Pablo Torre Finds Out - Clippers Judgment Day, the NBA's Hammer and the Investigation That Never Ends: Kawhi-Gate, Part XV

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

As Steve Ballmer and Kawhi Leonard face historic punishments, Pablo reacts live with Amin Elhassan and David Samson to the NBA's findings — new C-suite emails, Aspiration texts, secret sponsors... and rational explanations, at long last.Previously on PTFO:• Part I: The Silent Superstar and the Rotten Apple Tree• Part II: An Argument with Mark Cuban• Part III: The Mystery Investor, the No-Show Payday and the "Smoking Gun"• Part IV: Steve Ballmer, the Other Cuban and the $118 Million Infusion• Part V: Steve Ballmer's "Inconceivable" Donation, the $20 Million Guarantee and a Head on a Spike• Part VI: An IRL Showdown with Mark Cuban• Part VII: The Briefcase, Ballmer's Social Network and Aspiration's House of Cards• Part VIII: Uncle Dennis, Ballmer's $50 Million Sprint and the Side Deal That Wouldn't Die• Part IX: Ballmer's Tree Money, the Whistle-Blowers and the Document You've Been Waiting For• Part X: Steve Ballmer's Victim Impact, the Man Who Prosecuted Aspiration and the Abacus of Incarceration• Part XI: Ballmer's Secret I.O.U., Aspiration's "Web of Lies" and the Zenith of Fraud• Part XII: RIFC, the Impossible Deal and Life After Aspiration• Part XIII: The Halo, Ballmer's Bowl and a New Crisis in the Super-System• Part XIV: The Jumbotron Emails, the Courtside Cabana and Ballmer's "Highest Integrity"(Pablo Torre Finds Out is independently produced by Meadowlark Media and distributed by The Athletic. The views, research and reporting expressed in this episode are solely those of Pablo Torre Finds Out and do not reflect the work or editorial input of The Athletic or its journalists.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Okay. I think we need to start David Samson and Mian Elhassen by saying that I have missed you. I've missed you both. And my phone is basically a non-functioning object at this point. Holy shit. We've made it to 364 days. And good to see you guys. Pablo, we figured it would be at some point. Adam kept saying it's imminent. It's imminent. And I guess imminent was one year shy of the first show that we all did together on September 3rd, the Pulitzer Prize winning, Edward Murrow Award winning show that we did starting September 3rd. And I think people are expecting us to be doing the Snoopy dance right now. But I think it's important to note that there's 35 pages to go through,

that there's a lot of both nuance and sledgehammer contained in the report that Wachtell released in full through the NBA. There's press statements already from the Clippers. So I think we needed to go live and wanted to go live. But wow, I'm still digesting. Yeah. I mean, how are you feeling, man? Before we get into all of this. I mean, in many ways overwhelmed, but at the same time, kind of, yeah, that's what I expected.

I go back to the very first episode that we did, as David mentioned, the Edward R. Murrow Award winning Pulitzer Prize winning episode, where I read from Article 13 of the Collective Bargain Agreement, and it said the words cannot rationally be explained. It was that and the part where there is compensation for services rendered that is not commissurate with fair market value. Those two statements right there, I said to myself, oh, I mean, there you go.

And so we, in many ways, we spent a whole year compiling information and testimony and kind of, just kind of the nuts and bolts of all the different things that were allegedly happening behind the scenes. But at the end of the day, it's all kind of superfluous, you know, in a weird way. You know, all that matters is those two lines.

Yeah. If you can't explain it, if you can't explain to me why Drake, Leonardo de Capon, Robert Downey Jr. Make more than Quy Leonard does rationally. Then I feel like, there it is. That's the whole case right there. So, David, before we get into any of this, I want to now acknowledge we've been letting people sort of trickle in.

We've been on for about three minutes, I think. And I want to get to what I've been so excited to get to for more than a year. As I've been reporting a year in public with you guys, two things are true about what we're going to do here today. One thing is there is more to come than is in the NBA's report. This is not everything. There is still more. I don't even know if we're going to get to that.

But there's even more. Pablo, can we pause right there? I think that might have been the thing that took me back the most. What walked out left is like, this isn't even all of it, guys. There are things that we have been investigating, continue to investigate today. The SEC got involved with Dactronics, which we will get to. That was before all of this happened. There is more. And yet, there are things that I learned for the first time in this report. And it's delightful. It's delightful as a journalist to see what was known, what wasn't.

And we're going to get to the 35-page report by Wachtel Lipton, David, which dropped 90 minutes ago. we've been reading forgive forgive the sort of like scramble here we've all been reading we've all been getting texts our phones are melted and i think david we should just start with the nba release we're going to do a bit of a table read here this is a way for you to catch up on what the NBA has ruled which is not the same as our investigation but you will see overlaps to a pretty incredible amount that will lead us to more discussion so david can you please begin Mr. Leonard, through the conduct of Mr. Robertson, Uncle Dennis, for those of you who are just catching on, Mr. Leonard, through the conduct of Mr. Robertson, on his behalf, violated the circumvention rules by pressuring the clippers to assist him in obtaining off-court income opportunities,

successfully obtaining those opportunities, and failing to reimburse payments by the, clippers for personal expenses. We could do a show just on those four lines. Exactly. I want to go to the last one first, if you'll let me for just quickly here, Paul. Please. We didn't talk enough about this.

When you've got players and they want to take a private plane somewhere and you are in a capped league and owners have private planes and they want their family to go in different places, when we give that to a player in a contract, That is part of the contract. That is income to the player. It counts in our luxury tax. If a player gets 10 private plane flights, that is part of the calculation. You're not allowed, even in baseball, to have a player and then start doing all these things for the player and not disclosing it.

And it looks like in this report, what Wattele is saying is, Kauai Leonard received tons of extra goodies, shall we say, from the clippers and did not pay for them. That value of the goodies, if you fly from L.A. to New York on a private plane, call it $80,000. That counts toward the salary cap. If you don't disclose it, that is circumventing the salary cap. if Kauai doesn't pay it back. And what this is saying is there was no payback. David, David, the most common,

you know what the most common form of this is, which I think a lot of people don't realize, is tickets to the game. Players are a lot of tickets, but sometimes players have big families. Sometimes they have lots of friends. And they're like, oh, I got 20 tickets every game. You know, there's an X for that, I mean.

We have to keep track of what tickets we give to players, because players have to declare that. Hold on. Guys, guys, guys, guys, we're starting, we're starting with the deepest possible cut of this report. Oh, much. It's the,

that's literally like the last thing that the NBA's investigation found. I should sort of frame that. Well, that was the Kauai thing, though, Pablo. Yeah, you know, no, no, I know, David. I, we're doing this with some sort of logic, but I just want to point out that based on this misconduct, the NBA has imposed the following penalty.

I mean. The penalties are the clippers shall forfeit five first round draft picks, one in each of the 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032, and 233 NBA drafts. That's a lot of picks. Five first round picks is a lot. And we should point out that there are things in the collective bargaining agreement that outline punishments, that outline five. to players and to owners,

which is something we're going to get back to to explain to people what's going on with what the clippers are reading and what's going on with what Watel wrote. But that is a major thing for a franchise to lose five first round picks quite obviously without getting a concomitant player. I mean, who's the guy in the big trade for the heat? The guy got five first round picks for a play in the Knicks.

He plays for the Knicks. McEl Bridges. Think about how many five first round picks. What we're describing in the contours of it, and I'm realizing what I should be doing here is I should be the guy to read because you guys are going to react. Yeah. Because that's typically how this show has worked for a year. But this is the largest punishment in the history of the NBA. Yeah.

And so the Clippers get fined $30 million. Clippers owner, Steve Balmer, is suspended from all league and team activities for one year for knowingly seeking to help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities. for approving a business deal that he knew was a precondition for aspiration to enter into an endorsement agreement with Mr. Leonard. This is part one stuff, by the way. Here it is that the NBA has confirmed in their investigation. And for Balmer's failure to create conditions under which his organization abided by the NBA's circumvention rules.

And inside of this part, as we get to the other components of his executive structure, and we show you guys on the stream like some of the. excerpts and some of the elements and the tweets and all that stuff. This is where it gets to be sprawling in a way that is going to require all of our explanations, I think. Steve Bomber in this situation, when you're suspended from league and team activities, that means he doesn't go to owners meetings. And you could say that's no big deal.

Maybe he doesn't want to go. He can't be around the team. He can't go into his own arena. according to this punishment, as you just read, he will be attending a total of zero games, zero practices, zero league-wide events, owners meetings, et cetera. This is a full one-year suspension.

