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NBA owners want answers on Kawhi Leonard's below-max 2024 deal with Clippers
Chris Mannix: I think Mark Cuban has his own reasons perhaps to be supporting Steve Ballmer, but the board of governor's meeting is in New York next week, and I'm guessing this is going to come up very early in that meeting. I've seen it suggested that the owners don't want any part of investigation here because that could open them up to a world of legal problems. They don't want to wind up on the wrong side of their own investigation. But I will tell you what ownership sources have told me over the last few days is that they want to know about the money. In 2021, Kawhi Leonard signed at the time what was a full max contract. No issue there. In 2024, he took less than the max. Now, the narrative back then was that he did it to help the team. Great. But if he was getting compensated another way, that's a different story because the Clippers are a taxpaying team. An extra few million dollars per year that gets multiplied in tax penalties and that gets dispersed to other teams.
Mark Cuban: If Steve Ballmer knew about Kawhi Leonard's no-show job with Aspiration he's toast, it's far worse than Joe Smith
Mark Cuban: It's not even plausible to you that this is a deal between Uncle Dennis and these two guys at the top? Pablo Torre: I think the person who is most likely to have zero idea that he was under an Aspiration contract was Kawhi Leonard. Mark Cuban: Look, if your reporting is right and Steve Ballmer knew, then it's over, right? It's over. Torre: What do you think the punishment is that's fair if, in fact, he's toast? Cuban: I mean, he's toast; it's far worse than Joe Smith. Now, the difference is just because someone says Steve Ballmer knew doesn't mean he knew.
Mark Cuban: Lawrence Frank has been through it forever. If Steve Ballmer did tell Lawrence and the assistant GMs, they're toast too, their careers are toast. Absolute toast. And there's a 99% chance that at some point it comes out, you know, as they try to protect their career. That's one. Two, the agent is going to be in deep sh*t as well, if it ever comes out. And the agent has got to be involved at some level. And so the agent, I don't know if what other clients they have, if any, but they're too. And so you've got a multi-billion dollar franchise at risk. You've got the general manage manager's job. You've got um the agent's job. You've got Uncle Dennis who has no leverage whatsoever.
Mark Cuban: If you told me if you hadn't told me Uncle Dennis was the one to make the call, I would have been more likely to believe that Steve was at fault. Pablo Torre: Wait a minute. So, let's dig in on that. So, why is that? Cuban: Because if Steve knew and the minute he found out that this sh*t was falling apart and these guys were a scam, he'd say, "Let me invest some more money so you can pay off Kawhi so this whole thing goes away and there's no evidence of it any longer and let's just erase all this from the books." You don't leave this outstanding debt out there. And particularly once you see that they're on a path to going broke and you know potentially you understand enough and I think we've all had enough experiences with bankruptcies that those creditors are going to become public and because that's where you got the story right and so that's you know the whole due diligence smart enough to know right applies to that as well. He's leaving himself so wide open in a way that he's going to be smart enough not to be if he's truly breaking the rules. If Ballmer was involved and he just immediately squared the circle, to use your term, the minute things went sour, he's a f*cking moron.
Mark Cuban: If I'm wrong on this and you're right, then Steve Ballmer is not as smart as I think he is. Pablo Torre: Well, I'm with team sh*tting bricks, Mark, I guess, is what I'm saying here. I'm teaming sh*tting bricks based on the reporting, right? I just feel like a really smart guy can be so desperate to get a star player that justifies the entire mission of opening a privately funded stadium to compete with the Lakers specifically who were competing with him. And in fact, when it comes to a bunch of scammers who maybe he didn't know were scammers in 2021, but clearly saw them as aligned with him on we're going to help you do what you want to the point of him helping with business development. the whole idea of did he have zero idea that these guys that he was dealing with on a day-to-day basis, CCing with the CEO of Intuit according to emails that we found, is it possible that that guy would have no idea that they were paying $28 million for a no-show job to the guy who was his most valuable employee while there was also simultaneously in that same timeline a $300 million, 23-year contract being struck between the company Aspiration and Steve's baby the Los Angeles Clippers that also had in the document that we acquired, the contractual language outs at every turn for him to not do anything. And in fact, none of it was ever reported until today. You're saying that that's plausible to you? Cuban: Yes. Yeah. The sh*t that happened at the Mavs that I had no idea was happening and people didn't think that that was marginally feasible because… you can't pay attention to everything and every deal that you do.
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Mark Cuban: 'There's more value to the scammers to doing this deal than there is to Steve Ballmer for doing the Kawhi Leonard deal'
Mark Cuban to Pablo Torre: My logic is different than yours. My logic, I'm putting the hat on of Aspiration. And just the Aspiration hat on, right? If I'm paying Kawhi to do something for me, even if it's a no-show Tony Soprano job, right? He's of no value to me in Dallas. I can take some of that scam money that I just brought in and let me give it to Kawhi in the deal because if Kawhi stays, they're probably going to be better. And if they're better, my sponsorship money is worth even more. There's more value to the scammers to doing this deal than there is to Ballmer for doing the Kawhi deal.
