Pablo Torre Finds Out - Uncle Dennis, Ballmer's $50 Million Sprint and the Side Deal That Wouldn't Die: Kawhi-Gate, Part VIII

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

As the Clippers host NBA All-Star Weekend, Pablo's "thorough due diligence" leads down a trail of LLCs and lawsuits that Kawhi Leonard and the richest owner in sports probably don't want you to know about. David Samson and Amin Elhassan return with a new prescription and — if the Aspiration whistle blows again — judgment day.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• Subscribe to Pablo's newsletter for exclusive access, documents and invites• Subscribe to "Nothing Personal with David Samson"• Subscribe to "Basketball Illuminati" with Amin Elhassan(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.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. I find that hard to believe that he would want to go to that show where he would not even be, wouldn't get his name in the paper, and he wouldn't be the face of the franchise, that's for sure. Right after this ad. David has his glasses atop a thick folder, which I do not want you to touch, David. Two C's.

Amin, we have so much to get to. I just want to jump into it. What is happening this weekend? Explain for the people. what is going on finally. We are descending upon the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles. Excuse me, Inglewood, California, the home of the Los Angeles Clippers for All-Star Weekend.

I'll be there. Inglewood and Miami Gardens. It's L.A. and it's Miami. Crazy, because Inglewood is closer to L.A.X. We didn't come here to talk about the geographic distinctions between suburbs of what. Why are you taking out your glasses right now? Because I want to tell you what happened to me is I had to go to 2.0, and I was asked by the doctor,

are you reading more? Like, is anything going on that is causing your eyes to disintegrate? And I said, I do this thing with Pablo where he has me reading documents on the spot and I have to be clear he's like 2.0. So these are brand new.

Part 8 of this series has required yet even more medically necessary bifocals for David Sampson. I mean, El-Hasson, the party that you're going to, okay? I've been waiting for this party for like a year now. Yeah. I'm not exaggerating. I started reporting the story of aspiration in February 2025, a year ago this month.

It's the party that, first off, Adam Silver, I am told, never seriously considered relocating, even though it turns everyone's focus to the host, to the emcee of this event, Steve Balmer, the richest owner in sports, who will personally welcome everybody in to his gleaming arena. Because an all-star game, David, as someone who's hosted an all-star game before, is also what? It is an opportunity to showcase to the world your ballpark, your operation, and it is a great vanity play. The NBA, there are teams that don't necessarily fight over it all the time, and MLB, everyone wants to host it. And you have to answer a huge bid document that's hundreds of pages long. And it is really your chance.

That and the playoffs are the two opportunities for you to shine as an organization. And the TV show The Clippers have been this season has been amazing. Pablo, we talked about this on Basketball Illuminati. We had Law Murray on who covers the Clippers for the athletic. We said, you've already gone through four seasons. Season one, the aspiration stuff. Season two, Chris Paul, it's all your fault. Season three, the team is awful.

Season four, the team is a lot better now. And now season five, James Harvey got traded to Cleveland. Oh, and also, Kauai Leonard has been playing like an MVP. We got left off the all-star roster by the coaches. In part, I am told because of how egregious season one was, the aspiration scandal. I have been told this by head coaches in the NBA. Also, ESPN's Brian Winhurst, basically, on TV and said as much.

And then the commissioner Adam Silver personally added Kauai Leonard to the roster in keeping with league rules. But just, again, for the show, it's just kind of perfect. That Kauai is going to be there. After all, Adam Silver's going to be there. Steve Ballmer's going to be there.

There's a funny part to this where everyone's like, oh, Adam Silver's looking out for Kau Leonard by putting them on this team. Isn't there another side of that corner? Oh, no, now I got to go answer questions. I got to do the Media Day thing. I got to be asked questions about aspirations.

And what people will ask about what anyone will say about aspiration during this momentous All-Star weekend is, in part, why we're here and why David's eyes are degrading. Because the focus should be Steve Balmer and Kauai Leonard now. That's the gift that we have been given. We've been given the gift of reexamining the $150 billion man who has, according to our reporting, made a mockery of the Cardinal League rules that cap how much NBA owners can spend to win, as well as, you know, the superstar who received not only a secret force. $48 million no-show endorsement deal, but also, we're just going to jump into this right now, I am told, even more. Okay? So Balmer, I mean, did not merely greenlight the side deal with aspiration in 2021. According to multiple former Clippers employees, I've talked to in the last few months, at one point, a completely exasperated Michael Winger, who was the Clipper's general manager and collective bargaining rules expert from 2017 to 2023, set aloud in the office upon discovering

yet another hidden arrangement with Kauai and his uncle Dennis, this quote, I mean, which is the first piece of paper in your folder. Ooh, this one is a big font. This should have been read by you. Without glasses. Yeah, you don't need that. Oh, that is big. All right.

