Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Luka Dončić Has the Lakers In "Win Now" Mode? Plus... More Ballmer/Kawhi/Clippers Mess!

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Luka Dončić dominated Eurobasket, leading an undermanned Slovenia to the Round of 8. That performance, along with everything else we've seen in the Summer of Luka, might have been enough to get the Lakers to change their long-term plans. Or at least change the way they do PR around their long term plans. Dan Woike of The Athletic writes that the Lakers, who had been reportedly very, very protective of their cap flexibility going forward into next summer and even the summer of 2027, could be tempted by the right deal to acquire a player who would eat into that space. It would be a defensive-minded wing. And right now, the only player who meets that criteria and is seen as available is Miami's Andrew Wiggins. Would Wiggins, who has an option for about $30 mil next season he'll almost certainly exercise, give the Lakers enough of a push to make it worth giving up not just a first rounder and Dalton Knecht, but likely Rui Hachimura, too? From there... woah Nellie, is Steve Ballmer in hot water. Pablo Torre followed up on his initial reporting about a potential cap circumvention involving Kawhi Leonard with another big story, this time linking payments to a Clippers sponsor and payments to Kawhi in ways that seem a lot more tangible (not that the initial volley of news wasn't pretty damning in and of itself). How much evidence does the NBA need in order to feel comfortable dispensing justice? How much more is coming out? HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky SEGMENT 1: Did Luka get the Lakers to change their plan?  SEGMENT 2: What about Wiggins?  SEGMENT 3: Ballmer is neck deep now...  Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!5-Hour ENERGYTee up that trip! Enter for a chance to win a dream golf trip for two to any golf tournament* in the USA. Visit 5HEWIN.com for full rules and entry. No purchase necessary. Excludes the Master’s tournament. Ends October 31, 2025.Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNBA at monarchmoney.com/lockedonnba for 50% off your first yearFanDuelRight 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 startedFANDUEL 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 Lockdown Lakers for Friday. Brian Komeneski, Andy Kaminetsky. Did Luca Donchage play so well that he put the Lakers back in win now mode? Plus, more mess for Steve Ballmer. That's next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked on Podcasts Network, your team every day.

Thanks to everybody for making Locked on Lakers first listen to every day, Monday through Friday, no matter how or where you get your podcast. This one's always going to be free. Never behind a paywall and Locked on Liquors on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 36,000 subscribers to the channel. They subscribe there. They subscribe on iTunes. They subscribe on Spotify. If you want the audio product, wherever you want to get your podcast, you can find this one.

I want to let everybody know that today's episode is brought to you by Monarch Money. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use a code locked on NBA at Monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. Of course, you could see a charge for this show. on your Monarch Money dashboard if there was one, but there isn't, so it won't be there. All right. We'll get to Steve Ballmer here, Andy, because there were a lot of people looking for potential more direct evidence, smoking gun, whatever you want to call it.

Pablo Tori is doing work, and he's working over the clippers. So we'll get to that in a moment. But first, I think it's fair to say Luke had played pretty well in Eurobasket. Andy, would you agree? Yeah, his averages were something along the lines of over seven games, 35 points, nine rebounds, seven assists, three steals, 14 trips to the line. Apparently, Andy, it got the Lakers attention when you combine the totality of this summer with what the Lakers saw out of Luca in Europe with the Eurobasket tournaments. This from Dan Wojke, now at the Athletic, of course, formerly at the LA Times. According to team and league sources, the Lakers stance on roster improvements heading into

this season has shifted because of the start of this new chapter together, meaning the Lakers and Luca. While the Lakers had resisted scenarios in which the team would take on contracts that lasted beyond the 2025-26 season earlier this summer, Donchich's multi-year commitment has nudged LA's priorities in more aggressive directions. And we'll, of course, get into that in a second. It's spoiler alert. We're talking about Andrew Wiggins.

For the time being at least. We're back to the Andrew Wiggins rumor. But just that in and of itself, we'll start with that, the notion that the Lakers are in a more wind now posture, less in a flexibility cap space for this summer, next summer. posture than they were before based on how well this summer has gone with Luca, including what we just saw in Europe. The everydayers know I have been extremely skeptical of this 2027,

you know, 26, but especially even 2027, heavy flexibility as the pretty hard and fast priority because we are holding out all hope for Janus or Yokic plan slash, reporting. It has always felt, as I've put it, a conveniently stupid plan that we never really started hearing about at all until after LeBron opted in Rich Paul's very cryptic statement that let it be known, LeBron was not entirely not just satisfied with his relationship with the organization, but also I guess not satisfied with their commitments towards trying to win a championship now, than when we all of a sudden started hearing this stuff, it has always made sense to try to build around Luca right now

because he's in his prime. And the idea of waiting one or two years because another superstar at that point starting to enter his mid-30s might shake available again and never made any sense and always struck me as conveniently stupid. Yeah, I mean, look, I know we don't agree on this when I think the Lakers are, you know, Rob Polinka's default. If we talk about, you know, fans talk about JJ Redick and his default is he wants to play small.

