Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - NBA SQUAD: Breaking Down The Crazy Kawhi Leonard, Steve Ballmer Scandal

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

Pablo Torre broke a crazy potential scandal involving Kawhi Leonard, the Los Angeles Clippers, Steve Ballmer and some suspicious money. NBA Squad breaks down all that we know, what this could mean for the league and much more! Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/podcasts/locked-on-nba Locked On NBA League-Wide: Every Team, Fantasy, Draft, WNBA & More🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/leagues/nba Follow the Locked On Podcast NetworkTwitter 📲 https://twitter.com/LockedOnNetworkTikTok 📲 https://www.tiktok.com/@lockedonsports Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! | Offers: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/offers/ #NBA #Basketball #Podcast #NBAPodcast #Sports #SportsPodcast Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's the squad show where we take over the feet of your favorite lockdown show. Today we're talking about this Kauai Leonard story because I don't know what Steve Ballmer did. I don't know if it's all connected, but if it is, whew, big trouble for the Clippers and the NBA in general. Not everybody's buying it, though. We'll talk about why today. Welcome into the Lockdown &Bee squad show. My name is Nick Engstead.

This is where we take over the feet of your favorite lockdown show. It's an open invite for any host to join and talk about anything they want in the NBA. Literally anything they want. I got Ryland Stiles from Lockdown Thunder, Philip Ross and Reich, Locked on Magic. Ryan Blackburn, locked on Nuggets, myself from Locked on Mavs.

We're going to talk about probably a whole bunch of things today. But gentlemen, let's start with this today. The Kauai Leonard story is one of the most interesting, like, could be massive blow-up in-your-face story

that I've seen in a long time. Let's start with this first because I asked this on Locked in a Daily today of West and Hayes, but I'll ask you guys too. Who do you believe? Do you believe the Clippers? That this was nothing?

and the Clippers don't have anything to do with this aspiration company that is giving money to Kauai Leonard and was maybe funneled by Steve Ballmer, or do you believe that Pablo Toria is right and that Kauai was getting payments under the table? That's basically the question we're answering right now. Bob Lutory is right more often than he's wrong at this point. He is a legitimate reporter and he has been doing a lot of great digging over the course of these last few years. And especially over Pabletori finds out, like, that dude has been on one. And it's just really impressive to see something like this pop up and out of the woodwork and know that, yeah, stuff like this, especially when you have to consider, like, so many of these contracts help you raise some eyebrows. Like, why did Kauai?

Why was he so vociferous about going to the clippers and really locked in there? What are some motivations that some of these guys have. Like that there's there's motivation written on the wall right there, four years, 28 million off the books. Because the time when he made the decision, wasn't he deciding between the Lakers and the Clippers? It was like this big thing. He's supposed to be part of a big three with LeBron and AD.

And then all of a sudden we're like, wait, it's the Clippers and he's going to go with Paul George. And you're like, what changed his mind on this? Ryland, is this what changed his mind? I mean, they've always said Paul George changed his mind. I don't know if now it's Paul George or the trees.

but you can also have a lot of trees in LA, not just in the ground. I think that when you look at this situation, though, I'm not discounting Pablo's reporting. I think that Pablo found out the right information. I don't know how much legal action the NBA is going to be able to take on circumventing the cap just because it feels like, you know, let he who lives in a glass house though the first stone or whatever. Like these things probably do happen across the leg that we just don't know about.

And it's why you've seen Mark Cuban already jump out in front of the moving train to defend the clippers. And like Kauai of all people has someone who we outwardly know he trusts with his family and with his representation. If you were really trying to circumvent the cap as an excellent businessman that Steve Ballmer is, why wouldn't you just give the money to his uncle? And like, yeah, his uncle's a part of this Activision tree planting ordeal. And it's never going to get tied back to Kauai. But then furthermore, if this was your whole schick, why did you let this company go bankrupt? And then now you have to release all of the different names that are on those documents. You would likely shuffle money to them out of the table in a more safe way where you don't have to worry about this stuff ever coming out because the company goes bankrupt and messes over.