Quote, how many fucking side deals have we made with Kauai? That is a large font. That's huge. I asked Michael Winger, who is now the president of basketball operations for the Washington Wizards, who's had a busy trade deadline himself. If you wanted to comment, on this quote on the scene I'm describing, and he politely declined.

And as you guys know, we continue to get ghosted in general on all our requests for comment to Uncle Dennis Robertson and to Kauai's actual registered agent, Mitch Frankel. Don't you have to have responded once to then ghost? If they've never spoken to you at all, is it still ghosting?

That's ghosting. But the Michael Winger side deal quote, I mean, reminds me of Michael Winger's boss and Steve Lomber's right-hand man, Clippers' president of basketball, Lawrence Frank. This was September, Clippers Media Day, and what Ramona Shelburne from ESPN, who later had the microphone taken from her by Clippers PR,

dared to ask was this? Has Dennis Robertson, Kauai's uncle, ever asked for any extra benefits that wouldn't be allowable under the NBA seller cap directly to you? There's been a lot coming about about his asks. Yeah, look, Dennis knows the rules, Kauai knows the rules, Mitch Frankel knows the rules, and we know the rules.

Is that I guessed right now, though? Yes, we all know the rules. It's a classic. Can I ask you a question? Would he have been better off saying no comment? Just I'm not going to address it. He sounds like a prize fool there. That's terrible.

Yeah, that's him basically saying yes. Well, what you didn't hear was no. Right. So by the powers of deduction, you might think the answer is yes. don't say that because when you plead the Fifth Amendment, that does not mean you're guilty. He didn't plead the Fifth Amendment. He answered a different question that wasn't asked.

But that's what you're taught in PR 101. Right. If you don't want to answer the question asked, you never have to. It's rich to something else. But is it not better to just say no comment or next question rather than to do the playful, oh, I'll answer a question. Well, what he did was absurd. The way to answer that question is much easier.

Say, I can't speak to anything other than the Los Angeles Clippers were never engaged in any activity that is outside the rules. And if that's not true, then you say, there is no way I can address this. It's a pending investigation or ongoing. But if Lawrence Frank was saying anything, right? He's basically saying, look, Uncle Dennis may have been asking for some wild shit, but we know the rules and he knows the rules

and we as the people asserting our knowledge of the rules would never participate in rule breaking. Or I know the rules and I know how to skirt. the rules. To me, saying I know the rules says nothing about your desire to adhere to the rules. It does bring me, though, to something else I have not really mentioned on the show yet, which is that Steve Balmer didn't just face an NBA investigation that find him for

offering a side deal with the team sponsor, Lexus, in this case, to DeAndre Jordan in 2015. Balmer at the time, his quote was, any circumvention was inadvertent. And Balmer also isn't just facing this current NBA investigation we've been talking about into the nearly $50 million side deal that another team sponsor, Aspiration, of course, had with Kauai. Maybe more worryingly,

and far less controllably, Steve Balmer is also dealing with the thing at the top of the folders in front of both of you. Because what you're going to find here is a civil lawsuit filed by 11 Aspiration investors, which got amended to name Steve Balmer as a defendant, alongside Aspiration co-founder Joe Sandberg, who already has pled guilty to two counts of wire fraud last fall.

And gentlemen, what do these 11 investors allege about Balmer's support of aspiration, which has since been rebranded, incidentally, as Katona. Sandberg and Balmer work together to make aspiration appear to be a successful company backed by Balmer, who is one of the wealthiest people in the world worth over $150 billion. With Balmer's knowledge, support, and assistance, Sandberg and Balmer promoted aspiration to look,

lend legitimacy to Aspirations operations, and Balmer publicly endorsed aspiration. This enticed investors, like plaintiffs, to entrust in and keep their capital in aspiration and helped hide the rampant fraud occurring at the company. It also served Balmer's interest in getting extra money to Leonard so he could circumvent the salary cap, beat out the competition and re-sign his team's superstar player. Plaintiffs would not have invested and slash or kept their investment in aspiration if Balmer and Sandberg had disclosed the true nature of Balmer's investment. Balmer thus supported and participated in Sandberg's fraud.

