Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Clippers, Kawhi, Ballmer Under Investigation. How will It Affect the Lakers, NBA?

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

Wednesday, news broke that Kawhi Leonard was the reported beneficiary of an endorsement deal that would, to say the least, run afoul of NBA regulations. The reporting from Pablo Torre Finds Out sent shockwaves through the league, and prompted strong denials from the Clippers. The NBA says they'll launch an investigation. So what happens now? And what happens if, in fact, Torre's reporting is verified by more sources? Plus... MAILBAG! Hosts: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky Listener Survey We’ve put together a survey to learn more about our listeners and make your favorite podcasts even better. Go tohttps://lockedonpodcasts.com/survey/ to get started. Everyone who completes a survey will be entered for a chance to win one of ten $100 Amazon gift cards.  Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Monarch Money Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNBA at monarchmoney.com/lockedonnba for 50% off your first year FanDuel Right now, new customers can bet just FIVE dollars and if your bet wins—you’ll get THREE HUNDRED dollars in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the FanDuel app now by visiting FanDuel.comto get started FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everyone, welcome to Locked on Lakers for Thursday, Brian Komenetsky, Andy Komeneski. The Los Angeles Clippers are under investigation from the NBA. What does it mean for the Lakers, for the Western Conference, and for the league? That's next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast, part of the Locked on Podcasts Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for making Lockdown Lakers first listen. every day, Monday through Friday,

to matter how or where you get your podcast. This one's always free, never behind paywall, locked on liquors on YouTube, is where you can go hang out with over 36,000 subscribers to the channel, all of whom Andy are wondering if it is indeed Apple Time, Apple Time around the NBA because a blockbuster report from Pablo Tori

on the Pablo Tori Finds Out podcast. our former colleague, EDSPN, is on a major newsbreaking role over the last few months. So a lot behind this one for sure. But he reports that Kauai Letter was the beneficiary of a cap-skirting endorsement deal. We'll call it potential major implications both for the league for the Western Conference for the NBA. and it's just a fascinating story. So we'll unpack that one. Have our reactions to it.

Plus, dip into the mailbag if there is still time over the course of this episode. Before we start, though, Andy, want to let everyone know that today's episode is brought to you by Fandual. Football season is closer than you think. It starts tonight, Thursday night. And right now, new customers can bet just $5. If your bet wins, you'll get $300 in bonus bets, download. FanDuel.com to get started.

So once again, Andy, the story is that the, that Kauai Leonard received a multi-million dollar no work contract with a now, this from reading from the article on the athletic, with a now bankrupt environmental company is a form of payment to circumvent the NBA salary cap rules. This story is fascinating. And people should understand this now bankrupt environmental company. They were known as a Green Bank aspiration. They were a company that Steve Balmer had invested, I believe, $50 million in.

They were actually for a while, while they were an actual company before they went bankrupt. And then ended up getting investigated by them. And the guy went to, I was convicted of fraud. Right. I was going to say there's a lot happening in this. The company went bankrupt. One of the co-founders was accused and then convicted of. of major wire fraud.

And this company, by the way, was not just one that Steve Balmer had invested in. They were actually the naming rights company for the, now Intuit Dome, because again, this company no longer exists. They are dust and apparently very, very shady. But it should be clear, just before we dig into all of the stuff that Steve Balmer may have done, illegally in terms of NBA rules, there is no evidence.

And were I to guess there's going to be no evidence of Steve Balmer doing anything that broke like federal law or actual law. Actually, right. And the Clippers. Steve Bomber's not likely to end up this guy's cellmate anytime soon. Right. And the clippers have strongly denied any wrongdoing in this situation saying that they were taken advantage of by this shady company as much as anyone. So the Clippers have denied any wrongdoing. It is worth noting that aspiration's largest creditors are Steve Ballmer and the Clippers.