Yes. Clippers president of business operations, Galeen Zucker, is suspended without pay for one year. Clippers president of basketball operations, Lawrence Frank, is suspended without pay for six months. the clippers organization and personnel are subject to a compliance and monitoring program i mean i mean

these are the this is the right-hand person in charge of business who we've talked about at length gillian zucker and the right-hand person in charge of basketball lawrence frank who we've talked about it like you know first blushed reading through the document pablo gillian zucker does not come off positively a whole movie inside of a movie with this. The full statement from in the document from Wachtel Lipton says that she's suspended for without paper one year for being primarily and directly culpable for impermissible endorsement arrangements

and for providing false and misleading statements to investigators. They made it a point. They even contrasted directly that the the statements from Ms. Zucker versus from Lawrence Frank saying And Lawrence Frank took culpability, he took accountability, he said it was on me. And, you know, he basically was up front. And meanwhile, Zucker basically either blamed subordinates or said did not remember or would give statements that were contradicting to other statements he had given.

I mean, reading through it, it was a tough read. And if you're a big fan of Gillian Zucker, because it was, it was, The investigators pulled no punches in letting everyone know. Even more, I mean, what Wachtel found is that Zucker and Frank and Balmer, they knew the rules. As Frank said, and we said it in one of our shows, we showed Lawrence Frank answering a question from the podium. We know the rules. Do you remember that? Do you remember that?

Everybody knows the rules. They know the rules. We know the rules. Everybody knows the rules. It turns out that Lawrence Frank. and D did know the rules and violated them. What Wachtel also said in this report is that what Zucker did is that she also knew the rules and she not only misled the investigators, which is a big no-no when Balmer had said

it's full cooperation. That's not cooperating when you lie to the investigators. Number two, what Zucker did is she knew the rules and then violated them in plain sight. There is a paper trail. The smoke is gone in the report is amazing. The question of documentation and evidence, right, there's a whole news cycle about, is there evidence? We have said for a year on the show, as we provide evidence, as you provide documents, emails, whistleblower, testimony, all of that stuff.

We've been saying there's evidence. what Wachtel has in their capacity to interview NBA employees specifically, as well as provide the mean the pressure of the MBA on companies that might want to do business in the future with the MBA was seek and find evidence. And so I credit the ability for us to read this 35-page report because that was unclear to me, right? It was unclear would we get an accounting of some of the accounting and some of the paper trail, which as we'll get to, as you'll see, was allegedly a court, well, according to the NBA's finding, it is settled. The paper trail of emails that was set up

to deliberately mislead people in the future who would see this and think, oh, of course, this was done by the rules when of course it was provable that it was to violate. Which, of course, is what Amin said in one of our episodes, when people have said to us, this is so obvious or this is so easy to ascertain. It's the opposite.

it. The way that it was done was in a way to not get caught and they got caught. And what Wachtel is doing in this report is showing the way in which they got caught, which provided basically the buttress for the NBA to put this punishment on the clippers, which I'm happy to argue with you both. I think given the Wachtel report that the punishment is light. And we can talk about that later, Pablo. No, no. I mean, let's frame it, I mean, because one of the things that I thought is what David just said, which is when you get the sweep of this, there is, I would say, almost, what's the way I want to put this? If you had told me, here is a report, 35 pages, read it and tell me what you think the punishment is. I would read

this as enthusiastically and as eagerly as I did. And I would say, I think they're taking the team away from Steve Ballmer. Oh. that's i didn't go there pablo because i think they go there for sarver i think they go there for workplace misconduct sexual misconduct and things and racism like with sterling so i didn't think they go there i thought that it would be a larger fine because i believe and sources are telling me in the period after which 90 minutes so this is very fresh so i'll just say the collective bargain agreement sets out a system for how you can dispute findings. It sets out a system for how players can. It sets out what owners can do. It also sets out what owners can get fined. And it is my understanding

that this is larger than a fine that you would normally see out of a CBA, out of a violation of salary caps or convention. It is the largest of all time. And the evidence was so overwhelming, but a factor to me has to be that $30 million is significant. Steve Balmer is going to write the check. The bigger issue for Steve Balmer is not the $30 million. It's the fact that from day one, when he sent you a statement that this is all provably false, he gives an interview to Ramona Shelburne, day two,

that was all a lie. He doubles down on it, doubles down on it, and all the evidence collected by Wachtel, 200,000 pages, all of the 70 people interviewed. It all points to the fact that Balmer led the salary cap circumvention campaign. I think that's the big reveal, right? Is that there was a moment where people would push back? So is it possible that this all occurred while Steve was waving his hands and cheering?

There was a whole new cycle with ESPN reporting it for the record. It just happened. like last week. But I mean, to your point, that was the reveal, which is this is a story about an organized campaign to get something that they all knew not once, but twice, but three times since 2015, as we've been saying with the Andre Dorden and Capser Convention, that they should not be doing. And that was another point bade by Wachtell in the report that Steve Balmer is not a first time offender. they went through in the report the ways that the rules are recidivism it's it's it's it's it's recidivism and so look i should say here as mr leonard is required to pay the league seven hundred thousand dollars mr robertson is banned for a period of five years all of that

stuff i also should say that the clippers have now publicly come out with a response and uh ameen would you read this please um the clipper statement yes this investigation has been flawed from the outset. And your decision to issue this report without any... This is to the NBA. Your decision, actually, this is directly in the letter to Commissioner Silver,

we should point out. This is a letter to Commissioner Silver. This investigation has been flawed from the outset and your decision to issue this report without any notice to the Clippers or their counsel is inexcusable. This type of witch hunt flies in the face of fundamental fairness

and of the integrity of the league and of this sport that we all love. We're exploring every legal remedy to address this gross injustice. I cannot believe that the Clippers did not communicate with Kauai Leonard. The first thing I do when I get this report is I am saying, hey, what are we doing here? Because Kauai went the other way, the complete other way. Oh, David, the question of what is the union going to do and Kauai Leonard going to do, This was mentioned foreshadowed as if they were in lockstep with Steve Balmer's Clippers, right?

That was the whole thing was come and try it, right? Come and try to punish this. This is clearly something that you can't punish without a reasonable arbitration process. And I want to point out that the Clippers released an earlier statement in which they said, we vehemently reject the NBA's findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence. And then we go on to say, for the past, Last year we cooperated fully and in good faith and we will now fight just as hard to demonstrate our innocence.

We intend to vigorously challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available to us and look forward to an ethical and impartial arbitration process. And I want to raise the question of, wait a minute, how are they going to arbitration now? How does that work, David? So let me explain. I have no idea how the Clippers released this statement because you fire the lawyers. there is no arbitration process available to Steve Balmer. And having spoken to people within the league and my experience in baseball, there are exact things that go to arbitration, exact fights.

This is not one of them. It's not allowed. The arbitration would be contained within the CBA and would be filed by the union on behalf of Kauai. Right. That's the big piece here is that, I mean, the union in Kauai said are bad. And now the clippers are trying to activate an option that,

according to our understanding at this point, at 627 p.m. Eastern, they actually need the union to activate to get to the system arbitrator. Well, to get, well, no, because sorry, Pablo, but see, this is live, but no. The NBA and a team could agree to an arbitrator, to submit to an arbitration process when there is a dispute between the league and the club. Both sides would have to agree to that. That's number one.

Number two, what the Clippers say specifically is we intend to vigorously, I love when you use that adjective for no particular reason. That's as though sometimes you challenge findings in a not vigorous fashion, but they will vigorously challenge these findings where the only avenue available to them is the court and not the podcast court, not the arbitration system. I'm talking about the court court, the real court. So all Steve Balmer can announce is that we intend to sue the NBA because of their findings. But this is the thing that I'm kind of circling here as we suss this out live, is that arbitration was contingent on the union. And the union is saying, we're actually,

settling. And so the only available option, the saber being rattled is literally suing Adam Silver or Walk to Lipton. It's suing the NBA itself. And we, as David likes to say, I mean, wait to see if they're going to do that, given what we're about to outline in this report. It's Oraboris. It's the snake that eats its own tail. Right? You're suing, in essence, like David said, the arbitration exists between because players, labor and management. That's why we have collectively, Yes, that's what this collective bargaining agreement is between labor and management. And so this is management, swing other management, I just, I'm not, I'm not quite understanding. And like David said, you know, this is where you probably want to get on the horn required before he puts out a statement.

A statement which says, quote, I accept full responsibility for lapses and judgment by people within my inner circle and regret the distraction. this situation has caused the fans and my family. So we presume, by the way, there it is. Uncle Dennis, you know, the marks left on your back. That is what is just driven in the form of this statement. But as I return to Toronto, Kauai says, I am focused on what I can control, closing this chapter, moving forward to clean slate.

And so here's the interesting sort of like thing of me that you're noticing, right? Kauai's like so I can move on with this, right? Peace, later. Hey, have one over there without Bradpicks and $30 million. Well, there's something out, though, guys. You know the NBA gets to approve any trade. There is a world where the Clippers now trade Kauai to the Raptors, and the NBA does not approve that trade because what the Clippers are trying to do is restock their draft picks.