The clippers included. So it's just very weird. Again, I think the reporting is accurate. I don't know that the objective, though, of this whole tree situation was to circumvent the salary. Alary cap. Yeah, I think Brian's, Brian's point is really true here, is that this happens a lot more around the league

than people probably realize. Like there were stories, I think, back in the 80s and even early 90s where the Lakers were trying to give Magic Johnson some, like, equity in the, in the Lakers and make him a part owner while he's a player or make a promise to make him a part owner before he retired.

And the NBA put the kibosh on that. Like, I remember growing up, the magic give out like a prize to like their, their community, enrichment award. They give out like $25,000 to whoever wins that award. The NBA tried to ding them for doing that saying that was a circumvention of the cap, but they were giving extra money to players. So I feel like this happens a lot more around the league than we think. What I think

stood out about this is the amount is just so excessive. It feels like it's a second salary. And that's where I think something doesn't smell right. I don't know if there's a bad party here, you know, there's been stories about Kauai's family trying to push him to different places that pushed him out of San Antonio, probably pushed him back to L.A. You know, I'm not going to sit here and say Kauai doesn't drive the ship, but there's been thoughts in the past that Kauai isn't always kind of making the lead decisions on his career at times. He just wants to go out and hoop maybe. But it does feel like there's something fishy here or something that isn't normal in this ecosystem of guys getting a little extra money for their charities or for whatever. I'm assuming if you at home are listening to this show, an NBA squad show in the middle of this deep off season,

you know this story, but just to be fair to everybody. Pablo Tori, oh, we're uncovered to this story, says, Kauai Leonard signed a $28 million endorsement deal for a no-show job with a fraudulent tree planning company called Aspiration, which will reference several times, probably in jest, funded by $50 million from the Clippers owner, Steve Ballmer, according to documents obtained by Pablo.

And an inside source says it was to circumvent the the salary cap. Then the Clippers made their statement and the Clippers said that they have nothing to, that they have nothing to do with this. Neither Mr. Balmer nor the Clippers circumvented the salary cap or engaged in any misconduct related to aspiration. Any contrary assertion is provably false. So they say not, not next to, they didn't have anything to do with aspiration. So they could have done it in different ways is what this statement is leaving the door open for right now. It's just kind of funny though that like, all right, so four years, 28 million. million like, okay, so why did aspiration given them money? Like what is, so what is this actually then,

if not that, I think is a fair question because he didn't like, and this is what Pablo was talking about in his episode. He did not do any promotional work for aspiration or the tree planting that they're doing and trying to turn something in that was supposed to be good. They went bankrupt. And I don't know the full story behind that. And I know that there's a lot of other people that are still trying to catch up on this too. But the full story is he was a consultant. He was like an apple tree consultant because it wasn't he, isn't he a big apple guy? Wasn't it? Yeah. I mean, great. Yeah. That's a deep. You remember the whole Apple story? Apple time. Apple time. And not the technology. Apple time. Poor man gets paid. I just think that there is ways for the clippers to cover

themselves. So like you you can push this off as like, well, yeah, he didn't do any promotion, but they never asked him to. I mean, they should have activated his services with putting stuff out. It's no different than perhaps a guy getting signed to a low scale shoe deal. And he's not in the commercials. He's not having his own signature shoe, but he is a shoe athlete for that. And he's not getting $28 million, that is true. I mean, listen, this is not, this is not clearly 100% above board. I just think that there's so many different avenues for the clippers to face the bare minimum punishment, which seems to be maybe forfeiting a pick, which the clippers. They just love giving them away. So, what's the difference there?

Do you think the Thunder get the pick if they have to give it away? I mean, I think that they should. The pipeline's already open. I think the punishment for Balmer should be that because remember he bragged about how many urinals were in that building. Dave should have to go down to league average. They should have to shut off all the extra ones.

League average urinals in the Intuit dome. That is the start of the punishment. Welcome in Danny Cunningham locked on Caves. Thank you for having. They can start on the All-Star game, by the way, that they're hosting in 2020. That ultimately makes the fans pay. You know, this is a... I mean, we don't think they should make them move to Vegas.