So, I mean, because the Clippers were, you know, they were obviously a major sponsor of the team and all of those things. So, you know, they are left without when the company goes under, they're left, you know, holding the bag in terms of financial obligations and all that kind of stuff too. But this is one of these deals, Andy, that, you know, the NBA is going to be forced to investigate because this, if what Pablo is reporting here is true, that essentially Uncle Dennis, oh man, Uncle Dennis. Uncle Dennis, for those who don't remember, because he's been out of the news for a while, He is Kauai Leonard's uncle.

And no, I mean, he is still the uncle. He's back in it now. He is still the man's uncle. And Uncle Dennis has been for a long time, Kauai Leonard's manager and the guy who handles a lot of his business. You know, he took on a fatherly relationship with Kauai when Kauai Leonard's father was murdered when Kauai was a teenager. And, you know, he played a large role in guiding Kauai through adolescence.

and I believe college and played a role, I think, in Kauai's eyes and looking out for him being somebody that he could trust, confidant. But going back to Kauai's time with the Spurs, much less the Raptors and then the offseason that eventually led to Kauai and Paul George joining the Clippers. And people may remember the summer of 2019, the Lakers were involved with that. They were part of a waiting game with the Raptors and Clippers that. was long and drawn out. And there was a lot of reporting at the time that led to the NBA investigating the clippers

of Uncle Dennis making demands of all three teams courting Kauai for all sorts of under the table arrangements, reports of demanding part ownership of the team, like all sorts of stuff that, you know, Jeannie Buss reportedly just said flat out, like that's illegal we cannot do. that, but Uncle Dennis has been a controversial figure in Kauai's professional career for almost the entirety of it.

The statement from the Clippers is, quote, neither Mr. Balmer nor the Clippers circumvented the salary cap or engaged in any misconduct related to aspiration. Any contrary assertion is provably false. The team ended its relationship with aspiration years ago during the. 22-23 season when aspiration defaulted on its obligations. Neither the clippers nor Mr. Balmer was aware of any improper activity by aspiration or its co-founder until after the government instituted its investigation, the team and Mr. Balmer stand ready to assist law enforcement any way they can. They later added in a different statement, quote, there is the notion that Steve

being Balmer invested in aspiration in order to funnel money to Kauai Leonard is absurd. There's nothing unusual or untoward about team sponsors doing endorsement deals with players on the same team. Neither Steve nor the Clippers organization at any oversight of Kauai's independent endorsement with aspiration to say otherwise is flat out wrong. The Clippers take NBA compliance extremely seriously, fully respect the league's rules and welcome its investigation related to aspiration. It also should be noted just so people understand. According to a clause in documents that Pablo Tori reports to have found gone through. There was obviously this four-year $28 million endorsement deal that required

Kauai Leonard to do quite literally no endorsing at all of aspiration or quite, quite frankly, do anything for aspiration, but also, too, there was a- He's involved in one tweet that he didn't even bother retweet. Right. And Kauai is known as somebody who does not do anything on so. social media. He's frankly known as somebody that does not do much vocal pitch work for anybody, including, you know, like sketchers or whoever he's involved with now. Like the Kauai's never been known as a particularly vocal pitch man. But according to Pablo Tori, one of the clauses in the documents

purportedly, I'm reading right now from ESPN, purportedly attained by Tori, states that the deal between aspiration and KAL to aspire, the LLC that apparently this money was going to Kauai, which In retrospect, goddamn guys come up with a better name. Like if you're trying to hide anything at all, KL2 Aspire is just, I mean, that's frankly lazy on top of being stupid. But that this deal would reportedly be voided if Leonard left the clippers. According to Toray, Leonard could also decline to proceed with any action desired by aspiration and continue to be paid. We'll unpack more of this after the break because there's a lot. Like the first part of that is actually not unusual that, you know, these types of endorsement deals,

particularly deals that are done in connection. There's a lot of this that is not necessarily unusual. Starting with, it is not at all unusual for players on a team to have endorsement deals with sponsors of that team. And it is not a- They typically do some endorsement. But that's the part we're getting. And it is also not unusual for that endorsement deal to be contingent on them actually being on the team. So like those parts of it are not unusual in and of themselves.