But there was no scenario under which the league was going to grant Kauai free agency. That they would never do that. that to a player. He's got one year left on his deal. If he wants to sign a new deal, let him play healthy and play well and get a new deal when he gets it from wherever he gets it. But if the clippers are allowed to get their first round picks back from Toronto, and I mean, what was the deal with Toronto and the clippers? I think he did it. How many picks? I believe it was two first round picks and a couple swaps. So the question is, will the NBA be inclined to allow the Clippers. Was that part of the negotiated settlement that we thought existed with the Clippers

that the Clippers statement claims never happened? So, so this is all sort of the framework for these findings. And the findings are, I must say this, truly remarkable in ways that I want to get to. The beginning of it, page one, and I think this is, look, can I just say this? we're going to jump around here, but I just want to acknowledge that September 3rd, 2025, in the life of our show is one thing. And it's an incredible thing to have done this for a year with you guys. This is part 15, maybe.

I've literally lost count. I don't know what part we're in anymore. I think this might be part 15. But for David, I mean, like, I just want to acknowledge, like, September 3rd is a meaningful day. And I want to just stop here to acknowledge why that is. Thank you. Our show, Amin and Pablo, on September 3rd, was the last show that my daughter ever watched me do. She got sick on September 12th and wasn't able to watch any more shows.

And she just passed away, as you all know, on June 23rd. And I wish that she were able to watch this show because we talked a lot about the aspiration. As you know, we recorded that in the middle to end of August. and it was released on September 3rd, and I had spoken to Kira about it, and you guys have been thank you for all your support, and I mean that. I love you guys and Meta Lark and all of you.

The Kira Fund is the thing that we want to drive people to. Part of the reason we're doing this show live is also to draw attention to that, the fight for a cure. We'd like to cure Gleoblastoma. I'd like there not to be another Kira. I'd like no family to go through what we're going through and what we've gone through because to me it is just impossible to deal with.

And all of the people who've given in so generously, it's raised over $700,000 and we're just getting going. We started to fund research projects. One is being announced again in the next couple of days called Project Rose. And I would just say that anything that anyone can do for the Cura Fund, every dollar matters. And we're going to keep going because during the process. past year it's been very obviously difficult for all for me for and i'm the least of it for kira the most for our entire family and uh it's gone exactly in lockstep literally i mean

which is a year exactly 365 days um look there is some um symmetry to all of this and by that i mean what we're not sharing as we report this story and doing episodes with the public what we are trying to confirm what money we're trying to raise as we do a story that's about following money. And, I mean, can you just read page one, the start of it? And we'll get into the nitty gritty of this thing. On September 3rd, 2025, the podcast Pablo Tori finds out, produced a first in a series of episodes alleging that the LA Clippers, parentheses the Clippers, and its owner, Steve Balmer violated the salary-capped circumvention rules of the National Basketball Association, parentheses the NBA or the league, through dealings with Aspiration Partners,

parentheses Aspiration, and now bankrupt Sustainability Services Company. Among other things, the episode, Part 1, revealed the existence of a four-year, $28 million endorsement agreement between Aspiration and Clippers player Kwai Leonard. Part 2 asserted that the agreement was never. publicly announced and that Mr. Leonard performed no services under, excuse me, under it, and part three aired portions of an audio

interview with an anonymous person asserted to be a former employee of aspiration who alleged that the agreement's purpose was to, quote, circumvent the salary cap, unquote. Shortly after the episode's release, the league hired Wachtel, Lepton, Rosen, and Katz, parentheses,

Wachtel Lipton, to investigate the alleged wrongdoing. In the intervening months, the investigation scope expanded to cover additional endorsement agreements and other potential in proprieties. And I just want to say, David, this is a story built on journalism. That's what this says. We are looking all the time. In the first line, Pablo, of the entire 36-page report is the name of your show.

But the reason we've been reporting it is because we think this story is fundamentally important. We think it's important to bring people what is not being told to them otherwise by some of the wealthiest, most powerful people in America who happen to control some of the most important institutions in America as in sports. We're doing a story about accountability. We're doing a story in which people, such as the source alluded to here, who we heard as source number one on September 3rd, 2025, took risks to talk about. This is a story about people who told the truth and people who did it. And David, as we continue what this executive summary is saying on the backs of people who were daring to tell the truth, the sources that we relied on, please give us the accounting there. The investigation finds that the Clippers organization violated the circumvention rules in numerous independent ways by one affirmatively initiating off-court income opportunities between Mr. Leonard and four different companies doing business with the team. Aspiration, Boingo Wireless, Dactronics, and Lockton Insurance.

And I just got to point out, it hurts when you get scooped by a law firm. Man, you know how much time I've spent investigating Boingo Wireless? God. We didn't even get to say that in public. I wanted that so badly for us. I have Boingo. I don't know if anybody wants. Boingo documents, but I got some boingo documents.

Do you? Of course. Oh, man. Here's the thing, guys, that we should just know is that the NBA, the reason they were so concerned, the reason why Anders wanted to meet with us, they wanted to not get rosiered. They wanted to make sure that if we're going to drip death by a thousand cuts, when do they end the investigation? In the report, they referenced something that happened on August 17. with the, was it, was that the ESPN story?

Something happened August 17th. Yes. And then we did the Dactronics episodes. They kept wondering, is there more? Is there possibly more? The answer is, there is yet more. There is. And this report will acknowledge that as well, as I keep on referring to.

But the point is what we try to do here is we try to report everything to the level of satisfaction such that we don't actually get sued, such that we don't actually get sued, such that we are correct. Like, the number of things. Anyway, I don't want to, this is not about, this is not about our process so much as it is what has been found here. I understand why you're doing this, Pablo, because you're human. And we have all been, our processes have been impugned.

But, but this is, this is, this is what, this is what the report says to foreshadow, quote, according to this witness, we'll get to the witness, the company was willing to enter into such a sham consulting agreement based on the promise to win a much large, a much larger services contract with the clippers, this confidential information came to investigators late in the investigation and additional steps are ongoing to corroborate it. There is more. And the story, and David, I want to get you back to the bullet points here,

but the point here, I mean, is that whenever someone has asked me, is the story over, the response has always been, there's more. And at a certain point, the tonnage of stuff that you find, ends up being something you cannot sweep under a rug, something you cannot just dismiss,

something that you cannot leak to some outlet to say, there's nothing here. And this is what we're seeing is what a parallel investigation was corroborating. And Wachtel had to acknowledge that in the report, and they did. They had to literally acknowledge that there's more and that there could still be more with investigators. He didn't mention our name a second time in the report, but he's talking about us in general.

And I would just say there could be more that investigators find and we'll deal with that as it comes. So, Amin, could you actually take over and read the next bullet point, bullet point two as we get to the executive summary here? Facilitating the consummation of endorsement agreements between each of these companies and Mr. Leonard, including in some cases by participating in the Wachtel, Lippton, Rosen, and Kat, September 2nd, 2026, development and communication of deal terms. Do you want me to keep going? I think that we should just keep going because there's a lot to get to. Point three, inducing the companies to enter into these agreements

by offering and providing them with business from the clippers. Don't make them, can we please stop there, Pablo? Yes, we have to. This is, yeah, go ahead. Do you see what they're saying in the report that what we said about Dactronics, When I told you in a show, I believe I was even in a volcano in place where it was a rusty in Italy a couple weeks ago.

Dactronics, there are deals all the time where companies give money back to a team by buying tickets, by buying a suite. And those deals are done all the time. And that's acknowledged in the Wachtel report. What Wachtel is saying is that it was different. It was, we will do a business with you. if you do business with Kauai. And that's what we had been talking about. Dude, right here in the report.

It was the only logical explanation for what Dactronics did. There was no reason to have him as Kauai Leonard as an endorser of Daktronics. Go back and listen to that episode, Pablo, that we did about Dactronics. We were, I mean, I mean, we were, I would say this, in our attempt to be fair, within the access that we had. I would say that we were even restrained. Yes. Yes. Because what I said at the time was,

this is perhaps the most easily explainable version of capture convention that I think the layperson can understand, could wrap their hands right? Because aspiration was just such a crazy company to begin with. You have to explain what the tree credit, carbon credit thing. And people were like, what? This was easy. He's like, hey, you get to build our video board in exchange,

will write into the contract where there's extra money goes, and you just go ahead and sign our guy to a deal. And that was the important thing in the findings, is them being able to create the trail of money from the clippers to the vendor, from the vendor to a quiet letter. The Wachtel Lepton found that thread and connected it all in a way that, I think we, again, being trying to be as inside, the lines as possible, we led people up to that point.

And just said, uh, whereas Wachter Lept is, here it is, being bomb. It's what, the question that Wachtel answered, and it's really impressive work when you see it laid out, it's what, what holes do you fill in to the story that we could not access because it relies on participation from the, from the one entity, David, that from the very beginning would not tell us the truth. And to jump in real quick, the other thing was they got some cooperation from some of these companies, right? Some. Dactronics, aspiration in part.

