is she frames it as though, hey, remember when you guys asked? Here it is, off to the races. But as Wachtell points out, this introduction came 9 days after Ms. Zucker told Mr. Sandberg that she would call a business agent to help him structure an agreement with Mr. Leonard, 8 days after Ms. Zucker conveyed to the agent financial terms for the deal, and 1 day after Ms. Zucker gave input on the deal's term sheet.

Off to the races.

Please, please, please, please read to me the next part of this.

Based on this series of events and based on the record related to Boingo, Daktronics and Lockton, investigators find that the November 5th quote-unquote introduction email from Ms. Zucker was drafted solely for record-making purposes and was not a genuine communication intended to kick off a deal-making process for Mr. Leonard that was by this time already well underway.

That's a major paragraph when it comes to punishment. It's huge because that is exactly saying that you did not follow the rules. The email was intended to comply with the rules. We make the introduction and we're off to the races. What is made clear by Wachtell is that it did not work that way.

This is not a crime of ignorance, is what David is saying. What Wachtell is asserting is this is an active cover-up.

And at a certain point, Joe Sandberg is saying all of this in his texts, and maybe you just discount him because of the convicted felon aspect of his story, which we get it. But he says stuff as clearly as, the Clippers are asking us to do this with Kawhi Leonard. He is then getting mad because at some point with the Forum deal, which we talked about already, there is, it seems, some hesitation, some conflict on whether Joe Sandberg, co-founder of Aspiration, is going to get what he wants out of all of this. And I mean, this is the rational explanation part. I want to zoom to this. No Clippers witness could provide a credible alternative explanation for the initial appearance of the $7 million annual payment from the team to Aspiration in the forum agreement. They found another— it's, it's just, it, it— you scratch the surface and you keep on realizing the depth. And what Ballmer tells investigators is that this was based on a study from a consultant. But the consultant told investigators this whole carbon credits deal for the forum, quote, that the Clippers had given him a $28 million budget with which to address the forum's emissions, not the other way around.

Yeah, no one does it like that, folks. Nobody does it like that. You got to figure out what your emissions are and then you pay to offset it. You don't give them the money and say, as I said earlier, Keep the change, kid.

There is something that was not addressed in the report.

Yes, there were a couple of things I was looking for.

I'd like to bring it up because I found it to be incredibly coincidental. The investments by Ballmer into Aspiration, the amount of the investments, the investment by Dennis Wong—

Did not appear in the report at all.

Who does not appear in the report.

Did not appear in the report despite, as we've said 1 zillion times, investing in Aspiration if it was a real company when it was in default, had its auditor resign, had been under a probe by the SEC already. And while, by the way, Kawai was waiting for his money only to get it 9 days after Dennis Wong invested for the very first time, the only outside investor to enter Aspiration's books at that point in December of 2020.

And I have an explanation for it. Because if you're Wachtell, you're investigating salary cap circumvention. You're not investigating the civil claim of fraudulent inducement to invest in a company the way Steve Ballmer has said, I got scammed. What— by not putting Ballmer's investment into Aspiration into the report, they are acknowledging that 2 things can be true. As we've said time and time again, Steve Ballmer could have been scammed by Aspiration, and Steve Ballmer could have worked with Aspiration to circumvent the salary cap. And there's no reason for Wachtell to address the first part because that's not what they were hired to do. So while I'm not happy they're not in the reports— I would like to know what they found out that may be different than what we found out—

Yeah.

It makes perfect sense to me it would not be in the report because Wachtell putting this together knows exactly what their job was— to investigate salary cap circumvention, not any sort of fraud with Ballmer and his investment into Aspiration.

Now, David, I have a question for you because the Clippers ownership structure is very uncommon in modern sports. Steve Ballmer, majority owner. Dennis Wong, minority owner. No more owners.

99% Ballmer, 1% Wong.

Wong, right? And so typically— Never been released before in the NBA. You have your governor, and then there's an alternate governor who is typically the other, you know, the next, you know, partner in line. Um, had Dennis Wong been in this and disciplined in this, you have a situation where both the majority owner and the minority owner Excuse me.

It's a great point that you're making behind the, the cough, which is if you suspend Ballmer and Wong, then you have to put in some sort of proxy to vote.

Can I, can I tell you guys something interesting? As I've come to know way too much about the ownership governance structure of the Clippers, Steve Ballmer is the owner. Here are 2 alternate governors that he has used in recent years: Dennis Wong Gillian Zucker.