What makes this potentially unusual and problematic, and we'll get into this next in terms of having a massive effect in the short and long term, not just on the Western Conference, but the NBA, is this. this notion that, you know, you got to actually, like you say, do some endorsing. So we will talk about that part of it and what comes next. Next. Walked on Lakers is brought to you by Fandul, the NFL season. It is almost here. Man, the clippers cannot wait for the NFL season to start. Van Duel is making sure you are ready for kickoff with a can't miss offer.

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So you ready to play? Download the Fandual app now by visiting Fanduil.com to get started. That's Fandual.com to place your first $5 bet. All right. So as Andy noted, the issue here isn't some of these that, you know, the four-year $20 million endorsement signed in 2022, or the fact that, you know, that clause about, you know, that he would be void if Kauai wasn't on the team anymore.

What is unusual here is the extensive reporting. And Pablo Tori, both on the show and in social media, sort of responding to some of the responses of people like the clippers, you know, people from the clippers, noted that he's got like, you know, he reviewed 3,000 pages of documents, has seven sources inside the company. What is unusual is this notion that it was done explicitly to get around the cap.

And that Kawhi Leonard not only was never ended up doing any endorsements, was never expected to do any endorsements, and was never asked to do any endorsements. And that the legal language in the contract says, hey, you don't want to do the thing that we're hiring you to do? That's fine. that is a lot of money to do nothing, essentially. And also, like even to your point, Brian, like there are elements of this that on the surface can seem okay. You know, a player doing endorsements for a sponsor of a team. That's not in and of itself unusual. The idea of if that guy leaves and it's directly linked to the team that he is,

have been with, you wouldn't necessarily have that guys or pitchman anymore. But at the same time, like the idea, for example, you know, the statement from the Clippers and Steve Ballmer that they had no oversight over this setup between aspiration and Kauai, like it's an independent endorsement. If that's the case, like an independent endorsement, then frankly, why would aspiration care if Kauai was a member of the Clippers. Like if this was completely independent of the Clippers, then Kauai Leonard could theoretically do this no matter what team he plays for. Like he doesn't have to be a member of the Clippers in order to have this sort of deal.

Certainly the idea if he's getting $28 million, even if the Clippers are not overseeing this, the idea that they would have no idea really what's been. going on with a deal set up with one of their major sponsors, that's a lot. I mean, that is a lot of suspension of disbelief that you need to give, like, grace towards Steve Balmer, especially considering they have a track record in the past, like, you know, it was a smaller amount DeAndre Jordan trying to get him, like, another sort of one of these side deal.

It was a couple hundred grand, whether they believe like a Lexus dealership. Right. And they end up getting fine for that. They'd been investigated before. Like there is a, well, there was investigations around a different allegation of

stuff with, or that Uncle Dennis making demands, you know, five or six years ago, um, that were investigated. Like,

I mean, if nothing else, if they're paying, if they care, sorry, but I was just going to say if they care about appearances at all, they would demand Kauai do something if for no other reason than to cover their tracks in all of this, to make this look legitimate. If he's getting $7 million dollars a season.

That's an argument just as much for the clippers not knowing as it is knowing. Because you would say, because if you were the clippers and you did this deal. And you said, we'll get you this endorsement. We'll do something for you off the books, essentially, or beyond the books, I should say. It's not really off the books. You have to do something. You have to put a picture somewhere. You have to be, it's very, so you remember in Better Call Saul when Mike has that security deal and with that lawyer?

And she's like, why do you keep showing up at these sites? and he says, because you have me on the books as a security consultant. Exactly. So my point is, if the clippers really, you could argue if you were the clippers that if we're going to get this thing set up for you, and we'll wink and nod, you don't have to do anything, you're not going to have to do anything. We'll take care of it, whatever. We're just going to need you to take four pictures, five pictures, whatever.