Yes. But like, it makes sense. If you're dactronics, say, I make video boards. You know who needs video boards? NBA teams need video boards. Do I want to play defense on behalf of the clippers and then maybe perhaps excommunity? to keep myself from this entire league? Or do I just play ball?

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

and we can just stick with Dactronics because they were in the news today, where there is an SEC investigation underway. Daktronics is a public company. Their CFO said the SEC has requested information from us. This is following our episodes. This is in addition to the NBA, which we now see what the NBA did with that information. And so the SEC has to be interested in this because that's where it's also not

podcast court. This is actual problem. When you're a public company, you can't do things like that. They don't, the SEC, I remind you, doesn't care about salary caps or convention one bit. People have been asking me, like, why do you, this story, why do you care about? It's just like, because this is, I mean, beyond the fact that I don't think you need the SEC or Wachtel Lipton to validate what's been reported because it feels like we did a pretty decent job and laying it all out. It's because there's, consequences. There was a set of consequences that the Dactronic CFO said when he said, quote, we have received requests for information from the NBA. Additionally, the Securities and Exchange

Commission is seeking information from us concerning the company and Mr. Leonard. We take these requests seriously and are cooperating. At this point, out of respect for the respective processes, we will not be providing further comment. They can't. Their lawyers will not. There is not one scenario under which the corporate lawyers for Dactronics, a public company, will allow them to comment at all. And of course they're going to cooperate fully because again, Dactronics doesn't care about salary caps or convention. They care about SEC violations. It's how the salary cap circumvention speaks to everything else we've been saying. It's the story. It's the story of what an organization will do when the rules prevent them from doing it and what else it costs them

in the process of trying to get to, I think, I mean, part five of this list here, if you want to skip a head down to that past the expenses that we've already referred to. Failing to report improper solicitations for off-court income opportunities made by Mr. Leonard's uncle and business manager Dennis Robertson. The pattern of conduct reflected here involving four separate arrangements sharing many common characteristics further demonstrates the clear violation of MBA rules set forth. in this report. So a locked in the insurance company, by the way,

we hadn't even mentioned that was merely, I mean, it's just, they refused to cooperate. Boingo, again, more later on that, Dactronics, we've talked about at length, Aspiration, of course. And it gets to the C-suite. It gets back to who was in charge. Oh, my gosh.

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

dollars per year was given by aspiration to kawai leonard so this was followed that scent and found that was no coincidence and when aspiration started not getting the money they were like we're not going to keep paying kawai if we don't get the money so this was part of a the carbon offset for the kia forum is a forum deal and what they did was basically said all right let's just buy 28 million dollars worth of credits will pay you 7 mil over 40 years how's that sound which is how no one does carbon credits you usually assess what's my carbon footprint and then you purchase said carbon credits to offset clippers said wrote a blank check basically he'd say here take this just you know keep the change kid or whatever what happens in this story with all of these companies what's the pattern and the three

line we will establish it's that it wasn't just fake jobs for kawai it was fake jobs for the They invented jobs consulting work. I mean like apples to apples, round peg, round hole, completely timed exactly in conjunction. And as Joe Sandberg says at one point, which I hate to step on the aspiration story, as we're still like we're still on page one, basically. But Joe Sandberg at one point, it's revealed texts, quote, should I call Dennis and Kauai and tell them that the, deal is off because we got fucked. He turns it to Nino Brown at the end of New Jack City. He says, I'm going to stand up and I'm going to name everybody.

Everybody. And so here's the thing about Joe Sandberg that everybody leaned on was the guy's convicted felon. He's going to federal prison. And in fact, he is. He was sentenced to 14 years. And everybody, not everybody, I'm overstating it. But lots of people were saying, but he's a scammer.

He scammed everybody. And on some level, of course, what we've said from the start is it is entirely possible, of course, that Joe Sandberg scammed all of his investors along the way. Both can be true. And yet, and yet, what he was doing was partnering with Steve Balmer and Gillian Zucker and Lawrence, Frank, and the Clippers to deceive the NBA. And when you get to Dactronics and apparently Boongo and Lockton Insurance, the same playbook is run. Well, that was the other amazing part where the four deals before aspiration were all initiated, negotiated, and executed with it basically a couple of weeks. During the pandemic.

During the, like the depth of the pandemic when people didn't know whether their companies would survive or not, right? It was, again, it goes back to, I don't know if this was magnificently orchestrated or just sloppily executed. Because when you look at it in the context, it becomes so obvious. Oh, no, of course. But that's a pattern. That's us, guys. That's a lot. No, we, it's, I want to go through 7,000 pages of documents and find sources.

And it's finding, and it's finding. And it's finding people who said, this is what's really happening. And the question is, how do you corroborate that? And this is the story of corroboration. And that's another thing that Wachtell put in that 36 pages. when you do an investigation and you have witnesses come in, you evaluate their testimony. Which is what we've been doing the entire time, by the way.

So I would just point out, when you have a convicted felon, a fraudster, a liar, and the liar tells you the sky is blue, you do not conclude the sky is blue. You try to find corroborating evidence, corroborating witnesses. Wachtell specifically said in the report that everything Joe Sandberg said to us, We discounted because he's a felon.

But it turns out that we had corroborating evidence from witnesses and documentation that everything this convicted felon said happened to be true. That's yeah, that's exactly the point. It's say, hey, we get it. This guy is unreliable. That's why anything that we took from him had to have another kind of corresponding corroboration from somewhere else. Journalists. Well, no, beyond us, from the internal documentation. I'm saying journalists get more than one source.

Oh, yeah. You're going to go with something. You're going to get a source. Absolutely. It's why we haven't been able to unveil everything that we think is true. It's because we didn't have the sourcing nailed down. Right. It's why I applaud on some level.

I mean, look, there are two things I applaud. I applaud the ambition of the clippers because holy crap, man. like you guys you guys went for it and i applaud walk tell for telling us in detail what they found so they could show that this is something that they couldn't just dismiss and so look it gets to gillian zucker the president of business and laurence frank the president of basketball quote in addition steve balmer owner of the clippers and its affiliates knowingly sought to help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities and at least in one instance, engaged in a significant act of team solicitation. Mr. Balmer also failed to create conditions under

which his organization abided by the NBA circumvention rules and especially egregious lapse because the clippers are a prior offender of those rules and were previously and specifically investigated by the NBA with respect to Mr. Leonard. This goes to our show where Steve Balmer has been very clear, and we talked about this so many times, guys, ready? Off to the races. That was Steve Balmer's number one defense. We are allowed to facilitate an introduction, but that's all you're allowed to do. And then Steve Balmer, quote, aspiration and Kauai, they were off to the races.

What Watel found is the races were rigged. that not only were they not off to the races, the races were being run by the clippers and by Zucker and by Frank and by Balmer. And that is a really, really important thing to note, in my opinion. The other thing is one of the big defenses that Steve Balmer had was, I was scam. This guy's a scam artist.

These people were people who were taking advantage of me and other investors. Well, when you put it like that and then you look at what happens in the document and you say, well, no, the initiation comes from the clippers end. And oh, by the way, it wasn't just that scam company, but several real company, real businesses that aren't doing, you know, some weird tree thing. That's the part where it's like he's presenting it as a victim. That was a big part of his defense. Mark Cuban's defense of him when he came on the show early on. I miss Mark, by the way. I miss Mark Cuban.

He sent you a very nice message. I hope you saw it on Twitter. He wished us congrats. And team shitting bricks appreciates the message. But by the way, about Mark Cuban is he said to his credit, while he told you that this is ridiculous, what he did say is,

Pablo, if what we said on September 3rd is true, then they should basically throw the book at Bomber. And what Cuban, by saying congrats Pablo, is saying, yeah, team shitting bricks turned out to be the right team, and it was true. I just like to point out also that, you know, we don't say this for credit. We don't need congrats for this. The trophy case is full. And Edward Armaro Award, a Pulitzer Prize.

Those are our prizes. Those are our trophies. This, this is just. Oh, this is, this is a dessert. This is to me, like, whatever. else if we had the powers of the NBA, what would we want to know? And we got today, like, it's, it's been so fun to read. My regret is that we didn't have more information or I didn't have more on Zooker because for me, as a team president for all those years, I would love to have

done a show with you talking about all the things that we figured out or found out that she did versus what you're supposed to do, how you're supposed to do it. Oh, so let's, let's, let's Wait, let's get to, okay. Wait, how are you supposed to do it as in following the rules or how are you supposed to do it as in skirting the rules, David? Both. Okay. I want to do that show. Not today, but we've got to do that show at some point.