Oh my God, it's just— I'm like, what's the name of that TV show with like a chain of command or whatever where it's like what happens when the president and the vice president and the Secretary of State, like, they all die? Designated Survivor. Who's a designated survivor here if Dennis Wong was out and Gillian's out and Lawrence Frank is out and Steve's out? Who's that? Is it Ty Lue who becomes the governor? And that's—

I thought— I think that I read something that it's going to be Doc Rivers.

No, they're bringing—

they're bringing Doc back.

Yeah, that would be— hey, hey, my voice, my voice, my voice isn't that good, but I'm gonna still do it just for you guys. Hey Steve, if you need—

I mean, Amin has the only impression where losing his ability to speak actually makes it more convincing.

If you need me, just give them— give me a call. I'm on the golf course.

By the way, I saw Doc in France, uh, And, uh, when we— I was— anyway, that sounds like a terrible humble brag. Um, but I, I gotta call— I gotta call Doc after this. Doc sat for the— as for the Wachtell investigations, he's not in here either. I just want— there are a lot of things— Aspiration investor, Doc Rivers, by the way. There are a lot of names in here which make me think that, to David's point, there was a scope. We've said this the whole time, right? An independent investigation is not journalism. We credit what this investigation found. We've done it for 90 minutes, literally. We've done that for 90 minutes, but it's not journalism. It's not telling you the story that I think the public interest most finds compelling. It's quite compelling, but the other characters that we've outlined here, Dennis Wong being one of them, David, and I can imagine a world in which the scope was given in a certain way, and within that scope, what became undeniable was the sweeping nature of this whole scheme. And at that point, the biggest punishment in NBA history does not need an expansion of scope, which they were not given in the first place.

And I want to read what Wachtell wrote in the report when they said, as part of the investigation, Wachtell conducted 73 interviews of 60 people. That's not a mistake. 13 people interviewed twice because there was more that was discovered during the course of the investigation. Then they said that they reviewed more than 200,000 pages of documents. It's the equivalent of filming 24 hours a day on the island for Survivor and cutting it into a 50-minute episode. This is a 36-page report. They found and looked at tons of other stuff, which is why they had to put in the report, there may be more. Yeah, and that's exactly what they said.

Well, let's get to our, our conclusion here for now. It's always for now with this story, um, because what they say in the report is the evidence supporting these findings is substantial. While it is possible that even more evidence will be uncovered as investigators continue to follow up on information that was recently received, the record as developed is more than sufficient to establish the rules violations described in the summary report. Ameen, would you like to take over the next read?

The 3 individuals most responsible for the Clippers' rule-breaking are Mr. Ballmer, Ms. Zucker, And Mr. Frank.

David, will you read the next?

I cannot because I was reading the report. I got you. I don't know where—

I got you. Don't worry. Mr. Ballmer knowingly sought to help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities and engaged in a significant act of facilitation through the Forum agreement. Mr. Ballmer also failed to supervise his most senior business person While she systematically violated NBA rules. Hold on, it's not letting me scroll. And more generally permitted a culture in his organization. Please stop editing so I can scroll and read it.

That allowed for the initiation, facilitation, inducement, and potential funding of multiple endorsement agreements between Mr. Leonard and team partners. Mr. Leonard, through the conduct of Mr. Robertson, Uncle Dennis, violated the CBA's circumvention rules by successfully pressuring the Clippers over many years to assist him in obtaining off-court income opportunities. Mr. Leonard also violated the CBA by failing to reimburse payments by the Clippers for personal expenses not authorized by the CBA, many of which were requested by Mr. Robertson.

And so now we await further confirmation. We've— we're reaching out to Boingo Wireless. By the way, I don't even say what Boingo is. It's the— Boingo was the wireless internet provider for the Intuit Dome. And if you look up who was on the board of Boingo, what connections do they have to certain Clippers executives? There is more there, I, I dare say. Locked In Insurance, we're requesting comment from you as well. And we await the conclusion of all the things that Joe Sandberg is dealing with in the federal court system, as well as the civil suit against Steve Ballmer, which has been hinging on the premise of what does cap circumvention mean when you trusted a tree-planting startup with millions of dollars of your money because you were in it because Steve Ballmer was in it to save the environment. And so I will, I will, I will have David please hold for one second. I will also read the end of Kawhi Leonard's statement. As I return to Toronto, I am focused on what I can control, closing this chapter and moving forward with a clean slate.

Slate.

Did I miss the announcement of the trade?

We await that as well. What happened such that the union and Kawhi Leonard said, we're gonna settle, and the Clippers perhaps realized, oh, wait a minute, our, our door that said system arbitration on it maybe just closed?