They'd make sure he'd do that. So I mean, I think what, there's a lot of space in between the clippers, knew nothing, and the clippers were the orchestrators of this scheme with this company. Because it also doesn't, you know, the fact that this organization was apparently run, you know, the company, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, aspiration was apparently run by a super shady fellow. also complicates this because, you know, it's hard to know exactly what was going on. And so I would suspect a fair amount of shady things were going on inside this company. But yeah, except though, the only problem. And real quick, I don't want to get into an argument of like who I believe.

I think I believe Pablo's reporting. I think that at the, you know, there's at the very least a strong chance the clippers engaged in a bit of willful blindness, even if they, there's no paper trail connecting Steve Balmer through emails to this company and this endorsement deal, that they were willing to sort of under, they probably maybe understood what was going on and looked the other way because it was beneficial for them to be able to do it. All I'm saying is the idea, just really quick, the idea that it was a shady run company, I understand that. That's more them ripping off other people. But if this is not something that greatly benefits the clippers on

some level, then there's no reason for aspiration to do it at all because they got no benefits from this whatsoever. Nobody even knew that Kauai Leonard was involved with aspiration because he wasn't doing the pitching and endorsing that he was paid to do. If it's not benefiting the rabbit hole here, I don't entirely agree with you, but it's it's also a bit of a rabbit hole. What I think is interesting here, though, is what this is what this is going to do around the league because it's a little like tampering. There are, you know, people, why do people come to L.A.? The traditional advantage of L.A.

You make much more off the court when you're in L.A. Because you get endorsement deals all over the place. Like this sort of thing structurally has been built into the, you know, the NBA all the time. You know, you get the local car dealership. You get the, you know, all. So it's not that players could set themselves up with extra endorsements. It's not even that they could do that through the team, which again, is not unusual. But it's sort of like tampering.

Don't make, and there are probably a lot of deals where, like, you know, you're getting paid a lot more than you might otherwise. And there probably are a lot of situations where an agent or someone, because maybe, they want to get in good with the team, become like, you know, a sponsor of this, become the official blank of whatever and show their like, you know, into what, you know, whatever it might be, tap into a fan base, all that kind of stuff. Something like this, though, where it either becomes a wink and a nod towards extra money essentially being funneled to a player to circumvent the cap or an actual

scheme to do it, that's what crosses the line for the NBA to be like, okay, you have forced us to investigate this. In the same way, like, tampering happens constantly across the league. But when Magic Johnson goes on Jimmy Kimmel and does the wink, wink talking about Paul George, that's when the league. Right. The league had no choice but to investigate that. And this sort of thing, and this is going to take a while to play out, and the clippers are going to be able to deny a lot of stuff and they will, you know, find ways to have plausible deniability and all this kinds of things. But one of the things we'll talk about this next, but one of the things I think is definitely

kind of an interesting thing to follow here is this notion that the league either won't punish the clippers because they don't care about this sort of thing or that they can't, there's no real good way to punish Balmer because he's just too rich. Both of those things, in my opinion, are extremely untrue. We'll do that next. The analog to this, Andy, is that, you know, 20 years ago or whatever it was now, where Joe Smith signed a series of one-year deals with the Timberwolves in a way to get around cap rules with the idea that he would then sign a big extension

with Minnesota and make all that money back. The Timberwolves got hammered by that deal. Forget what the league did to Joe Smith, avoiding the contract, and never made that money back. The wolves got hammered. They were fined. They lost multiple first round draft picks. They were absolutely eviscerated by this scheme of theirs.

And were the clippers who are already, essentially out of first round picks, you know, seen to have done this, or at the very least been too fast and loose with their oversight of their sponsors or things like that, Certainly one way to put it. The NBA came and dropped a hammer on them. It would be potentially devastating to a team that is,

I realize Lakers fans don't always like to take the clipper seriously, but a 50-win team in the Western Conference, a major player just in terms of money and resources and financial wherewithal to compete on a year-to-year basis. and the other major team that you can play for if you want to be in L.A. or New York, like you got three to choose from. The Clippers become a team that everybody knows isn't going to be able to win for a few years. They're in Capel and they have no draft picks.