Rob Polinkas default is I want to have flexibility, maximum flexibility, and cap space. And I think there is the always the look with the Lakers of who is going to be our next star, who is the next person we can acquire. I think there is a legitimate question of who is the person. person that we're going to pair with Luca. And with the idea that like Austin Reeves is an excellent player, but do you think of him as the second best player on a championship caliber team? I don't.

I don't think most people do. Or if he is going to be the second best player, the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth guys need to be really good. Like you need one of those sort of a Knicks style stacked roster where like the seventh guy is still really good. You need something out of the ordinary for an NBA rotation. So I do think it's not that this

hunt for the next star to put with Luca is illegitimate. I just think this is also their, it's also their default. And so I've heard it, we've heard it from too many people, from too many places. And I don't want to say that this summer

confirms things because you have to know what they turned down. Who did they say no to that they could have signed into next summer's cap space? I referred to it this summer, you know, but people should understand by now when we say this summer mean the one coming up. You know, who didn't they sign? Who didn't they trade for? It wasn't a big offseason for that kind of thing. We haven't seen an extension for Rui Hachimura, who is somebody that would make some sense to give, you know, a reasonable contract to if he were interested in taking it from the Lakers. And I think, you know, might be. There's been no talk at all that that's even been broached to Team Rui.

So I do think the Lakers are being fairly precious with their flexibility going forward. So I buy it. I mean, really quick. If you're asking me, do I think that they are eyeing the next star that they compare with Luca? The answer is yes, because that's the way they always operate. And frankly, it's the way all teams operate. They're always looking for stars. How precious they're being with this stuff, though, and by stuff, I mean, cap space, flexibility,

is in a lot of ways defined by what they could be doing instead of it. We've talked before about how I'm saying. I don't know what they said no to. I know, but based. on what has been happening around the league and the amount of long-term deals that were signed, period, like, frankly, even involving pretty big names, but even like other than Nikiel Alexander Walker, there's really nobody of note who got more than a two, maybe three-year deal this entire off-season, like with guaranteed years. So you can only be precious with something or, you know,

like hoarding it, you know, treating it like Ghalman and the Precious when you have other alternatives. And what I think, though, is really interesting. We'll get into this with Wiggins as a test case is a he's being used as sort of like the baseline of going all in, in part because you can make arguments for the way the Lakers could use him, but also too, he's the only guy that really seems available at all. Well, we'll take this to the next year because I think there's a couple things going on here. And it's some of it's Wiggins. It's not that Wiggins is the only guy available.

It's that he is the most obvious fit for the thing the Lakers need, which is a defensive-oriented wing. And he's, you know, Andrew Wiggins is still a very good defender. Sure. And, you know, is a, especially when you need him to be your. fifth best offensive player is very passable for that. So he's an interesting test case in a lot of ways for that. And then I think you're getting right up to something that I think is core

to what the Lakers are really doing when they talk about flexibility, but also now when they maybe are leaking that we're back in win now mode. And I'll explain all of it next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Monarch Money. Most people cannot name all of their financial accounts or even what they're worth, whether 401Ks, properties, investments, side note. Get on it, people. When you don't have the full picture, you can end up leaving money on the table,

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figure out areas where I can be more efficient, maybe not even spend at all. And just create a plan for the next step. Take control of your finances with Monarch money. Use the code locked on MBA. at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. Monarchmoney.com code locked on MBA for half off your first year. So we'll get to Wiggins here, like the Wiggins part of it, like literally you know, the directly, the actual player. But what I think is happening here is kind of, it gets to a little bit of, I think, what you're saying too, Andy, because what I view a lot of this as, I do think the default for Rob Polinkas, Capspace, stars. It has been for a while. This is the pattern. And I don't think, I think they are being very careful about making trades.