Well, I'll tell you what happened. You— we can start with the very beginning. What was the punishment levied to Kawhi Leonard? The very first episode of this, I was talking about what you can do in the collective bargaining agreement to punish players. You can fine them up to $350 grand. You can void their contract. That's about it. For months I'd hear people, reputable people on reputable networks They might have to see what happens with this Kwai suspension. I said, what suspension? Where are you getting this from? Because I'm reading this document every damn day. I don't see anything where you could suspend a player. Well, Kwai Leonard got fined $700 grand, which I have to assume, David, that's what, $350 per contract?

It's a settlement. It's a settlement. They could allege that it's 2 different incidences. They could allege 4 different ones and say it's $200 grand for each. But the bottom line is it's a settlement between the league and the NBPA.

But the endgame here is Kawhi Leonard, slap on the wrist. Uncle Dennis was already out of the picture. He's already moved on with his new agent, right? And he goes to Toronto, a place where he's beloved. Toronto gets to sit back and say, okay, he's here. We know he wants to sign an extension. He's a player that can move us up. into the stratosphere of the Eastern Conference. They gave up Brandon Ingram, good player. They give up Grady Dick, young player. They gave up 2 first-round picks, a pick swap, and they're saying, yeah, you look like you need it more than I do. And so Kawhi Leonard, if you're a Kawhi fan— and this goes out to all the people for all these months— why are you guys hating on Kawhi? Oh, you guys trying to get him suspended? I said, it's not a Kawhi Leonard story. And here is the proof is in the pudding. It's not a Kawhi Leonard story. I, I compared it to watching the movie American Gangster and walking away saying, I don't know why Russell Crowe kept messing with T.I. Like, what did you— did you miss the whole point of the movie?

You thought T.I. was the center of the investigation? It's— this is a big bulletin board with faces and strings attached, and in every one of these movies The guy at the top, that's the big fish. And then they get the capos underneath, and then you got the, the guy, the affiliates over here, and then lower people and street people and all that stuff. And what the Wachtell-Lipton report in essence painted for us was this bulletin board with Steve Ballmer at the top, Gillian Zucker over here. Lawrence Frank over here, and everything else was secondary to that power chain.

It is extremely telling here, the 2 statements, one by Kawhi, one by the Clippers. Kawhi saying, moving on, you got it, you got me, I did this, I'm done with Dennis.

I regret that my family members, these other people in my inner circle—

Why? It's a negotiated settlement. it's done. There is no more action to be taken against Kawhi, and there's no more action to be taken for Kawhi or the union against the NBA. But then the Clippers come out, and they come out guns blazing.

Quote in their statement: The result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative. For the past year, we cooperated fully and in good faith, and we will now fight just as hard to demonstrate our innocence.

Yeah, guys, go ahead, go ahead.

I mean, I, I play this game all the time. I try to put myself in their shoes and try to figure out what would my defense be. David, what, what could they pop? I mean, first of all, uh, just let's start with this idea that there's a predetermined narrative set by who? whom? Why would the NBA want a predetermined narrative against its richest owner and its— dare I say, its most popular owner?

Yeah, so listen to what he's alleging. So I love the vehemently reject. So that's worse than just rejecting— you vehemently reject the NBA's findings. But when you allege that there's been a heavily biased investigation, that is a shot across the bow at Wachtell. And Wachtell is in the business of being hired to do investigations. The last thing they want to be seen is as heavily biased because they want more work, more jobs, more money for their own partners. There was nothing biased about the investigation because it couldn't have been, because again, they submit to the NBA their findings. The NBA then decides, I agree, I don't agree. I'm gonna do 5 picks, 1 pick, 2 picks, $30 million, $5 million. Wachtell has nothing to do with that.

From the same release from the Clippers, quote, speaking to what they thought this was gonna be: unfortunately, none of those promises have been kept. In the last year, Steve Ballmer has spent nearly $50 million funding an investigation by Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz that has stretched far beyond the bounds of what the league set out to investigate, let alone the bounds of fundamental fairness.

$50 million.

I would have taken the over. It's been a year, David.

David, the lesson of this story is take the over. Every part of this is take the over. We did, except in one thing. Except in one thing, any rational explanation that all of the sources and documents and evidence and at this point vetted reports from all, all sides of the story, right? We are not Wachtell-Lipton cheerleaders. We have said from the very beginning, this is not independent. This is not journalism. We were questioning We were questioning whether they were gonna bury stuff. And by the way, as I, as I continue to look into the Rhode Island Football Club and Dennis Wong and all these other proper names that are not even in this thing, I just want to say, please tell me how you explain the sum total of what the last year has revealed to us. And we continue, we continue despite the vehemence to wait to find out. So David Sampson, Amin El-Hassan, I love you guys. There is, dare I say, more to come.