Like, the Clippers move to Vegas, and then the new L.A. team is the expansion team. They get to take over the Intuit Dome. That should be the punishment. That's a punishment for Vegas, too, though. Like, Vegas inherits a couple of teams that nobody cares about, like the A's and the clippers get to go over there. And that's where they send the teams that it doesn't matter who's there, right?

Like, the fan base is not big enough. Boo. I mean, I do think, though, that the clippers have done a lot of PR saying that the Paul George traders for Kauai, therefore the Thunder are adjacently involved in getting Kauai, along with this scandal, therefore their forfeited pick should go to Oklahoma. How much does the Thunder give to aspiration there, Ryland? Oh, we don't play in Oklahoma. You also were real quick early to be like, other teams may have done this. Like, I don't know what insight info. You've been around the Thunder a lot recently.

Like, do you have any insight info on? Is there an aspiration in OKC? To my knowledge, we don't have any aspirations in OKC. So that's going to be a left post thing. You guys have to worry about all the same. Which team or player do you think is the most likely to also have done this? Because he was talking about Jalen Brunson as well. I asked this in Lockett, Waddley Daily.

So which one, which NBA situation is raising your antenna the most right now? We're like, oh, wait, this is possible that a player made this decision, not based solely off of like, oh, I want to do good for this franchise. but Brunson was the other one that the problems were actually even brought up like you said. Yeah, Dirk and Barnson. Those are my two that I look at. Heavy, heavy, heavy.

Because Bronson. How dare you? I'm a mad's guy, but I mean, how dare you bring up Dirk in this moment? Mark Cuban throwing himself in the fire. He has done nothing wrong ever. His aspirations were pure. True.

Mark Cuban was throwing himself in front of Steve Balmer as fast as possible. Here's the statement from Mark Cuban, by the way. I'm on team Balmer. As much as I wish they. recommended the salary gap. First, Steve, isn't that dumb. If they did try to feed Qua Leonard money, knowing what was at stake for him personally and his team, do you think they would have let the company go bankrupt, knowing all creditors would be visible to the world? That's what Rileyan just said. They got scammed by aspiration. Don't we all get scammed by our own aspirations?

Along with many others, crimes for which they pleaded guilty last week. Scammers do scammy things. They did $300 million 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 if they stole money from investors and want the clippers to succeed. Why not give the sole money to keep their best player? It's sad that Pablo Tori didn't go find out, blah, blah, blah. The idea is that defaults, Balmer is a bad guy.

It's going to backfire on him. Now, I was in Summer League, and a couple of us were. We saw Mark Cuban and Steve Balmer, pretty buddy, buddy, during one of those maps games. And so, I don't know, maybe he was teaching him how to do it. He was teaching how to do it.

How does, like, let's take Mark Cuban at his word. How does that make the clippers or Steve Balmer look any better? How does that make Steve Ballmer look like he's a smart guy? You're not disproving that he's a, that he made a bad business decision, or made a bad decision here, or he's doing something untoward. It just, it reeks of, it reeks of, I'm a level above everybody. And it's, it's, it's, it's, you're flying too close to the sun. The sun's going to melt those wax wings.

You're going to fall into the ocean. And this is the comeuppance for all. Today's episode of Lockdown viz Squad Show is brought to you by Fanduel. The NFL season is here. Fandow is making sure you're ready for kickoff with a can't miss offer. Right now, new customers can get $5. And if your first bet wins, you can get $300 in bonus bet if that bet wins. So go check it out and see how you can use that across all kinds of different platforms. They are talking about the NFL, but they also have the NBA as well. The Clippers and the conference, let's see, they're plus

$1,300 right now. Timberwolves plus $1,200, Lakers plus $850, Rockets plus $600, Nuggets plus $5.50, Thunder, the favorites for sure, plus $135. Clippers. I don't know if this is going to change anything this whole kawai leonard's story but that's definitely one to watch to see if it goes down or anything if Vegas actually thinks that this story is all going to affect the clippers in any way but you're ready to play download vandal app today by visiting fandwell.com and get started that's fandwell.com to place your first five dollar bet at fandwell go check out all the NFL stuff as well great stuff for every weekend when you're getting into college football as well check that out at fanduel.com please gamble responsibly i think it reeks of like palmer got like

the bomber and paul george in uh kai they're the they're the they're the the victims too here. It's not like that he's trying to take it off of bomber being this bad guy because it is true. Like, why would they let this happen if this was something that they could have controlled and funneled money to Kauai in a cleaner way, so to say. I think that that's what Mark is going for. But I do think that the answer to the next question, it is, it is Brunson in the current NBA. Because like that, that whole free agency just felt like a recruitment visit more so than a free agency. Like when they hired his family. They just rolled out. the red carpet in that way.