Yes. What was being described in the report was the clippers did know the rules. And what they did, what Gillian did is that she created a paper trail of emails in which the introductions were manufactured so as to provide legal cover. by the MBA rules in the future so that if called to the mat, they would say, of course, this is how it happened. And of course, what was also findable, if you dig deep enough, is that none of this passed the smell test. And in fact, there were other communications that showed

that this was all orchestrated for exactly the reason of circumventing the rules. So look, I want to get to, man, there's, do we get to, here we go. There's a quote, there's so many. This is, and by the way, I'm referring there to the introduction emails, which were written to appear responsive to requests from partners. In fact, the Clippers initiated all of it. Let's explain what that means because that was confusing what you just said, Pablo.

There is a rule in the CBA of how you are allowed to act when it comes to players and team sponsors, players and team business partners. What the Clippers did is they thought that they could get away by being involved. We read emails that were back and forth. Remember, we had the Clippers redacted emails. When is Kauai going to do this? Do you need help with Kauai doing that? And the reality is what Zucker did, basically, said, I know the rules, but I got to find,

I got to do the job for Balmer here. As a team president, that's what I would have told you on my show. My job is to do something for the owner, and I know what my job is. So I'm out there trying to make sure that we're able to get these deals done for Kauai and she violated every rule with the emails that she sent. David, my favorite part was basically you're not supposed to initiate the, the third party is supposed to ask and then you can say, yeah, I'll make the introduction. So the workaround was in essence to say, oh yeah, following up on that conversation we had

the other day. So there's no original paper trail of, hey, how can we get quiet on board with us? It's always, oh, I'm following up on that thing that we talked about that we didn't email about we talked about on the phone and here's our introduction i want to i want to skip ahead a little bit forgive me because we're in the pandemic now it's april 2020 according to the report and what happens here this is this is how it happens dennis robertson speaks to the clippers to steve balmer to laurence frank and says hey we made these demands how are you going to fulfill them for us and robertson complained to mr balmer that miss sucker was making introductions for bullshit deals

and that I, Mr. Robertson, can't wait on Ms. Zucker. I have to get paid. I love that. Dude, what Steve Balmer responds here. This is a quote. Mr. Balmer responded by telling Mr. Robertson that he and Clippers personnel were all collective workers to try to help Mr. Leonard achieve his financial goals. I'm just like, how many smoking guns are we supposed to need here?

Can't do that. And Ms. Zucker assured Mr. Robertson that Mr. Balmer would follow through on his promise. Like the whole idea of like, what do we, what's the threshold of like clarity here? We're so, I mean, look, anyway, I don't want to just continue to say we told you so. But like, this is how the reporting came together. Let's let's talk about one thing as it relates to Balmer and some of his other quotes that were problematic. When he started with the provably false, that was the first statement, as you recall, to you and to your show. Pablo before September 3rd.

He said that he will be able to prove a show that all of that he did nothing, that our assertions are provably false. Then he got rid of the provably false in later statements, but kept hammering the fact that he did nothing wrong. It was off to the races. Wachtel was very clear in this 36 page document that Steve Balmer's culpability is significant. And that is why the fine is 30 million. draft picks, the suspension of a year, which I reiterate, when you suspend an owner for a year.

It's enormous. It's enormous. It's enormous. And so I believe, having read the report, that while it is enormous, that he could easily have suspended bomber for longer, not forced to sail, but made him give up control as a possibility. Suspend him from being a governor for five years or more. could have been a punishment. His president of business operations, Gillian Zucker, fired. Remember what happened with the Astros when the GM and the manager

got fired for the garbage can banging. Remember that, but the owner, no, we're good. Wattel did not find that in this report. You know, it's funny, Pablo going back to, you know, him saying we are collective workers trying to help Mr. Leonard reach his earnings It reminded me of the scene and role models where I think Elizabeth Berkeley is the, not Elizabeth, Elizabeth Banks is the lawyer.

And she's got the guy in there and he says, we're going to plead innocent. He's saying, what do you mean? So they have you on tape doing this. It could have been anyone. And then they play the tape. And he says, who believe it? Me, David Garvin, stealing TVs. And it's this, it's, we are collective workers trying to get.

What? Like, how is that? I mean, it speaks to the desperation. We said this at the beginning of our whole series. How desperate was Steve Ballmer, the richest owner in American sports, one of the richest people on the planet to get a superstar that would allow him to compete as owner of the clippers? And the answer was, look at what he was doing for. Look, the whole thing about, it's interesting.

The whole thing about the Timberwolves, which is the previous precedent, right? The reason the Timberwolves is small potatoes and why, when I read this, this, I was like, this feels like the definition of what you can't do as the owner of a sports team is that this was vast. I mean, and this is the explanation. I just want to quote this part. As the evidence mounted that the Clippers had again stepped over the circumvention line by providing improper assistance to Mr. Leonard, the Clippers advanced a novel theory. Affirmative, not responsive introductions of players to business partners for the purpose of helping them generate off-court income. If such introductions are requested by the player of representative, that's, that's, that's cool.

You could do that. And if you have that understanding in your mind, then you're trying to drive four different deals through that framework. Or alternatively, right, we can't psychoanalyze the Clippers. I don't know what they would say. Or that's what they made up when they were caught red-handed doing something that obviously was never even vaguely okay to them. So anyway, we move down as the Clippers, appear to double down on this theory by issuing all of these publicly word statements. This was the August 17th thing.

This is normal. We introduced stuff. Players and teams are introduced all the time, blah, blah, blah, blah. Partners, all that stuff. Based on the foregoing evidence, investigators find these statements to be inaccurate at best with respect to Mr. Balmer. And clearly false with respect to Ms. Zooker, whose name I will begin to pronounce correctly. Thanks, David, I was. the way they treated her cooperation or lack thereof was so scathing.

I was taking aback. David, I don't know if you felt the same way I did. I was, I was shocked. I'm like, they did not mince words at all. They felt that she was,

as it says, misleading them in the investigation. You know, there's no penalties in the Wachtel report. There's no punishments. That is their report of the findings. the NBA takes that report and then decides on punishment, negotiates with the union on the Kauai punishment, settles.

Either does or does not negotiate with the clippers, we need to find that out because the clippers clearly are acting like they're reading the report today for the first time, which I think is straight horse hockey. That said. You don't, hold on, you don't think they had their hands on this? You think they had their hands on this before. I think that they did not read the report the way we read the report at 430.

or five o'clock. I think, I think, I think that there was a fundamental misapprehension that is baffling to me. It's about, I mean, look, I can't, I, I, I just,

we'll leave it at that for now. We'll leave it at that for now. But the Clippers statement is major. The Clippers saying they are going to fight. Yeah, yeah. The NBA, when they do this, if they, let me just talk about baseball for a quick second.

If you think a team's going to fight the league, you start by talking to the team, and trying to settle it before it's a fight. You don't want there to be a fight. You don't. If something's not covered by the CBA, the way steroids is, we can't fight when a player gets suspended 80 games.

That's the CBA. That's the rule. But if you think there's going to be a fight, you do a negotiation. Did the NBA and the Clippers negotiate? The Clippers are saying, we had no idea that this was the report. and we are going to fight it vigorously, they're saying.

Well, that means they got a file a lawsuit and they're working on it right now and they're going to have to sue, I mean, maybe us, but certainly Adam Silver, the NBA, I don't, they try to put Wachtell in that, but I don't think that works at all. But in any case, that is a huge burden for Steve Balmer to try to get over in terms of successfully overturning the punishment. and the punishment is not Wachtel-based.

The NBA chose it. Wachtel doesn't stay in here, take five picks away. By the way, by the way, I will say for the record here, whenever we got asked, whenever I got asked at least, like which of the punishment be? I don't know. I'm not, that's not my job. My job is just tell you what the story is.

It's to report. And then what happens after that, you can discern, but like, I mean. So, Pablo, remember the Astros result was a suspension. of Hinch and a suspension of Luneau, but Jim Crane then fired them the next day. What I'm waiting for and what I thought was coming before I read the Clippers statement, when I assumed the Clippers were acknowledging, I figured that they would fire Zooker tomorrow the way the Astros fired Jeff

Loonow the next day, that she was suspended by the league and that they would, and now she would just get fired. And I would expect that to still happen. I know we'll probably get to it later in the document, but how do you think it feels to be a subordinate under Gillian Zucker to find out that when she talked to them, she was like, uh,

it's one of these guys probably did that. I didn't do that. That's got to be the worst because, because, I think that that's got to be, because, you know, David,

I'm thinking about what you're saying. And in a, in a way I could see Lawrence Frank not getting fired because, good soldier. I went there and I did with the general, asked me to do and they said I got suspended and I took the suspension on the chin. Well, let's hold on a second with that because we also reported and then it got announced, I believe, Pablo, did Lawrence Frank get a big extension recently?

Sure did. Sure did. December. A four year extension. Went what month? December, I believe. But we'll fact check that. The investigation is ongoing at this point.

Lawrence Frank knows what happened. Balmer knows what happened. He gets the extension. You can. fire Frank, but you can still pay him out. You can fire him for cause and then you don't pay him or you fire him without cause and you just pay him. That could be the reward for Lawrence Frank for being the good soldier.