I think they are generally gun shy about signing players and extending. Because they've just, you know, they thought Jared Vanderbilt. He's somebody we can trade. Like they've had all these players that they've brought in, Gabe Vincent, tradable contract. And, you know, it hasn't worked. They haven't been able, they've been stuck with these guys. And so I think they're very hesitant because they think they're going to be saddled with

players that they thought they could move and can't. But the other thing that they like to do, and I think there's, There's a lot of this happening here, is try to create a narrative and create an impression in an image of a team that has a plan that is in control of what they're doing. Rob Polenka promised over the summer the Lakers were going to be super busy, very active, making trades, hyper aggressive, all this stuff. And they were able to improve their team in ways that didn't have to give them. up a lot of stuff. So I'm not discounting, like I'm not saying the Lakers, do they have not been

the Golden State Warriors who have done nothing this offseason. The Lakers have notably improved the team and they've been able to do it in a way that hasn't cost them material, which is great. I think though they like to counter this idea of like inactivity. We're not willing to trade our first round or we're not with this idea of we've got a plan. To your point about going all in, right now, the only player that's available, seemingly, seemingly available, that fits with something the Lakers need a defensive-oriented wing who can space the floor, which is something Wiggins can do. For the stuff that the Lakers could offer, they might be high, high, high-end 3-D wings,

but the Lakers can't afford them. They don't have enough stuff to get it. It's Wiggins. And so if you think the answer is just what it's been earlier in the year, which is Wiggins is only available if you give up that first rounder and Dalton Connect and some other stuff and whatever, and that price is going to be seen by most people as too high, then you're also capitalizing kind of on the enthusiasm of the summer of Luka by saying,

wow, this is great. we are open, but we're going to try to improve this team right now. We're not going to wait for this knowing full well that there isn't anything for you to do. And so I see this most recent thing as a really good example of the Lakers trying to capitalize on enthusiasm without actually having to do much about it because there isn't to your point earlier in the first segment, much they can do. For the time being there doesn't seem to be. And I'm basing this both off what you hear, reports. yada yada, but also just the general lack of activity. You can look around the league and see sort of who's shaking loose and who isn't.

Right. So to some degree, not to get into Rob Polinka, you can't buy a house that isn't for sales speak, but based on the activity that's out there, there hasn't been, I think, a ton of opportunities they're turning down, which to me, again, is the most important thing, whether it's the win now mode 2026 plan, 2027 plan, or the 2032 plan. If you're not turning things down, you're not turning things down. What I think is really interesting about Wiggins in particular, and maybe we can table some of this for next week, because I do want to make sure we leave enough time for the Balmer conversation

because it's heating up. It's a deucey. But I think an interesting question with Wiggins is, for the time being, the cleanest way to trade Andrew Wiggins, forget whether or not you think he's worth throwing in a first or not is by including Rui because of Rui's salary. Yeah, it almost has to include. Well, for the time being, it basically, there's no almost.

It has to because the Lakers have a few contracts that can't be moved for the time being, because when they were just signed like Jackson Hays, they can't trade right now as salary balance. It could be architected, but we don't need to get in the weeds of power. But it also has to be something that the heat would even remotely consider. Right. But that really the answer is no. Sure. I'm talking about this just from a cap mechanic standpoint.

I've actually messed around with a trade machine, trying to look for three team deals. And there really aren't many teams with much, if any, cap space of all right now. So the idea of using Dalton kind of offloading his salary somewhere else, so the Lakers clear more space, it's going to be difficult to do this without including Rui until December 15th when some other contracts become more tradable. But also, too, I do think you can make an argument that while Wiggins may fill some needs that Rui doesn't, swapping out Rui's talent to gain Andrew Wiggins doesn't make them as good

as they need to be. If you could find a way to make this deal while keeping Rui. So basically you're adding Wiggins to what's there. At that point, I think you can make a stronger argument that it's worth using the first, maybe a little bit of protections, but something Miami can live with, you know, using Dalton Connect, swaps, whatever. Like it starts becoming, I think, more of a can't lose proposition. Also for the time being, they may want to, especially while it's very complicated to make this deal anyway,

take a look at what they actually have. The possibilities, even if they're remote, of trying to add Wiggins while keeping Rui, it's basically impossible until everybody's trade eligible. All right. So leave us questions, leave us comments, let us know if you would flip Rui, if you would flip that first rounder,

how aggressive you would be for Andrew Wiggins. And we'll use some of that Monday when we come out of the weekend. So here's what's going on with the clippers. And we'll set it up and then we'll come back and talk about it. Most people by now are familiar with the basic framework of what the clippers are being accused of. Pablo Torre of the Pablo Torre finds out podcast essentially has uncovered a potential setup in which the clippers are circumventing. the salary cap by finding a third party to give Kauai Leonard about $30 million in endorsement

money. And then it turns out there's about $20 million in stock options that were there for endorsement work that he never did. This is obviously a circumvention of the salary cap and is a big no-no around the league. The Clippers denied this. They say they've followed all the rules. They have no idea what's going on with the Kauai Llanard. Leonard aspiration. That's the name of the company relationship. They had nothing to do with it. They made introductions, and that's the end of it.