That advantage is the Lakers in a significant way. It does, although, I mean, we're a little ways away from that. I'm just saying like, you know, this is a relevant story both on a, what does it do for the league, but also what does it do for the Western Conference and, you know, the Pacific Division? It depends on what the penalty is. Like the penalty under circumvention rules from the last CBA, teams can be punished with fines up to $7.5 million. You know, Steve Balmer can hand them a custom made $7.5 million bill and call it a day. Direct forfeiture of draft picks like the clear.

Clippers have very little control over their draft picks between now and 2032. Like there's a few that they own because of the Steppingen rule they can't trade. But like there are some that are caught up in either swaps or like less favorable of these two deals. Stuff like that. But if they took like we're taking your next three first round picks that you can have, like whatever they are, even if there's a year in between them. Sure. But my point is there are a team that was already in a lot of ways.

I think pricing in the idea of we're not going to be able to do much with that in terms of building a team anyway. If Kauai's deal gets voided, obviously that hurts Kauai, especially since the company that was paying him under the table is gone now. That hurts Kauai. And the money, though, still stays on the Klipper's books. But like you noted before, they're in Kappel. for a couple years until 2027 when they had been planning on big game hunting and theoretically could rebuild themselves anyway despite this stuff happening, which is why I think Adam Silver needs to attempt to go further than this stated max for no other reason than to send a message

that he's serious about this and that also he's not the soft on blank commissioner. because that is his rep. Like Adam Silver is seen as the commissioner that gets walked all over by players, by owners. Like even the Donald Sterling ban that was like the first big thing that Adam Silver dealt with as commissioner. Like that's obviously not nothing and it's complicated. But the truth is that was kind of served up to him on a silver platter. Like you're talking about a racist, misogynist guy who happened to be one of the, the league's worst owners, one of sports worst owners in terms of quality of work owning a team

that was bringing down the value of a team in Los Angeles. They had been looking for ways to get rid of him. It was frankly overdue for decades. So in a lot of ways, again, it's complicated, but it was kind of easy. And ever since then, Adam Silver's been seen as the guy that kind of just he's almost, almost Gdellish in the way that he is just sort of considered the guy that works for the owners. And that's, he doesn't really take charge of anything. He just, he, I think he needs to go further.

And if it goes through arbitration, it goes through arbitration. But he needs to, he needs to at least attempt to hurt Balmer, you know, one of the 10 wealthiest people in the world in ways that go beyond just NBA penalties. Because to be perfectly honest, they're not really going to hurt. bomber. Well, I mean, I don't know what, like, I'm not sure what, what you can do beyond NBA penalties, but like, I would, I wouldn't attend prison. I would know, but I would look to, uh, take revenue away from him. I mean, I mean, first of, I mean, if nothing else, he'll be suspended, you know, for a year or two, I would think. And, you know, that, again, they'll, they'll, they'll hammer him with what they can, what they can't, the only thing they can't do is fine him into, but there's no amount they can take revenue away that he can't replace. financial penalties won't work. Only competitive penalties will. No, but what I think, though, we'll see is, you know, the end,

there will be more that comes out of this. You know, Pablo's initial reporting will be elaborated on. It will be followed up on, not by Pablo. More documents will probably be released. They'll probably figure out more ways to, to put more information out there and all that kind of stuff. But other outlets will now start poking around this as well. And they'll start doing interviews.

Like, you know, this is how this sort of thing works. One outlet or one, you know, source goes and, you know, find some stuff. And then more people still go. And you tend to get an avalanche here. And I think, you know, the NBA, they will certainly not be able to, ignore this one. I mean, there are certain things where you can kind of be like, again, some of these like tampering things, whatever means, like, okay, but there's not a whole lot we can do about it.