He gets to spend it for six months and then gets fired but paid that four year extension. Is it just to separate yourself from from the bad PR, the bad juju of the scandal? That's what the Astros did with Loonow and and their manager, AJ Hinch. You got to separate. If you're Steve Balmer, if I'm the owner of a team, I want to separate myself from all of this stuff. Well, but this is so, but this is the challenge, right? So as we go through this and we'll not get to all of it because it's way too much. And I encourage people to, like, dig in as we continue to cover it and investigate still,

especially now that it seems like the story isn't over yet, which is perfect for what the story has been this whole time. The question is, so how do you explain all of this? like you can go and go to court and I perversely of course want more documents I always want more documents somehow still I'm unsatisfied with the documents but I mean how do you rationally explain what is in the documents this this is what I go back to it's section it's article 13 section two part D violation of section 2A to be above may be proven by direct or circumstantial evidence, including but not limited to do evidence that a player contract or any term of provision thereof cannot rationally be explained in the absence of conduct violative.

That's all we're talking about here, guys. Give me a rational explanation for all of this. So if I may push this, nudge this thing forward, in the efforts to get to as much as we can, a lot of people kept asking, what's taking so long? What's taking so long? Why has Wachtell taken so long? Pablo and his crew are running rings around you guys.

What's taking so long? Well, it turns out, Walktales did not pull punches on that either. Quote, this effort was challenged by, among other things, the approach of the clippers and their outside counsel, who at times delayed in responding to request for information and operated in an adversarial or obfuscatory manner that slowed investigators' ability to gather the facts. Thank you.

I'm glad you got that word. I couldn't do it. From the perspective of due process, however, the Clippers were zealously represented throughout this investigation by outside counsel seeking to protect the team's interests. I mean, we read in the episodes we've done in, by the way, there's a civil trial happening, aspiration investors suing Steve Ballmer, 11 of them, by the way. And in the filings provided by Steve Ballmer's attorneys, his personal lawyers, not only are we trashed and the whole thing dismissed. but to say the least, it was quite zealous how they've done this. I know that the Clippers have been working with their own PR outside people. Sure.

I have not talked about this because I'm not trying to whatever, but like they have been working behind the scenes this whole time trying to zealously create a story favorable to them. And so when it comes to what did they know and how did they choose to hide it or obfuscate it. What everybody knows who's been plugged into this doing interviews this whole time is that they have been remarkably strategic. And the lack of plausible explanation, of rational explanation for a year speaks to what

this report and our reports and anyone who does actual legwork on this begins to realize, which is, of course, it's going to be a story about salary cap circumvention. People really were confused a lot. I'm now thinking back to the last year where my head was spinning for most of the year and still is. But when it came to this story where the real confusion was, is people would come up to me all the time. And it really happened a crazy amount of times. Are you just after Balmer?

Like, is that what you're doing? Or are you? David hangs out with different people, I mean. Yeah. You know what I got all the time, David was like, why are you guys hating on Kau? I'm like, this is not a... That's so funny. I got all bomber and you got all Kauai.

By the way, that... I got... I just got orangey just prostituting yourself for clicks. Oh, by the way. Three for three ain't bad. Me, look. We're at an hour and seven minutes. There are more clicks that I want to get out of this.

But listen, here's... I want to get to the part that is so remarkable. And this is where, again, tip your cap to an investigation that surfaced new things. Right. And so this, again, stuff that's existed in the realm of rumor that we could not publish. I want to get down here. Consulting. The consulting contracts, because this is maybe my favorite part. I'll just read this. In early June 2020 at the time of Ms. Zooker's introductions, none of Boingo, Dactronics, and Lockton had commercial agreements with the Clippers. But all three companies were in active discussions to provide business services to the team or its arena. You've been saying this for a while. The Intuit Dome's construction was this gateway to get all of these business deals. But I proceed to quote, within weeks following the introductions, either before or on the same day as the company signed endorsement agreements with Mr. Leonard, each company entered into a multi-million dollar consulting agreement with the Clippers.

Two of the companies received almost the entirety of their consulting fees up front in payments of $10 million each delivered prior to these companies. entering into endorsement agreements with Mr. Leonard. The third company received its first annual consulting fee of $2 million one day after making its first payment to Mr. Leonard under the endorsement agreement it had entered into with him. And what does that say, David? It says that these companies were themselves getting no-show fake jobs to funnel money to pay Kauai Leonard. Well, but they also were getting more than that. Because if they're getting an opportunity to be a part of into its construction, so don't say Daktronix got nothing.

They got to do the Halo scoreboard. Don't say, Boingo got nothing if they get to be. Oh, David is. David has stopped. Frozen. I will pick up the thread as David hopefully reset. Let me, let me ask, let me, let me play my role as the dumb observer, Pablo. But these consultancy gigs happen all the time.

I'm sure these companies have done consultancy before. with other vendors, yes, no? It's so clear that there is no real precedent for the types of jobs that these companies got. There was an exec who told the Wachtel-Lipton investigators like, we've never done that. We've never had a consultancy gig. Indeed, a credible witness with direct knowledge told investigators that the consulting agreement one company signed with the Clippers was in fact a ruse, designed and intended to be a vehicle for the team to provide the company with funds to be paid to Mr. Leonard.

According to this witness, the company was willing to enter into such a sham consulting agreement based on the promise to win a much larger services contract with the Clippers. This confidential information came to investigators late in the investigation. This is the additional steps being taken to corroborate it. So, David, where you dropped out was the point of they were doing nothing in these fake consulting jobs, but what they were doing by funneling money to Kauai was putting them, in play in the case of Dachronix for literally a $100 million deal to build the Halo board, which as we've established in our episodes, kind of saved the company.

This is no small part of this finding by Wachtel because this is what I've been describing to you on this show and on nothing personal when you're building a stadium or a ballpark or you're doing any sort of business with sponsors. There's a lot of room. to fudge numbers. There's a lot of room to hide money. There's a lot of opportunity to do things that may violate rules. And what Watel found very clearly is that there was a immediate causal relationship between Dactronics getting the business of the scoreboard and doing a

endorsement deal with Leonard. That is a violation on myriad levels. Could you read this part here in the doc? I wish we had folders, but we got to obviously do this. Jerry rigged. But it's the part where I'm highlighting it. It's at page 19 at the bottom. Page 19.

Of the document, but if you just click to me, it's under the Dactronics section. Got you. I got it if you need it. What's the first couple of words? Dachronics believed that failing to enter into a commercial relationship with Mr. Leonard could jeopardize. its ability to win the bid for the Intuit Dome.

Later in May 2020, in a call with a senior executive of Dactronics, a senior Clippers executive specified the precise financial terms that the Clippers expected Dactronics to provide to Mr. Leonard in the endorsement agreement, $3 million per year for two years. Fast forward to February 2021, this time, the Clippers executive told Daktronics that because the team had decided to increase the amount it would spend on the scoreboard, Daktronics should correspondingly increase the amount it would pay to Mr. Leonard. After some negotiation, and again, based on its concern that failing to comply could

jeopardize its business with the Clippers, Dactronics ultimately agreed to increase its second year payment to Mr. Leonard by $2 million. In return, the amended agreement called for Mr. Leonard to provide additional services. This arrangement was reflected in an amendment to the Daktronics Leonard endorsement agreement executed on May 20th, 2021. And this is Wachtel's read, quote, to underscore the point, the impetus to provide this additional $2 million payment to Mr. Leonard did not come from Daktronics. Instead, it originated entirely from the Clippers.

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

We'll do the full accounting at some point in the future when the legal bills are all tallied because they're not over yet. We learned. No, they are not. So it's just a very clear. And when the evidence becomes that clear, and then you have it again happen in what Wattele said in the report, is it wasn't just Daktronics.

They went endorser by endorser of Kauai and showed the same pattern. And that's how you end up with this penalty. And that's how you end up talking about aspiration where we started this story as almost like, you know, close to the end, I think of what we can do here in one episode, which we'll, of course, follow up on. But the summary here, as we get to aspiration,

is a Gillian Zucker story here. And look, we've had, emails in which Joe Sandberg is talking about how helpful Gillian is going to be. We should activate all this stuff. I don't want to do the Aspiration Series again. But here is the summary from Wachtel, which is that it's October of 2021, and Ms. Zucker raised the topic of endorsement agreements between team sponsors and players, and she used Mr. Leonard and another player foreshadowing as examples of players with whom

aspiration could partner. Ms. Zucker told investigators that she told Mr. Sandberg that MBA rules prevented her from providing such assistance, but the record establishes that she acted otherwise. And this takes us to Joe Sandberg, the aforementioned convicted felon in federal prison, who said to the NBA something interesting, it seems, because, quote, indeed, in that very same conversation, and rather than simply supplying Mr. Sandberg with contact information for Mr. Leonard and or's representatives, which is all that is permitted by the CBA circumvention rules, Ms. Zucker told Mr. Sanberg that she would enlist a particular business agent to assist Mr. Sanberd in structuring the agreement, a business agent who was then under a retention agreement

with the Clippers, end quote. And just to spell that out, there was an agency working for both the Clippers and for aspiration, and we will again have to hold on some of the reporting here, But that agency ended up being a nexus through paperwork and money to flow. When you look at that part of the Wachtel report, and again, we just got it an hour and a half ago. And I've done, I will admit that I've only read the report once and I will have to read it again. But one thing, another thing that came to me while reading this report is that a conversation with Joe Sandberg, Wachtell's the investigator had to find another way to get at the clippers and Zooker to get at the truth. They weren't just going to base it on any testimony from Sandberg.