I should be clear that I am not sure if this lawsuit, which escalates Balmer's role in this story, to allegedly aiding and abetting fraud is going to be successful. Right? I didn't write the complaint and my sources, as you guys know, at Aspiration. And the Clippers now have focused on Balmer allegedly and knowingly breaking the rules of the NBA and not federal law. But the reason I am bringing up all of this here is because while Balmer will presumably, David, say nothing about any of this at All-Star Weekend, he did something fascinating just last month.

because in an attempt to have this whole lawsuit dismissed and thereby preempt discovery, which would be Christmas for us here, a publicatory thought of. God. The number of folders on this desk, what Balmer's attorneys finally did was write down a defense against PTFO's reporting.

This was as part of their answer to the investor's amended complaint. And if I made you drink every time Team Balmer wrote the word podcast, you would I. Let's see it. I got my water here, and I will take a sip every time I hear the word podcast. Plaintiff's first amended complaint

adds Stephen Balmer as a defendant based on sensational and patently false assertions made in a sports podcast. Drink. Balmer and the Clippers have denied all allegations in that podcast. Drink.

Almost a sip. And are cooperating in an ongoing NBA investigation. While conjecture and unsupported assumptions may be appropriate in the world of Tories podcast, they have no place in a sworn legal pleading. Plaintiff's claims against the Balmer defendants are premised on the bogus theory based entirely on speculation in a podcast that Balmer and Sandberg entered into a quote corrupt deal, unquote. So they, of course, never mentioned and the two federal witnesses who went on a tape with us

or our piles of documents or the fact that Team Balmer's proposed zero factual corrections to our now 507 minutes. They attempted to slur us with the P-word more than a dozen times. But as you look through these papers, there is an incredibly important case that I think Balmer really does want to make here in defense of his own innocence and his own victimhood

in terms of how he does business and certainly how he protects his integrity. because it is not merely that, quote, Balmer invested in aspiration because of its purported commitment to environmental sustainability, a passion Balmer shared, end quote, which, you know, as a side note, I have not seen the Clippers announce a new sustainability partner to replace aspiration and do the carbon credits thing, but we'll go with it. I mean, in keeping with the theme of this episode, crucially, Steve Balmer's lawyers also say this. despite having conducted thorough due diligence, Balmer's trust and aspiration was sorely misplaced. Thoreau due diligence and what qualifies as thorough, David. We talk about vocabulary all the time.

And in fact, the last time we did our own thorough due diligence on a very important adjective deployed by Team Balmer was in our last aspiration episode from January. And the word then was significant. Because last October, in reference to how well Balmer knew Sandberg before the owner of the clippers decided to give Aspirations founder $50 million in September 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported this. A person close to the Balmer Group, his investment company, said that two hardly knew each other. He said that Balmer and Sandberg had their first significant interaction at the press conference announcing the partnership between, the clippers and aspiration.

But now, given what Balmer just filed in court about thorough due diligence, that Wall Street Journal quote is even more significant. Because it seems pretty difficult for an investor to conduct thorough due diligence on a startup whose founder he had never spent significant time with and apparently hardly knew. But to be totally fair, of course, maybe Balmer just directed his whole team of lawyers and his chief investment officer to thoroughly diligence, any and all paperwork on his behalf. And for a $50 million investment, many founders and lawyers tell me, thoroughly vetting all that documentation would typically take at least a month, often more.

I can get an agreement done in weeks. Sometimes it takes months in order because you're negotiating literal lines of a 200-page agreement and the most important sections are the most eye glazing for normal people, which are reps and warranties, who knows what, when at the time of the signing, what are you promising to do if something is discovered after the fact? Who pays for any issues that arise from a contract or from a lack of performance or an overperformance? And so maybe all that vetting happened. Maybe Team Balmer vetted Sandberg so diligently, in fact,

and for so many months that in late 2024, long after Balmer already knew that the feds were investigating Sandberg for defrauding aspiration investors, Ballmer still decided to make a donation of $1.875 million to Joe Sanberg's personal charity, which the Balmer group did. But in order to calculate how many months team Balmer spent diligenceing aspirations paperwork, which now seems incredibly relevant to Balmer's claim in court, you need privileged information, something like a confidential email chain between Sandberg and Aspirations lawyers and Balmer's lawyers and Balmer's chief investment officer. And this email chain just happens to be the next document in David and Amin's folders.