Pablo on Thursday reported that they have uncovered another link in which this company, aspiration, which was badly, it was in bad shape and running out of money. And as we've learned out of built on fraud, running into some major fight. financial problems were weeks late in one of their scheduled payments to Kauai, weren't making that payment, got a $2 million infusion of cash, not from Steve Balmer, but from the guy who owns 1% of the clippers, the only other guy who owns even a tiny piece of that team, invested $2 million in a company that was very clearly failing by then. And he would know because his daughter actually worked for the company.

And nine days later, I believe it was, Kauai Leonard got paid. This, Andy, changes things. We'll talk about it next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Fandul and the NFL season. It is here. Fandals making sure you are ready for a kickoff at the campus offer. Right now, new customers.

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proving that the the clippers did something wrong here that it can't just be you know based on what Pablo is reported it can't just be sort of stuff that looks bad the league needs to find something fairly definitive and it is on them to discover it um if they're going to punish the clippers and a lot of people viewed that i actually think kind of unfairly as them setting up the um the setting up a scenario in which the clippers just aren't going to get punished, you know, trying to find an out, if you will. Adam Silver did point out that it is not the same burden as a court of law. You know, he made all of that clear, but I think people sort of have their minds made up.

A lot of people do. And I, when we've talked about this, like, I agree, I 100% agree that all of this looks really bad that if I had if I had to guess what's going on here, I'd say the clippers were cheating in one form or another. But if the league is going to drop the hammer on the clippers, you need something more than Balmer invested 50 million. Kauai got essentially paid 50 million. You need something to me. If you're going to just hammer this team, you need something more definitive. And if you're just going to find them, that's almost worse than doing nothing at all. Because then it looks like you just let the richest guy in the NBA off with not even a slap on the wrist.

A couple things that I'm going to go ahead and say this qualifies as a little something more. It definitely qualifies as a little something more. And you said before the break, this changes a lot. I mean, I'll be honest for me, the answer is it doesn't really change much because from the beginning, I've said this looks very transparently. No, but this is a much more tangible thing. Sure, sure. I will get into why I think in a lot of ways it doesn't change anything, at least for me.

To begin, though, what you were talking about with Adam Silver talking about the burden of proof being on the league and people interpreting that as laying the groundwork for allowing Balmer to skate and the clippers to skate, it's important to remember that while the burden of proof may be on the league, the league is also defining, A, what is proof? It's their definition. B, whether or not the burden has been met. So for all intents and purposes, while, you know, this thing can go to arbiters and stuff like that, people have forgotten that the, you know, the Joe Smith penalty from 25 years ago was originally higher than it was eventually arbitrated down to. But this is ultimately Adam Silver's judgment of burden and. proof. So in that sense, I think a lot of people are overlooking how much direct control he has

over this. The idea of what is a smoking gun, what is not a smoking gun, smoking gun is not actually required because it's not a court of law. The CBA gives them a lot of latitude in terms of proof and burden, but also too, there is a CBA clause stating, quote, that circumvention 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 of these agreements.

And this gets me back to the thing that I've talked about in at least two episodes from the very beginning, like the rational explanation for all of this. nobody, and I mean nobody, has offered even a semi-plausible or logical explanation for what aspiration would have been getting out of this as the proactive party, what they would possibly gain from Kauai Leonard getting tens of millions of dollars to be a silent pitch man that nobody knows is associated with aspiration, that nobody has any idea he's even a part of the company. It's a hell of a lot more obvious what the clippers would get out of this and has been the entire time. Other than I'm just, and I want to make this clear, I am not in any way alleging this

could have been what happened. I'm just saying other than something where this LLC was never really a contract to begin with. it was something involving like money laundering or moving money outside this company, and it was set up like a fake LLC, like a fake contract for Kauai Leonard to throw people off the scent, something like that. That seems like a lot. It does seem like a lot, particularly since the feds have already been involved and you would

think that would come out of it. And again, I'm not saying that's what I think happened. I've made it very clear since the beginning what I think happened. I think they circumventing the cap to pay Kauai. My point being, if it's not something like further illegalities that we already know about this company, you cannot explain even semi plausibly what would be in this for aspiration. You can explain quite plausibly what would be in it for the clippers. And here's why this is, here's why this transaction changes things from the NBA's perspective or should.

because Steve Balmer, as bad as that looks, and I agree with you. I don't even think that you're wrong, but Steve Balmer can look at that and say, I have no idea. Talk to those people. And, you know, I didn't, there was no arrangement for me to come, and I have no idea why they wanted to give him that money. You have to ask them. And, you know, those people, and you know, who by the way, and I, you tweeted out this earlier, it's sort of a red herring, but these are crooked businessmen.