That's right. Keep going. It's not even the free agency. It's the extension he signed. Like the contract that he signed at the time with New York was not like no one bad at an eye and said, oh man, Jalen Brunson really took a discount to go to the Knicks. No one said that then. It's the extension he just signed. It's, oh my goodness.

Because if you look at all of these top 100 lists of players, Jalen Brunson is in all of them in the top 10. Like that's how he's revered. Yeah, that's how he's revered. I didn't know if that was out when this is being released. So I did not say that. But yes, he's in the top 10.

I leaked it. Yes. We got a rat in the lockdown on the top 100. It's me. And it was the first time. But if you go look at that list of top 10 players, how many of those guys are not on max contracts? Jalen Brunson.

And maybe Wemby. But I mean, he can't be. Yeah, he can't. He's on his. The second he's allowed to be on a max. He will be. He will be.

Mike, I paid $2 billion when it's all said. There's there's plenty there but no I firmly agree and this is one of those things where yeah it could be Brunson it could be like other things like any time that a player sign because I think the the wording for the Brunson extension that Woj used at the time was unprecedented amount of savings for a team unprecedented amounts like okay so we're where are you going to make that up and the question is maybe he's just happy maybe he doesn't want it but i i got to tell you guys i think i would choose to take a hundred million extra dollars if i had the opportunity to do so it's what's funny about this whole kawai

st under extra dollars if i could danny's also going to host locked on midnights he's going to we're going to give him an extra show let's keep those checks coming locked on nbaa after dark it's what's funny about this whole kawai story though as i somebody post this on twitter is that um kawai hasn't even lived up to his actual contract let alone like the bonus contract that maybe this tree company has been given him. It's tough. And got to stay on the court. Got to apply.

Kawai has the best plan in life. Do enough to get a big contract, but don't do more than you have to. He's good degrees. He got his ring. He's happy. So one of my favorite parts of the podcast that Pablo put out that just really exposed all of this that's why we're here was the person who had their voice modulated and

talking about it. that worked for Aspire. And you could just sense you didn't know, you don't know who this person is, what they look like, or even what they sound like. But even through the voice modulation, you could tell this person is so jealous,

Kauai Leonard got $28 million for doing nothing. I mean, aren't you? Yeah, incredibly jealous. Good gig if you can get it. Great. I'm gonna tell you, I'm open right now to any fake company that wants to funnel me a couple million.

Let's go, let's go, David Locke. Let's create some fake L. C's over here. Honestly, no. I will do ad reads on locked on Caves. I will do the worst. This is going to be booming in Oklahoma for aspiration.

By the way, so far. Give me a million dollars. Here's our thing. We help the Clippers by doing ad reads for aspiration to prove that it's a real company. We'll do as many fake ad reads as he want on Locked NBA. Too bad that guys in jail now. Just bring us, just bring us in.

By the way, quick Clippers Kauai has 17 playoff wins and $28 million aspiration dollars in his bank account. So he is now, that is quite a return on investment over the course of these past seven years. I think eight of those 17 are against the Mavericks. Yeah, probably. It feels like a spire hasn't gotten quite the ROI they intended on anything recently. Or they did. They're just putting roots in the ground, guys. They're really just waiting to sprout for it. Hey, leave, leave them alone.

Well, you know, they did, I'd give it to the clippers. They stayed out of the, you know, spotlight and went to the streetlights for quite some time on this story. Okay. Well, here's the other thing that just got brought up. Was it Phil that just brought this up beforehand? Did the NBA leak the new like All-Star format to try and like push this to try and push this to the side? Yeah. 100%.