Amin, could you please read from the internal email that starts it all off? This is from Joe Sandberg, sent Friday, September 3rd, 2021, 1016 a.m. Subject, connecting legal teams for Balmer investment. Importance. High. And then the message says, please meet here, Brand Vaughn,

Balmer's chief investment officer and aspiration's newest partner in our mission. Brandt is going to loop in his counsel. Thank you for how hard you and team are working so we can sign and close in the next few days. Ooh. If you're wondering. quick. If you're wondering why Joe Zamburg would be trying to close this deal in the next few days,

of course, me too. So I called up someone in the Aspiration Finance Department, who's been right about everything they have told us for about a year now. Source number one. Just to spell it out, why was Joe rushing this? Why did they want the money in? Because she was broke. There was no money. So by September of 2021 in that month, Aspiration was a lot. Aspiration was a lot. already broke. Yeah, and they were just burning. I mean, aspiration never was profitable.

And the person Samberg sent that urgent introductory email to speed close on a $50 million investment from one of the richest men on earth. Is Brant Vaughn, the guy I mean named there? Brand von is Bomber's other right-hand man. You should know, he's kind of the personal finance equivalent of Lawrence Frank. And he replies to Joe Sandberg that same day, Friday, September 3rd, David. Thanks all. We're aligning a few additional resources on our side. Does it make sense to jump on a call once we have had a chance to review the purchase agreement? And Friday, September 3rd, by the way, I mean, you may also recognize as the beginning of a certain holiday weekend.

That is Labor Day weekend. Labor Day weekend is the unofficial return to facilities for most teams to start working out, gearing up in advance of the start of official training camp. at the end of September. So I didn't fully realize that. So there's one pressure from Joe Sandberg, according to source number one. They need fucking money. And then in the NBA world, Labor Day weekend is heralding the actual arrival of the players on your team. Yep. And so on Wednesday, September 8th, this is just five calendar days, three of which are Labor Day weekend, obviously.

After the suits from aspiration and Ballmer's legal and finance teams meet each other for the first time over email, as you guys just read. Balmer's lawyer sends an email, I mean, which says this. So this email is from Wednesday, September 8th, 2021. So what's that? Five days later. We are signed off on the form of subscription agreement. We had one comment on the version of the purchase agreement that was circulated last night attached here. We'll review the documents that just came around as well.

You can't have a thorough negotiation of a purchase agreement or a subscription agreement that quickly. I don't care who you're staffing it with. Well, it was circulated last night, the purchase agreement. It's too, yeah, I mean, you can have an issues list, but you cannot have a sign off unless it, unless you have been told. What if they don't celebrate Labor Day as a cultural. It's still, it's only five days. They're religiously against Labor Day.

I should point out this email was at two in the afternoon. So it was most of today. It was last night today this morning. They had most of the day. It was at 204 p.m. You're flipping burgers with one hand and you're reading the document in the other. What's the big deal? crack open a cold one in the middle.

Homsd Among Us has not reviewed a $209-page $50 million personal investment agreement between Steve Bomber and Aspiration done through his personal LLC, which is called again, Paul Pat, which is very different. How dare you? How dare you suggest that's the Cambodian dictator, Paul Pot. That's a dangerous game. It's Paul Pat LLC, find a new slant. And this 209-page contract, David, is, of course, sitting in your folder. Well, this is going to take them second. You only want me to look at what you highlighted.

I just want you to describe what... I'll do a thorough review of the whole Twitter I page. My point is I want to offer the most generous version of the timeline because in five days they're like, we're basically good, just fix the one thing that we saw because we got this thing yesterday. But in fairness, please give us the timestamps here. Aspiration Partners Inc.

Series C4 Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement. This series C4 preferred stock purchase agreement is dated as of September 14th, 2021 and is between aspiration partners, Delaware Corp, and Polpat LLC, the investor. The parties are signing this C4 preferred stock purchase agreement as of the date stated in the introductory clause, which would be September 14, 2021. It is docu signed by Brandt Vaughn. He is the C-O-O of Polpat LLC.

So most generous version of the math, right? Friday, September 3rd, into Labor Day weekend, into Tuesday, September 14th. So just doing the math year, mean... It's 11 days. Which simply means that Steve Ballmer's team spent as many days conducting thorough due diligence of his agreement with aspiration as there are aspiration investors now suing him. And so this is what source number one had to say about this very timeline. It's insane. And it's completely unheard of.

Even at aspiration where how many other deals... closed in this kind of a time frame? I have never seen an investment deal of this size or anywhere near this size be completed at that pace before. All of which reminds me now, that bomber told ESPN back in September, this.