And what Wachtel said in the report is, hold on a second. Zooker did the same thing with four companies exactly this way. What are the chances that Joe Sanberg's line, but yet the other three companies, it's exactly the same? Well, wait a minute, maybe Joe Sandberg is telling the truth about this specific part, which is not an SEC violation. I remind everybody, this is salary cap circumvention, not SEC violation for Zucker and the Clippers. No criminal issue whatsoever. But this is a damning paragraph when a convicted felon is explaining to the investigator something that is so easily corroborated, that is when if you're Steve Bomer,

you say I can't go forward with my president of business operations. Of course, I mean, unless all of this was also something that was cool with him. But it doesn't matter. You still sell her down the river. You don't take blame yourself. It's like saying Jim Crane. I had no idea that were banging. No, no, but I mean, there's an email here.

Yes. We love documents. October 28, 2021. Could you please read? Yes, subject line, aspiration and Kauai. Joe is making an offer to Kauai to be a spokesperson for $5 million cash plus $7 million in stock per year for four years as long as he's with the clippers. Can someone please come up with a wish list Joe should ask for from Kauai?

Joe doesn't really know what to ask for. Which is the definition of a fake job. Yeah. It's even better. It gets better. On September 3rd, one of the areas where, interestingly enough, that Kira was involved when she heard the episode was the thing we talked about where I focused on that line, as long as he is with the clippers.

And people were saying to me, yeah, that's not really any big deal. That's normal. You wouldn't be a sponsor if you're with a different team. And I said, hold on. This is not normal at all. And there were people who came out publicly who said, oh, David, of course it's normal. No. The reason why it's as long as he is with the Clippers is that if Steve Bowmer's not paying Kauai Leonard, then he doesn't need aspiration to pay Kauai Leonard. It is right there as clear as day in the Wachtel report. Yeah, it's it is normal, David, when you're talking about like Dodge of Dayland or whatever, like, yes, that makes sense that the local car dealer does not want to, you know, endorse an athlete who is not local.

of the area. But when you're talking about big national brands, the example I used when confronted with the same kind of pushback was Steph Curry and Chase. Obviously, there's a connection there between Chase as a team sponsor and Steph Curry. If Steph Curry were to go to Charlotte, it's not like Chase says, well, that's it. Ripped that up. Don't want anything to do with you anymore. We were going to pay you all this money if you stayed here. It's Steph Curry. That's the whole point. And so when you talk about national brands and presumably national name superstar players, these, this, you know, term to say it has to be a clipper, becomes very suspicious indeed. We have been saying this whole time for a year, $28 million over four years for a no show endorsement job, plus this $20 million in guaranteed stock.

And here it is, it's just, it's, it's, it's just, it's all the math. is adding up. And so we go through. There are more emails between the agent. Gillian was the person who wrote the email that Amin just wrote. The agent and Gillian, they're talking about how they want their thoughts on all this stuff. Agent writes back. Gillian shared with me that you guys spoke. She asked me to help you draft thoughts for the Kauai offer. Please review and let me know if this is how you were looking at this. The next day, Zooker requests a call with Uncle Dennis and Mitch Frankl. Remember him? Kauai's agent. Kauai claims to invest. excuse me, Zucker claims to investigators that it's a, quote, preview.

And one day later, November 5th, 2021, Gillian Zucker sends a formal, quote, unquote, introduction email to Mr. Robertson and Mr. Sandberg, which you may recall from the interview Steve Ballmer gave to Ramona Shelburne that first week of September. That is the bleeping email that has been cited as exculpatory evidence, this whole bleeping time. Off to the races. This was the introduction, right? And by the way, when she gets on the call, when asked about that call, she says she does that always before an introductory email. She gets on the call with the people, let them know, hey, this introductory email is coming, which reminds me of the Kirby Enthusiasm episode where Jason Alexander, Larry David, have an argument about having a meeting to set the meeting. No, we just had the meeting. No, no, this is

the meeting the set when the meeting is what is that what you're calling someone to let them know there's an introductory email happening that doesn't make any sense but in essence that introduction emails what we talked about earlier in this episode which is she frames it as though hey remember when you guys asked here it is off to the races but as walk tail points out this introduction came nine days after ms Zucker told mr sandberg that she would call a business agent to help him structure an agreement with Mr. Leonard, eight days after Ms. Zucker conveyed to the agent financial terms for the deal, and one day after Ms. Zucker gave input on the deal's term sheet.

Off to the races. I'm sorry, I can't stop. Please read me the next part of this. Based on this series of events and based on the record related to Boingo, Dactronics, and Lockton, investigators find that the November 5th, quote-unquote introduction email from Ms. Zucker was drafted. solely for record making purposes and was not a genuine communication intended to kick off a deal-making process of Mr. Leonard that was by this time already well underway.

That's a major paragraph when it comes to punishment. Tuch. Because that is exactly saying that you did not follow the rules. The email was intended to comply with the rules. We make the introduction and we're off to the races. what is made clear by Wachtel is that it did not work that way. This is not a crime of ignorance is what David is saying. What Wachtel is asserting is this is an active cover-up.

And at a certain point, Joe Sandberg is saying all of this in his text. And maybe you just discount him because of the convicted felon aspect of his story, which we get it. But he says stuff as clearly as the Clippers are asking us to do this with Kauai Leonard. He is then getting mad because at some point with the forum deal, which we talked about already, there is, it seems, some hesitation, some conflict on whether Joe Sandberg, co-founder of aspiration, is going to get what he wants out of all of this. And, I mean, this is the rational explanation part. I want to zoom to this. No Clippers witness could provide a credible alternative explanation for the initial appearance of the $7 million. annual payment from the team to aspiration in the forum agreement.

They found another. It's just, it, it, you scratch the surface and you keep on realizing the depth. And what bomber tells investigators is that this was based on a study from a consultant. But the consultant told investigators this whole carbon credits deal for the forum, quote, that the clippers had given him a $28 million budget with which to address the forum's emissions, not the other way around. Yeah. No one does it like that, folks.

Nobody does it like that. You got to figure out what your emissions are and then you pay it to offset it. You don't give them the money and say, as I said earlier, keep the change, kid. There is something that was not addressed in the report. Yes, there were a couple of things I was looking for. I'd like to bring it up because I found it to be incredibly coincidental. the investments by Balmer into aspiration, the amount of the investments, the investment by Dennis Wong did not appear in the report at all.

Who does not appear in the report? Did not appear in the report despite, as we've said, one zillion times investing in aspiration as if it was a real company when it was in default, had its auditor resign, had been under a pro by the SEC already. And while, by the way, Kauai was waiting for his money only to get it nine days. after Dennis Wong invested for the very first time, the only outside investor to enter aspirations books at that point in December of 2020. And I have an explanation for it, because if you're Wachtell, you're investigating salary caps or convention. You're not

investigating the civil claim of fraudulent inducement to invest in a company, the way Steve Balmer has said, I got scammed. By not putting Balmer's investment into aspiration into the report, they are acknowledging that two things can be true, as we've said time and time again. Steve Balmer could have been scammed by aspiration, and Steve Balmer could have worked with aspiration to circumvent the salary gap. And there's no reason for Wachtell to address the first part because that's not what they were hired to do. So while I'm not happy they're not in the reports, I would like to know what they found out,

that may be different than what we found out. It makes perfect sense to me. It would not be in the report because Wachtel putting this together knows exactly what their job was to investigate salary caps or convention, not any sort of fraud with Balmer and his investment into aspiration. Now, David, I have a question for you because the Clippers' ownership structure is very uncommon in modern sports. Steve Balmer, majority owner, Dennis Wong, minority owner, no more owners. 99% Balmer 1% Wong. Right. And so typically

Never been released before. In the NBA, you have your governor And then there's an alternate governor Who is typically the other, you know, the next, you know, partner in line. Had Dennis Wong been in this and discipline in this? You have a situation where both the majority owner and the minority owner excuse me it's a great point that you're making behind the cough

which is if you suspend Balmer and Wong then you have to put in some sort of proxy to vote can I tell you guys something interesting as I've come to know way too much about the ownership governance structure of the Clippers Steve Balmer is the owner here are two alternate governors that he has used in recent years

Dennis Wong Gillian Zucker oh my God it's this I'm like, what's the name of that TV show, like a chain of command or whatever, where it's like what happens when the president and the vice president and the secretary of state, like, they all die? Designated survivor.