Mark Cuban: The reason I'm on team Steve Ballmer, right, is when I go back and I looked, the deal was in 2021 before their arena opened, right? Right when Kawaii signed their new contract, and it's $300 million. When you get a deal of that size with a new category sponsor, the NBA has to approve it. So, first of all, the NBA had to have looked into this. But that wasn't the overwhelming thing. Then they defaulted on that deal, right? they stopped doing it and Balmer made an announcement at some point in time saying that the deal was not moving forward and this was several years ago. But that wasn't really the trigger for team Bomber. The trigger for team Ballmer was in January of 2024 when it was either the SEC or CFTC said that that they were under investigation. So the minute Aspiration was under investigation, I guarantee you, in the mortal words of Charles Barkley, I guarantee it that the NBA took a hard look at it. And not only that, that Ballmer, if he did something illicit and under the table and tried to, you know, um, work around the salary cap, then he's got to be sh*tting bricks, right? Because at that point in time, he's the dumbest human being on the planet because he trusted these scammers to do something he knew would was against all NBA rules. A, I just don't see that happening. B, the NBA would have found it easily. Three, and this alludes to the Steve Balmer can't be that dumb thing. I've been scammed. Everybody's scammable but in order for this to work, in my opinion, he has to trust that whole company. And at that point in time he trusted them enough to give them an investment at some level. But I don't see how he would trust that company to keep probably his darkest secret as an NBA owner so that it wouldn't get out. I just don't see in any way, shape, or form that all those things could happen.
Former Dallas Mavericks majority owner Mark Cuban was among the few who took the opposite stance, defending Ballmer on social media and pointing the finger at the Aspiration co-founder, Joe Sanberg, who agreed to plead guilty last month to defrauding investors of $248 million. “Scammers do scammy things,” wrote Cuban, who even joined Torre on a follow-up podcast Wednesday night to discuss the matter.
Dwyane Wade on Mark Cuban saying 2006 Finals were rigged: Stop saying that
Dwyane Wade: I heard Mark Cuban come out recently and say that he doesn't care. He’s taking it to his grave. 2006 Finals were rigged is what Mark Cuban said. I have probably had one conversation with Mark since then. It was a very cool cordial conversation. I love Mark Cuban from afar. Everything that he has accomplished, everything he's done. But Mark, stop saying that. Mark, we beat y'all. Did we get some foul calls? Everybody gets foul calls. I can go back and point in 2011 during one of them series where Dirk Nowitzki had 48. He had 24 free throws in one of those games. Does that mean that the refs wanted them to win? I don't know. But it wasn't rigged. Like, we still had to play the game. You had a young guy that was becoming a star in the NBA. Did I get a few whistles? Yes. But was I the only one attacking the basket every play? Probably. So, bro, I'm going to get some whistles, too. I'm going to get some calls today. They were fouling. Let's not act like that. You're not about to tarnish the work that I put in as a young guy to do something that not a lot of young guys have done in this game to say it was rigged. Mark, stop that. Y'all got us. We got y'all.
Pablo Torre: "It’s sad that @PabloTorre didn’t take the time to find out how these scammers pulled off their scam." Uhhhhh.......... @mcuban , did you even watch the episode we reported? It's 80 mins long. We investigated exactly this concept.
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Mark Cuban: I’m on Team Steve Ballmer. As much as I wish they circumvented the salary cap, First Steve isn’t that dumb. If he did try to feed KL money, knowing what was at stake for him personally, and his team, do you think he would let the company go bankrupt ? Knowing all creditors would be visible to the world ? They got scammed by Aspiration, along with many others. Crimes for which they pleaded guilty last week. Scammers do scammy things. They did a $300m sponsorship deal with the clippers in 2021. That’s a HUGE deal. The better the team does , the more value the sponsorship has. It actually makes perfect sense that if they stole money from investors and want the clippers to succeed, why not give stolen money to help keep their best player ? It’s sad that @PabloTorre didn’t take the time to find out how these scammers pulled off their scam. The idea that the default is Ballmer is the bad guy is going to back fire on him.
Mark Cuban on 2006 title: 'It was stolen from us'
Even after all this time, Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban still has sour grapes about how the series ended for his team and claimed that the championship series was “stolen” from Dallas. “We hurt in 2006 after it was stolen from us, right?” Cuban said. “And I’ll take that to my grave that it was stolen from us.”
Mark Cuban: I love (Kyrie Irving) to death, right? Like when he was having all his problems in Brooklyn—and before that, Boston— we were trying to get another star to pair with Luka. Initially, I was like: Kyrie? You know, everybody called him a cancer. Everywhere he went, they were ready to get rid of him. But every player I talked to loved him." "And I would start watching his old games. After every game, you know, guys dap up and trade jerseys— but with Kyrie, people were hugging him like he was a cousin they hadn’t seen in forever, right? They just loved the guy. And everyone I talked to said the same thing. So I’m like, 'Okay, we’re going to go out and pull this trade off.' Because he was, you know, a fallen angel. And so, we could get him for a good deal. I’m like, 'We’re going to pull the trigger. We’re just going to give him a lot of attention and talk to him.' And... it paid off.
Mark Cuban: "Yeah, I mean—look. Like I tried to explain to people before the trade: Luka’s Slovenian, right? He's Slavic. Look at Jokic—same part of the world. Boban—same part of the world. Just a different mental perspective on the game and personal life. They're going to have drinks—that’s what they do. I never had a problem with it. I was like—respect their culture and who they are. As you get older, you mature, and your time will come."
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