You're one of the richest men in America. You've obviously done very well in your career in business. Like, you didn't smell anything wrong with the company. You didn't see anything wrong. Like you had obviously reviewed the financials before you got involved with the business proposal. was all? I reviewed. I reviewed, my staff reviewed primarily, fraudulent financials. Now, should I have sniffed it out? Maybe I feel embarrassed and kind of silly that I didn't sniff it out,

but I didn't. If these timelines of these emails, which, all right, they look like actual emails, that's not a lot of sniffing. That's like one little, like snort. It's a quick one. And then that's it. But as for what team Balmer could have snorted, could have really sniffed out here if they actually did vet these fraudulent financials, and especially the list of businesses, aspiration was counting as its customers, its corporate partners. That is also worth understanding here because according to multiple aspiration sources that I've talked to, who, like source number one, became federal witnesses in the government's investigation, this part does actually seem thoroughly embarrassing. Some of the businesses in 2021 that were signed up,

as corporate businesses were not real businesses. They were shell companies. I'd say about half. The other half were businesses that had absolutely no business signing up for the amount of carbon offsets, tree planting, revenue guarantee to aspiration that they had committed. In many instances, these businesses weren't even making as much in a year as they were committing to aspiration.

all of that would have been very easy to look at by doing a quick Secretary of State Google search or if you don't want to do that, you can do a reference call. You can call these corporate partnerships and see what your business is like before you invest something at that scale because these businesses were insane. They were either fake or they had no reason to purchase

the amount of offsets and or trees they were purchasing monthly. So when you start a deal, if you, as the principal, when you tell your bankers and your lawyers, we're doing this deal, they're going to do less work than when you sit them down and say, hey, we're looking at this. Let me know your thought. There's two different ways you approach it with a banker or a lawyer. And the assumption I'm making, given the timeline here, is Bomber said, hey, we're signing this. Like, we're good.

Don't worry about it. Yeah, Joe Sandberg's asking for a close in the next few days. Steve Balmer is clearly authorizing a close within five to 11 days. Given that, I am very curious to know what the one revision was. Like, even in this deal that has to go through, that we're willing to look past. Take out the cap circumvention. Don't say it out loud. But the real kicker, of course, as you will now recall, is that Steve Balmer did not just invest in September

of 2021. He also invested another $10 million in March, 23. While 19 outside investors whom Joe Sandberg solicited for money, those 19 all said, f*** no, according to court filings, whereas Steve Balmer and his friend Dennis Wong, who had never invested in aspiration before and was the only new investor in this round, said yes. We should say here, of course, that we reached out to the Balmer Group and the Clippers PR department, which has previously, and very notably spoken on behalf of the Balmer Group

before in our previous request for comment. And the Clippers, once again, declined a comment citing their participation in the league investigation. And Brent Vaughn from the Balmer Group did not respond. But as for why Balmer went along with the rush timeline and didn't do the thorough due diligence that his legal team claims, it brings us to another part of Team Balmer's motion to dismiss the complaint from the 11 aspiration investors. Because this is how, I mean, Balmer's lawyers describe the story of the first amended complaint, or FAC. The FAC alleges that Balmer investors. in an aspiration solely so that aspiration could endorse Leonard,

allowing Leonard to receive more, quote, compensation, unquote, than the NBA rules allowed. And here in the real world, in podcast court, that adverb solely is funny to me. Because anyone who's listened to any of the hours that we've done in this series should know that Steve Ballmer did not solely use aspiration to arrange this no-show endorsement side deal for Kawhi Leonard.

there were in fact other financial Swedeners involved, as source number one again reminds us. With Palmer's investment, Oak Tree Capital Management had invested as well with the intention of aspiration going public through a SPAC deal,

which is a merger in which an already public company and we know now because it's public knowledge that that was interprivate would take aspiration underneath it, create a public entity that is Aspiration Public. We can just call it Aspiration Public. And then that company would be worth

at least $2.2 billion at the time. Right. Balmer was set to make a ton of money, and it all would have been brilliant. As we've said many times, if the guy he trusted to help him deceive the NBA, Joe Sandberg, was not also deceiving him on some level, which, again, thorough due diligence might have produced

before you decided to get into this mess. But there was still another, reason. Steve Balmer was apparently so eager to do this deal, I mean, and this headline you might recall, it's from CNBC. From that same exact month, September 2021. L.A. Clippers signed $300 million plus arena sponsorship deal with Green Bank aspiration. And you may now wonder how much was Balmer really motivated by that, by the fact that he was getting a guarantee $300 million in exchange for that speed investment of $50 million in September 2021. And so, the next document in your folder, David,

is an internal private email that I obtained from October 2021. This sent by the CEO of Interprivate, the company Aspiration was set to go public with. And it was sent to Aspirations, co-founders and lawyers and bankers. They were discussing the terms that an Oak Tree Executive, whose name we've redacted here, was negotiating with Aspiration directly in the footsteps of Steve Balmer deciding to invest his $50 million.