PR 101. I have so many questions about the new All-Star format. So yes, they absolutely did. the new all-star format is likely to feature around Robin tournament consisting three consisting three eight player squads of two team USA one world NBA players union like presented format so I can't even read it all the way straight it doesn't really go back to first class just like guys the NBA and shams pushed this out so quickly it doesn't even grab grammatically make any sense NBA players you need

presented format to the competition committee on Wednesday. And response was positive. The two team USA squads and one world squad would each play each other in 12 minute per quarter. Rider comes out games. Governors, team executives and players discuss the format positively in the competition committee. Do we care about this at all? Anybody? Well, that was my big question was like the quarter thing.

Like, so 12 minutes per quarter? Like are they playing 48 total minutes in three separate games? What's going on here? That's what it sounds like. A quarter is a fourth. Do we need to remind Shams in the NBA that a quarter is a fourth? So the fourth of the game is 12 minutes. It sounds like each team's going to play the other one once and the top two teams.

One of them is going to get a little. For how long is the question? For 12 minute quarter, one 12 minute quarter so they could keep the quarter break the same. Because like the complaint last year was the timeouts were weird. So now they just play a quarter and it's a normal timeout. And like that part I get. Who could have thought the timeouts were weird? I mean, didn't everyone love the honor of T&D got?

Yeah, and Mr. Beesston. I'm saying, who did you love that? People are going to be even more confused because this game's happening in the afternoon because they got the Olympics at night after, after Hine Yee coverage is done. That's why it's Ryder Cup style. They just wanted to lean fully into the golf

and the only people watching are to be Dad's falling asleep on the couch. At least it gets done early. Game night on Sunday. Correct, correct. Danny and Swipe on Game Night. game evening I'll be done early that day

like this still feels like the NBA is trying to rescue a dead horse like the All-Star game's done like there's no need for it really the only need for it is to the NBA does its business and sells the playoffs sponsorships during the All-Star weekend

the NBA just needs to get to the point where All-Star weekend is NBA Cup final give us a real game like still name it All-Star team give the honor like that that matters for history and all that stuff. Give us the NBA Cup final and All-Star weekend. Let's make that a bigger

event. Let's make it a big deal. You get the big national TV thing. I know Amazon's a lot for it. Two months later. Who cares? It's the NBA Cup. Or you could just start the NBA Cup qualifications, you know, in December and 7 November. Yeah, but the whole point is to get that like November and December games more interest

before Christmas. Another thing that probably hasn't really worked. Yeah. Like we're talking about trying to fix two things because neither of them actually work. The All-Star game does not work anymore. The NBA Cup in its very brief history has not worked. And we've seen the NBA All-Star format change your timeless time, time and time again. And it's just like, it doesn't matter.

All the formats on paper sound fun until the game happens. And the guys don't care. And they don't play even remotely like they do in pickup in August. So it's like until the players do their part, it doesn't matter what the format is. It was fun one time with the Elamend. Yeah, yeah. But the one time that they cared about the eel amending. It's not close.

And that was honoring, you know. And that was because they were honoring Kobe Bryant that. That's why it was one because they cared because they wanted to play in the spirit of Kobe Bryant. That's why it was fun. Not because it was the Elamending or anything else. It was fun because of the very unfortunate circumstance that led to them wanting to honor Kobe Bryant. They should just do away with the entire game and do the one-on-one tournament that everybody was clamoring so much for they won't do that either though because guys don't want to get embarrassed

yeah 100% want to do that guys don't want to lose yeah it's it's insane they're like okay one person can win the dunk contest guys one person can win the three point contest this shouldn't be this difficult to like be able to compete with any sort of semblance of grace and actual competitiveness but and yet that's what happens year and year out at the end of the day these guys want the break the break is more important than being at the All-Star game. They don't need the marketing help anymore. Like, like, you know, in the K-Day of the All-Star game, the All-Star game was really important for marketing.

It told the whole world who the important players are. They don't need to do that. Lucas is in a Nike ad right now. You know, Powell's in that Nike out now. In Dallas. Like, all these guys have their own deals. They have their own charities that they don't show up for and do work for, apparently, and get paid for.