And they've been, you know, the crookedness part of it is being abundant in anything to do with whether or not you are paying way too much attention. But, you know, my point is he can look at it and say, ask them. I don't know. These are bad business people who are, you know, very obviously play fast and loose with investor cash, they have to explain to you why they were doing. And then it's up to the league to decide whether that is a plausible explanation coming from the people inside that company. What changes about this? And it's actually the fact that it's his partner makes it much more damning

because it's a small chunk of money at a time where it wouldn't have helped at all as an investment, as an investment, it would have not had done. It makes no sense as an investment. It comes at a time when this line item, among many, were overdue. And it seems to shake loose, you know, the money that Kauai was owed. And the fact that it doesn't actually come from Balmer, but comes from the one other guy who's an investor in the ownership group, to me screams much more coordination.

Honestly, that even if they found one more $2 million payment from Balmer, because Balmer is already in for $50 million bucks at this point. It could be, so like it's stuff like this. And there is going to be more because Pablo has sources inside and he continues to talk to more people

and more documents are going to come out, more people from inside aspiration that are the source for a lot of these things and the documents. It's going to be, it's not a drip, drip, drip,

drip of Pablo just waiting, waiting, waiting and throwing stuff out. It's a drip, drip, drip, of continued reporting because that's what he's doing,

making sure this stuff is all pretty ironclad. It's these types of connections that are much more direct where there's a much more, one to cause and effect, payment here, payment there. That's the kind of thing

that is going to allow the NBA and is it technically circumstantial? Sure. But guess what? That's good enough. It doesn't matter, but also too, like, and people are in a court of law, folks, you've been watching too much. A, you don't need a court of law standard,

but in a court of law, 95% of cases are maybe not 95. Don't at me about the percentage. A large number of actual legal cases are built, people are convicted, and sent to prison by an accumulation of circumstantial evidence. And so if you, two or three more of these and the league not only will have no choice, but I think will happily step in and be able to punish the clippers in a way where there is a paper trail that they can be like, okay, we didn't literally see Steve Balmer writing a check and saying in the memo line,

you know, illegal circumvention payment for Kauai Leonard. But you are straining all credulity to make us think that this one isn't the other. I'll be honest. It strains credulity that this sort of thing would be happening at this level of expense and Steve Balmer would have no idea. And frankly, I think the league would say if you didn't know that's your fault. Last thing I want to say, though, because I think it's really important. And I've seen Steve Ballmer try to spin it this way. And I've also seen, frankly, too many reporters, I think, biting on it. I have no doubt that Steve Balmer got scammed by this company.

I have no doubt that he thought this was a real business and got scammed. It's also a real. By the way, it was a real business. It was just a real business that was cooking their books. Right, but I'm just saying that they were a bunch of shady people. I have no doubt that he got scammed on that part of it, that he thought they were more on the level, more competent, more honest, more everything than they actually were. It's also totally irrelevant for what he is being accused of.

What he's being accused of through this reporting from Pablo Tori is looking to circumvent the cap. And if he thought this company was legitimate, he thought, at least allegedly, that he could use them for part of that circumvention. And the fact that it turned out that they were shady, went bankrupt, wire fraud, all of that stuff is totally irrelevant. And it is something that is, I think, people are focusing on way too much and it is completely irrelevant. I get why Steve Balmer laid that on thick in the interview with ESPN and Ramona Shelburne. I understand why he would do it. I'm just saying don't fall for it. Oh, yeah, 100%.

It is important to keep your eye on those things that matter. So we'll see where this is going. It is an interesting time, to say the least, in the NBA. We'll get back to the Wiggin stuff on Monday. Again, leave us questions, leave us comments. Let us know. How interested are you in Andrew Wiggins if it costs you, Dalt connecting that first round and Rui Hachamura in the exchange.

So Lock and Lakers on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 36,000 subscribers to the channel. We'll see everyone Monday. Have a great weekend.