Redacted Nose Balmer, was partly motivated by the Clippers sponsorship deal. And this should not be that surprising, that that is in writing somewhere, that Steve Balmer had other reasons to get into the aspiration business, perhaps because, quote, he was partly motivated by the $300 million sponsorship deal. But as usual, what Team Balmer wants you to think

is that the real victim here, Amin, has been the 13th richest person on earth all along as his lawyers go on to write. Balmer lost his entire invested capital in aspiration, and the Clippers terminated both the Master Services Agreement and corporate sponsorship agreement with the company. Which now reminds me, David, of something the Clippers had told us when they were answering our request for comment

way back in part one of our P-word. Oh, I was going to take a drink. Before they knew the scope of the documentation that I had. Neither Mr. Balmer nor the Clippers circumvented the salary, cap or engaged in any misconduct related to aspiration. Any contrary assertion is provably false. The team ended its relationship with aspiration years ago during the 22-23 season when aspiration defaulted on its obligations.

So they're saying they terminated the deal during the 2022-23 season, and the lawyers had just said in what Amin read, that they terminated both the master services agreement and corporate sponsorship agreement with the company. So let's look at this timeline. because this language about the breakup here, this timeline turns out to be provably false. The Clippers season officially ended in 2023, I mean, in April, April 25th, they had lost to the Phoenix Suns

in the first round of the playoffs. But in June of 2023, June 29th, 2023, a very convenient birthday takes place, more than two months after that. Because Ami and the Clippers then posted this. Happy birthday, Kauai. And they've got a little, the emoji that's blowing like the party favor and's got the little hat on. For every comment slash retweet, at Aspiration, we'll plant one tree for Kauai's birthday.

And to be clear, this is not an example of Kauai performing any of the potential services in his endorsement agreement. Unless he planted the tree. Which we are told he did not. Personally, the bobblehead is like this that we talked about in last. last month's episode, it's a sponsored item that Aspiration paid to sponsor. They had previously been sponsoring the birthday posts for Nick Batum and Paul George and Norm Powell and Ty Lou and everybody else. But conceivably, that would end when you end the deal. But according to multiple high-level sources at Aspiration, the Clippers did not terminate

their corporate sponsorship agreement at the end of June either. The deal very weirdly lingered on into the offseason, very unterminated, even though it was also pretty obvious to every everybody by then, that the company was pretty f***. This kind of reminds me of the quote from the movie Terminator. You guys remember this? Of course. It's Kyle Reese. He's warning Sarah Connor trying to tell her about the Terminator.

She doesn't believe him. He says, the Terminator's out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop. Ever. Until you are dead.

you're saying that this deal, much like The Terminator, was hard to terminate. It was not going to die. Kyle Reese, played by Michael Bean. The amount of time we're wasting here. You've got problems. All of this points to how anxiously Steve Ballmer, though, and Lawrence Frank would have worried for years about protecting their secret side deals, plural, per Michael Winger, with Kauai Leonard. And this is a worry that I think was best exemplified by a 2019 quote in the L.A. Times from then Clippers' head. head coach and Steve Ballmer's fellow aspiration investor, Doc Rivers, who had the year before

visited the nearby offices of aspiration for a motivational speech. This was, I mean, not long after Kauai signed with the Clippers in free agency. I was at home in Malibu, and Lawrence called me and told me, look, it looks like he's either going to Toronto or the Lakers. A Lakers part just blew me over. I told him, that can't happen. I remember I kept telling him, we can't allow that to happen. I actually told Steve jokingly that if that happens, we're moving to TV. to Seattle. It was a joke, but I was actually serious about it. I really believe that. David, Steve Ballmer's commentary from the day that his franchise introduced Kauai. This is July 2019. I would call it similarly restraint.

I have these notes, but I got to say I'm just fired up to be here today. Love it. Listen, I'll be very critical of the business things that he's done, but that's excitement, man. You want, don't you want your owner to be that? excited. I think that's a sad part about all this. We're doing eight episodes, and we're deep diving, ripping apart all these claims and stuff.

But I got to say, I wish I worked for an owner like him. Well, you're also coming from Phoenix, man. You were at the bottom of the barrel. Sorry. Yeah, no offense. You wish you worked for the other owner under investigation by Wauke.

He's, that's goofy. I'm not going to lie to you. I think it's, But I think his enthusiasm is cool. I do. That's not what I'm making fun of. I'm merely pointing out that Kauai Leonard made that man and Doc Rivers, these two aspiration investors, react in that way.