They don't need this game anymore. and the novelty of seeing LeBron play Kevin Durant or LeBron play whoever on the East, because there's nobody in the East anymore, the novelty of that is worn off because we all have league pass, and now there's a national TV game every single day of the week. We don't need to see these guys in special events.

We can see them every single night if we really wanted to. That was different in the aughts and the 90s. Now they're everywhere. Everybody's everywhere. It's not just Jordan. It's not just the Knicks. It's not just the Lakers. It's everyone is everywhere.

And so the All-Star game is just archaic and unnecessary, except for the league trying to sell some business and have a little get-together in convention. Rant over. Anybody still like the All-Star game? No. I mean, I aspire to like it. I would love to like it again.

This last year's All-Star game was one of the worst made for television events I've ever watched. Yeah. And I say that for somebody who watched running now. No, but like this one. Yeah, I know. No, for sure. This one was worse.

This one was worse than anything they had done. before. I mean, they gave TNT a send off when they're not going anywhere before they were done. And they're still not done. Those guys are still not done. Like it's just like, what are we doing? And we're crying. Go back to East versus West. And if it doesn't work, just tell the 12 best guys needs conference that they're an All Star and it'll go on their basketball reference page because that's really the only All Star thing anyone cares about now is that they can say I am an All Star. They don't want to go to insert city name here in February, even if it's the nice city. Yeah.

Who wouldn't love to go to Los Angeles in February? You know where those guys would rather be Cabo in February for three days? That's what they would rather do than go to Los Angeles or Miami or Atlanta or whatever city that the game is in. The also game is really for kids. So like it's not it's not for us, you know, us grown adults anymore. and that's unfortunate that it kind of has just transitioned into that. But I wonder if there's something that they could do, like just kind of tying it in with some NBA cares events or like they already do those things. But those guys are so busy that entire time that by the time the actual events and games come around, they don't have any energy left for it.

They're just dead. They did they just want to jog up and down the court. So I wonder if they either a, reduce the number of things that they have to do or be make those things the primary focus rather than the actual game itself. I wonder if it might be a more valuable experience for everybody as opposed to like hey let's jam pack as many things as possible

into this stuff. Can we go back to the Balmer Kauai story that was the reason why the NBA brought the all-star story into it is to push this to the side so though can I push it back can I push it back to the middle? Was this what Shams was talking about? This is the craziest offseason ever because the clippers are going to have to sell the team again Hey, there it. We found it. We found it. This has not been the craziest off season in the last.

The Celtics and the Lakers both this off season. That's true. We're going to force out his second Clippers owner. Something to think about. What would David Stern have done today? I was just say, yeah, if you're Adam Silver, if you're, if you were David Stern, what would you have done to the clip? David Stern would have done the Joe Smith to them.

They would have stripped whatever draft picks he can strip from then. Yeah. Like, eventually. I don't think we've done it today. Like, yeah, he would have done it eventually after the investigation ends. Yeah.

David Stern, when David Stern would, you know, first off, David Stern would know about it before it hit the press and would have had Steve Palmer in his office

and give him a talking to. And now, I don't think, I think Ryland's right, that they're not going to be able to prove anything. I think they're going to do this investigation. The NBA, didn't the NBA spokesman

announced that they're, And like performing an investigation. Okay, cool. Great. I don't know what your investigation is going to lead to, but it's not going to lead to. You know what, guys? We screwed this one up. Like we've got this whole system and it's all held up by money

from outside sources all over the place and blah, blah, blah. And we'll fix it ourselves. I don't think they're going to. I think the investigation from the league is a CYA situation. It's going to turn up nothing and that they're going to try and sweep it under the rug. CYA count your apples. Yes, count your apples. Apple time, Apple time.

do what to do if you're another team like if you're the calves the fun to the magic the nuggets of the mabs do you care about this story only if you are also partaking in this kind of stuff yeah i mean that's the only i can't think like the cast somehow got donovan mitchell to stay in cleveland and not go to new york they gave him as much money as they possibly could including under the table. And then? And then?

Yeah, I'm sure the skims campaign that he's doing is much more fruitful for him in Cleveland than it would be anywhere else. I got some skims. Yeah, it's the best underwear I've ever worn. I've had the conversation with him about how great it is.