Who's a designated survivor here if Dennis Wong was out and Gillian's out and Lawrence Frank is out and Steve's out? Who's that? Is it Tyloo? Who becomes the governor? I thought, I think that I read something that it's going to be Doc Rivers. No way. They're bringing Doc back.

That would be a. Hey, hey, my voice, my voice isn't that good, but I'm still doing it just for you guys. Hey, Steve, if you need. I mean, Amin has the only impression where losing his ability to speak actually makes it more convincing. If you need me, just give me a call. I'm on the golf course. By the way, I saw a doc in France. And when we, I was, anyway, that sounds like a terrible humble brag.

But I got to call Doc. I got to call Doc after this. Doc sat for the for the Wachtel investigations. He's not in here either. I just want, there are a lot of things, aspiration investor at Doc Rivers, by the way. There are a lot of names in here, which make me think that to David's point,

there was a scope. We've said this the whole time, right? An independent investigation is not journalism. We credit what this investigation found. We've done it for 90 minutes, literally. We've done that for 90 minutes. minutes, but it's not journalism. It's not telling you the story that I think the public interest most finds compelling. It's quite compelling. But the other characters that we've outlined here,

Dennis Wong being one of them, David, I can imagine a world in which the scope was given in a certain way. And within that scope, what became undeniable was the sweeping nature of this whole scheme. And at that point, the biggest punishment in NBA history does not need an expansion of scope, which they were not given in the first place. And I want to read what Watel wrote in the report when they said as part of the investigation, Wattel conducted 73 interviews of 60 people. That's not a mistake. 13 people interviewed twice because there was more that was discovered during the course of the investigation. Then they said that they, reviewed more than 200,000 pages of documents.

It's the equivalent of filming 24 hours a day on the island for Survivor and cutting it into a 50-minute episode. This is a 36-page report. They found and looked at tons of other stuff, which is why they had to put in the report. There may be more. Yes. And that's exactly what they said. Well, let's get to our conclusion here for now.

It's always for now with this story. Because what they say in the report is the evidence supporting these findings is substantial. While it is possible that even more evidence will be uncovered as investigators continue to follow up on information that was recently received, the record as developed is more than sufficient to establish the rules violations described in the summary report. Amin, would you like to take over the next three? The three individuals most responsible for the clipper's rule breaking are Mr. Balmer, Ms. Zucker, and Mr. Frank. David, will you read the next?

I cannot because I was reading the report. I got you. I got you. No word. Mr. Balmer knowingly sought to help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities and engaged in a significant act of facilitation through the forum agreement. Mr. Balmer also failed to supervise his most senior business person, while she systematically violated NBA rules.

Hold on. It's not letting me scroll. And more generally permitted a culture in his organization. Please stop editing so I can scroll and read it. That allowed for the initiation, facilitation, inducement, and potential funding of multiple endorsement agreements between Mr. Leonard and team partners. Mr. Leonard, through the conduct of Mr. Robertson, Uncle Dennis, violated the CBA's circumvention

rules by successfully pressuring the clippers over many years to assist him in obtaining off-court income opportunities. Mr. Leonard also violated the CBA by failing to reimburse payments by the clippers for personal expenses not authorized by the CBA, many of which were requested by Mr. Robertson. And so now we await further confirmation. We're reaching out to Boingo Wireless. By the way, I don't even say what Boongo is. Boingo was the wireless internet provider for the Intuit Dome.

And if you look up who was on the board of Boingo, what connections do they have to certain Clippers executives? There is more there, I dare say. locked in insurance, request and comment from you as well. And we await the conclusion of all the things that Joe Sandberg is dealing with in the federal court system, as well as the civil suit against Steve Ballmer, which has been hinging on the premise of what does cap circumvention mean when you trusted a tree planting startup with millions of dollars of your money because you were in it, because Steve Ballmer was in it to save the environment. And so I will, I will have David. please hold for one second. I will also read the end of Kauai Leonard's statement.

Quote, as I return to Toronto, I am focused on what I can control, closing this chapter, and moving forward with a clean slate. Did I miss the announcement of the trade? We await that as well. What happened such that the use, Union and Kauai Leonard said, we're going to settle.

And the Clippers perhaps realized, oh, wait a minute. Our door that said system arbitration on it may be just closed. Well, I'll tell you what happened. We can start with the very beginning. What was the punishment levied to Kwai Leonard? The very first episode of this, I was talking about what you can do in the collective bargaining agreement to punish players. You can find them up to 350 grand.

You can void their contract. That's about it. For months, I'd hear people, reputable people, unreputable networks. They might have to see what happens with this Quai suspension. I said, what suspension? Where are you getting this from? Because I've read this document every damn day. I don't see anything where you can suspend a player.

Well, Quilander got fine, $700,000, which I have to assume, David, that's what, $350,000. contract. It's a settlement. It's a settlement. They could allege that it's two different incidences. They could allege four different ones and say it's 200 grand for each. But the bottom line is it's a settlement between the league and the NBPA. But the end game here is Quay Leonard, slap on the wrist. Uncle Dennis was already out of the picture. He's always moved on with his new agent, right? And he goes to Toronto, a place where he's beloved. Toronto gets to sit back and say, ooh, okay, he's here.

We know he wants to sign an extension. He's a player that can move us up into the stratosphere of the Eastern Conference. They gave up Brandon Ingram, good player. They give up Grady Dick, young player. They gave up two first-round picks, a pick swap. And they're saying, yeah, you look like you need it more than I do. And so Quai Leonard, if you're a Quai fan,

and this goes out to all the people for all these months. Why are you guys hating on Quai? Oh, you guys try to get him suspended? I said, it's not a Quiet Leonard's story. And here is the proof is in the pudding. It's not a Quiet Leonard story. I compared it to watching the movie American Gangster and walking away saying,

I don't know why Russell Crowe kept messing with T.I. Like, what? Did you miss the whole point of the movie? You thought T.I. was the center of the investigation? This is a big bulletin board with faces and strings attached. And in every one of these movies, the guy at the top, that's the big fish. And then they get the capos underneath. And then you got the guy, the affiliates over here.

And then lower people and street people and all that stuff. And what the Wachtel-Lipton report in essence painted for us was this bulletin board with Steve Balmer at the top. Gillian Zucker over here. Lawrence Frank over here. And everything else was secondary to that power chain. It is extremely telling here the two statements, one by Kauai, one by the Clippers. Kauai saying, moving on, you got it, you got me.

I did this. I'm done with Dennis. I regret that my family members, these other people in my inner circle. Why? It's a negotiated settlement. It's done. There is no more action to be taken against Kauai.

and there's no more action to be taken for Kauai or the union against the NBA. But then the clippers come out and they come out guns blazing in their statement. The result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative. For the past year, we cooperated fully and in good faith. We will now fight just as hard to demonstrate our innocence. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. I mean.

I play this game all the time. I try to put myself in their shoes and try to figure out what would my defense be. David, what could they, I mean, first of all, just let's start with this idea that there's a predetermined narrative set by whom? Why would the NBA want a predetermined narrative against its richest owner and its, dare I say, it's most popular owner? Yeah, so listen to what he's a legend. So I love the vehemently rejects. so that's worse than just rejecting you, vehemently reject the NBA's findings.

But when you allege that there's been a heavily biased investigation, that is a shot across the bow at Wachtel. And Wachtel is in the business of being hired to do investigations. The last thing they want to be seen is as heavily biased because they want more work, more jobs, more money for their own partners. There was nothing biased about the investigation because it couldn't have been because again they submit to the NBA their findings the NBA then decides

I agree I don't agree I'm going to do five picks one pick two picks 30 million five million Wattel has nothing to do with that from the same release from the clippers quote speaking to what they thought this was going to be unfortunately none of those promises have been kept In the last year, Steve Balmer has spent nearly $50 million funding an investigation by Wachtel Lipton, Rosen, and Cats that has stretched far beyond the bounds of what the league set out to investigate, let alone the bounds of fundamental fairness. 50 million. I would have taken the over. It's been a year. David, David, the lesson of this story is take the over.

every part of this is take the over we did except in one thing except in one thing any rational explanation that all of the sources and documents and evidence and at this point vetted reports from all sides of the story right we are not walked out lipton cheerleaders we have said from the very beginning. This is not independent. This is not journalism. We were questioning. We were questioning whether they were going to bury stuff. And by the way, as I continue to look into the Rhode Island Football Club and Dennis Wong and all these other proper names that are not even in this thing, I just want to say, please tell me how you explain the sum total of what the last year has revealed to us. And we continue. We continue despite the vehemence.

to wait to find out. So David Samson, Amina al-Hasson. I love you guys. There is, dare I say, more to come.