But I do now want to point out something else that I personally think is cool. Because as it turns out, the complaint filed by those 11 aspiration investors is not the only lawsuit that Team Bomber is facing and fighting in court. on the down low right now. There's another lawsuit. There's a lawsuit in direct connection to hit inside deals for Kauai Leonard and David, I know you're fingering that folder. But this other lawsuit

is going to allow us to pressure test everything we've been talking about here and also look even further behind the curtain of how Steve Balmer has secretly run the clippers. And yes, David, put on your bifocals. They're not bifocals. Could you stop?

They're just focal. They're just one focal. 2.0. That's it. We do, though, have a second lawsuit. After the break. I mean, in fairness to the Clippers, right? And Steve Balmer, this owner that you kind of wish you worked for.

I do want to start this part of the story by showing you what Lawrence Frank, the president of basketball, told reporters on the fateful day that the franchise introduced Kauai. If you can please read this transcript from Ben Goliver of the late, great Washington Post Sports Department. He says this. Quote, we didn't recruit. What we did was we went to many games to scout and research.

We never had a conversation with Kui or with any of his people. We always felt by doing it out in front. We were being very, very transparent. We weren't doing anything behind the scenes. We know the rules. We follow the rules. We feel very, very good about how we did everything. With Steve, in terms of how he does business, his integrity is number one.

We're always going to be above the line. That's what we did. Are we going to be aggressive? Yes. Are we going to be transparent? Yes. Are we going to follow the rules 100%. Mark a departure from the way he answered Ramona's question a few years later.

But the phrase in this story that I need to get to here, it actually starts years before Kauai gets introduced. And this one starts with a different voice. It belongs to a guy named Randy Shelton. And Randy Shelton happens to know Kauai gets introduced. Y. Leonard really, really well. So you are Kauai's strength trainer or it's from the days at San Diego State? I am currently the strength and conditioning coach for SDSU men's basketball.

But I also, yes, I am Kauai's personal. What Kauai like to say is I'm like just Tim Grover. I've been with him since he's been at SCSU and on the offseason, he comes and he trades with me down in San Diego. We try to keep everything discreet it. If you try to Google stuff or look stuff up, we kind of try to keep everything on the down low. So this tape of Randy Shelton,

you may recall the voice of his interviewer. This is PTFO correspondent Tom Haberstro back in 2016. In 2016 was an interesting year for Kawhi Leonard. He had already won a championship with the San Antonio Spurs, had been named finals MVP, And, I mean, you just heard Randy Shelton mention that Kauai thought of Randy Shelton as his Tim Grover, who was? Tim Grover was Michael Jordan's trainer. So every offseason Michael Jordan would go train with Tim Grover.

They'd bring in other NBA pros for these high-level pickup games in Chicago at Hoops the Gym, was the name of the gym. You know, my goal is to get him to be the greatest athlete on this planet movement was. And, like, I like to say, he's a human avatar. There was a cut out at Stap, and up in the stand, there was a picture of Kauai's head on the avatar body. No. And I looked at that, and I just said, like, that's exactly how Kauai to perform, like a human avatar.

There is, I realize, now a lot of James Cameron in this episode. But if you're wondering, David, have you seen the avatars? Not the latest. Well, this is from the first one. And this is a picture of Kauai Leonard, as referenced, as a Navi from Avatar, because they actually did make this thing at San Diego State. And, of course, Kauai Leonard, like the Navi, both love trees, as we all know.

But to mean, what happened, beginning in that 2016-17 season, between Kauai and the San Antonio Spurs, his actual employer, as his physical health was concerned, was what? Quay has a marvelous season, and they are the team that people say, well, you know what, this might be the team that can unseat the unstoppable Golden State Warriors that now have Kevin Durant in their midst. And game one is going very much in the Spurs way until Quay Leonard has a catch-and-shoot opportunity in the corner.

Zaza Pagilia closes out and his size, whatever foot, slides right under Quai's landing area. Kaui lands rolls his ankle. His hurt does not return for the rest of the series. The Spurs end up losing all the games. This is the origin story of Uncle Dennis Robertson, although he didn't realize it at that very moment. Pablo, if I may, the origin story starts a little earlier. Because watch this.