Maybe a locker room top there with Danny Gunningham. Well, there's part of me that wonders if Yokic just owns half of Sambor Serbia right now. Like, he just owns the city. That's just because his brothers have slowly but surely been taking it over with like pitchforks. There's there's there's a world where where that is actually true. But I mean, this we have to believe that this stuff happens around us. This is like the fact that this is coming to light

shouldn't really surprise anybody. It's just that it came to light at this particular point. It's that nobody else reported it. It's that Pablo was the one to get it. And holy cow, the vociferous denial from the clippers and from every. everybody else involved was very interesting. But no, it'll be, it'll be fascinating to see if it actually breaks that. And like, if there's something else that they find, I don't think that they will, though. I think part of what sticks about the story is that it's Kauai Leonard being paid to do nothing. And the perception is that he has paid to do nothing on his real job for the Clippers.

And so I think like that both makes the story funny and like ironic, but also less. impactful because it's not like the Clippers have won a championship. It's not like the Clippers did all these moves and it's worked out great for them. Like, yeah, they're competitive when they've historically been a non-competitive franchise. But it's not like this has dramatically changed the league in any way or changed the results in league or compromise. Like, oh, the Clippers were able to do X, Y, and Z. And obviously, like, there's still knock on effects, but the Clippers were able to do X, Y, and Z because of this. And now they have two titles.

So there's no asterisk to anything. It's the Clippers. They're just still fumbling all over themselves, even if their talent level is a little bit better. But is this going to be, if they do just get like a little slap on the wrist or just get nothing, does this open up Pandora's box for the rest of the NBA? Because we're in this era of the second apron and like it's supposed to squeeze out

talent from rosters. But if you look around and say, well, the Clippers, whether they meant to or not, they did this. Like that is in some ways circumventing the salary cap. why don't we just do it too and then act like we didn't know if it ever pops up just like the clippers did and we'll retain our roster even whenever there's mechanisms to make it so it can't happen we're just going to pay you under the table i mean i think i think that's why jalen brunson stuff feels more like it feels smokier there's more fire making the smoke with the jalen brunson stuff because we know his dad was an assistant coach with the team before he got got there we know that there's like all these things that just line up and again We don't know if this is true or not, but it feels like there's all these things that line up that are just, it doesn't smell right. And then he takes a contract, a guy who was a second round pick, a guy who really had to earn everything that he got and should, you know, maximize every bit of profit they can get because it was never guaranteed for him, for him to take that deal and set the Knicks up for their best team probably since, certainly since Patrick Ewing, but perhaps since they won, their two titles in the 70s. in this environment where you save as many pennies as you can,

that's, that smells a little fissier. And you're right. Like the precedent is dangerous here because you've got a lot of situations around the league where there's teams balking at giving their big players new contracts. Like, you know, Nick knows what happened in Dallas. You know,

Atlanta's going through it with Trey Young right now. With the Mavericks? Yeah. What happened with the Mavericks? Well, there's just one time Luke Adich now. I'll have to get into that again. It wasn't trees. It only took us 30 minutes and 45 seconds.

If I'm part of it, it's going to get brought up. But like this is like the debate that every front office is having. It's, you know, it's not just, you know, not just that the Luca thing. It's every front office is afraid to give their guys max contracts on their second or third contract because it's so hamstringing. And so there is now an incentive to do this stuff under the table. The Kauai Leonard stuff happened before you actually needed to do all this stuff. Now there's definitely a reason if you can get away with it to do it because you're going to ask your stars to take less money and less money than they're worth. And whether the star is willing to do that or not is going to depend whether you can keep your title window open or whether you have to trade your superstar player.

Yeah, that's going to be the biggest thing to me is just like if the penalty is forfeiting one pick or less in this. mechanism of the CBA, you already have to freeze a pick if you go over a certain threshold with the second aprons and the repeater attacks and stuff like that. Okay, let's give away two picks instead and keep everybody and try to win a championship with a great team. If we get caught, we get caught, we get away another pick. Who cares? Interesting. There's going to be more on this on Lockdown Clippers.

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