This one can't be ignored because while I'm sure there are, like I said earlier in the first segment, there are probably a lot of these deals that are get close-ish to the line. Like, again, you're finding ways to sweeten up a deal by, you know, we can make sure we get some sponsorships for you and all that kind of stuff. This would blow through any sense of fair play. And if you have a salary cap league and to say the least, the NBA is dedicated to its salary cap, you can. In part to stop owners like Steve Balmer from. buying the league. Correct.

And being able to basically buy anything that they want. Like, it's funny. We talked before about how the Lakers were pursuing Kauai Leonard. And, you know, on a bunch of fronts, they dodged a bullet in him deciding to go to the clippers instead of them. I thought at the time he was never going to go to the Lakers. I always thought he was leveraging the Lakers. I said it at the time.

But they dodged a bullet in part because Kauai's availability has been so up and down. But if there's ever been an upside to being, you know, mom and pop level billionaires in a league that's increasingly filled with venture capitalists and tech bro money and bomber money, it's that even if even if you were tempted to do something like this and for what it's worth, I don't think in a million years, Jeannie would. I just don't think she would. She can't. Like she actually couldn't do something like this even if she wanted to. we've seen some of the limits the Lakers have added with spending. They couldn't do this even if they wanted. It's part of the reason why it was so important that Mark Walter and those guys

bought the team. Right, because remember, this isn't a, what essentially Steve Ballmer is being accused of here isn't helping facilitate a deal, you know, that, you know, Kauai, you know, and then, you know, hey, we hooked you. Like, you know, we hooked you up. these folks over here at um you know at as aspiration and then you know will you know you guys work out the details but like hey we think it's a good connection they're not just playing like

yenta here um what they're being accused of essentially is funneling money into the the company as a mechanism for yes getting you know see for for for for getting this money to kauai Leonard because Steve Ballmer was a primary investor in this company. I mean, this is going to be interesting to see what happens like as the league starts getting more of this type of money. There's talk of them getting into like, you know, overseas sovereign wealth funds and things like that. Sam Veseni from the athletic I saw made a great point on Twitter today.

The obvious way to do this is crypto. I mean, because shadier folks than the NBA. I've been using crypto to hide money and make things essentially untraceable for a long time now. And so like those types of deals. But this is, and we'll quit here. And there's a lot more to unpack about this. And we'll get into the mailbag stuff for tomorrow's show and all this. But there is, this is part of the problem of where the league has gone in terms of, you know,

And, you know, the Lakers arenas named after crypto.com. Like there's just there, and I'm not sure what the league can do, but like there's just sort of a broader embrace of financial vehicles, of sports betting, of all these other things that are blurring lines than, and in a time when controlling those things, things that used to be much easier to manage, much easier to control, much easier to kind of police.

Those guardrails are getting far more difficult to enforce anyway. And, you know, this isn't even, this to some degree could be sort of a remnant of the last old-fashioned way to kind of cheat the system. The new ways to cheat the system are going to be a lot harder to diagnose and find then this one, you know, regardless of what comes out of this. And I'm not saying that Balmer is guilty or not guilty, but like what the NBA should be frightened of going forward is actually

significantly scarier than this story, even if every word in it is true. I am willing to say that I think Balmer looks guilty. This looks bad. Oh, absolutely. I didn't say it doesn't look. It looks bad. At the very least, the league needs to strip the clippers of their lone Western

Conference finals appearance. Like, that needs to be taken away from them. That happened under this era. That needs to be taken away. I would start hanging all... I would start hanging all the Lakers banners into it. Like, that's how you punish them. I think so.

I mean, I think it the, you know, I think some... I think that the reality is not going to land on the clippers didn't know. or shouldn't have known anything. Like I think that is probably, again, my initial reading of it is like, at the very least, they seem guilty of negligence. And so we'll find out what happens. But this is one of those deals where the NBA simply is not going to be able to look past it.

There is going to be a major investigation. And if it doesn't impact this season, and it probably won't, it absolutely could impact the next three or four for the Clippers and the Western Conference. So Lockdown-on Lakers and YouTube is you can go hang out with over 36,000 subscribers to the channel. We'll see everyone tomorrow.