Not a lot of people remember this, but I'll always remember this. Long, long time ago, talking with Mark West, so I used to work with in Phoenix. And Mark said, whenever a guy's eligible extension, but the team ops did not extend and wait to restrictive free agency, the player never forgets. The player, even if it's like, hey, it makes sense financially for us

and the way the cap works and we'll have more space and you'll still get your money. Being told to wait for your money is an experience that players never forget. Kauai Leonard, prior to the 14-15 season, was eligible to be extended. This is coming off his rookie extension, basically is rookie extension eligible. And the Spurs said, no, no, no, wait,

because I think we can get Lamarcus Aldridge or whatever the next offseason. So he waited. He got his money as a restricted free agent the next summer. But that, I'm told, was the first sound. The seeds. The first salve of like, wait a second. If they love me like they tell me they love me,

why aren't they taking care of me immediately? Why am I told to wait? So word around the league is trickling out, by the way, that given this backdrop and given this injury, that there is a difference of medical, opinion. Yes, because there had been several smaller injuries that happened throughout his spurs tenure where the medical staff of the team said, you're fine. And Kauai said, I don't feel fine. And then had to get re-evaluated and then found out that there was something else going

on. The ankle role against the warriors, that wasn't his first ankle injury. He had had that ankle injury earlier that season, I think early in the postseason, and was told, you're fine to play on it. And then he gets hurt and obviously misses the rest of the conference finals. That also was an event that was like, I don't know how much I can trust these people. And the spurs, of course, are famously cloistered. They do things their own way. And in this case, this began to spill out into the public, even though it has, of course, a very understandable dynamic. And the reason I'm bringing all this up is because the guy who was tending to Quile Leonard's body, his personal trainer, his Tim Grover, Randy Shelton,

provides more context here. Because as now ESPN is describing, Kauai is distant, disconnected from the organization, this is obviously now happening in public. And so what Randy Shelton, the man responsible for Kauai's body, says is that Team Bomber starts recruiting Kauai Leonard through Randy Shelton.

Okay, so we're now in August of 2017. This is a couple months after that worrisome ankle injury that gets all of this stuff going. And the Clippers hire a guy named Mark Hughes as their assistant general manager. And this assistant GM, among other NBA front office jobs he's held, had something in common with Randy Shelton in their employment history.

Mark Hughes had also worked at San Diego State, Kauai's alma mater, years prior as an assistant coach. And according to an active lawsuit that Randy Shelton filed in 2024 against the Clippers, what the new assistant GM started doing after getting that new job was reaching out to Randy. And I'll explain this lawsuit further in a second, David.

But would you mind reading this excerpt first? In 2017, Assistant General Manager Mark Hughes began pursuing Leonard through Shelton. Hughes repeatedly emphasized the need for discretion as Hughes sought private health information about Leonard. and Hughes discussed the Clippers' desire to obtain Leonard and the likelihood of attracting Leonard to join the Clippers. Hughes set up numerous meetings with Shelton beginning in 2017

while Leonard was still under contract to attempt to find out Leonard's contractual requirements and medical situation. Now, this is allegedly thorough due diligence. I mean, this is tampering. So can you please explain tampering and how this is actually kind of interesting in that regard? It's hugely simple. When a player is under contract with Team X, no other team can talk to him or his representative about playing for Team Y. That is very simply what tampering is.

To illustrate Magic Johnson, when he was president of basketball operations for the Lakers, once went on the Jimmy Kimmel show and said something to the effect of, oh, I'd love to have a player like Janice, that was deemed to be tempering by the end. and he was fine, fine six figures for that. So I think we can agree that if this occurred, kind of goes far above and beyond going on Jimmy Kimmel and saying, I'd love to have a great player on my team. I mean, are you going to sit here and tell me that in all your years in the front office that you or someone else you knew of was not in contact or engaged in the act of tampering? Are you going to say that?

I'm not, wait, hold on. We know the rules. We know the rules, David. I know the rules, I mean. I know the rules. I know the rules, too. The rules in question, right? I am not scandalized by tampering.

But what I am pointing out here is that Randy Shelton claims that the Clippers' assistant GM ultimately called him at least 15 times, met him at least seven times in person, starting in 2017, years before free agency. And according to Shelton's lawsuit, the assistant GM, Mark Hughes, is also repeatedly telling Randy Shelton something else, Amin. As part of these discussions, Hughes' decision. discuss bringing Shelton into the Clippers organization as a strength and conditioning coach, given the personal relationship and trust that Leonard had in Shelton.

I'm laughing because this is great. It's what players do when they've got leverage. They will say, hey, hire my guy. I've had that so many times. Hire my strength guy. Hire my mental guy. My masseuse. Bring in my masseuse.

Bring in my trainer. Security. Oh, God. That's a good one. A lot of team security guys. Bring in my security guy, like whatever. we're fine on that. Well, it's, I'm getting my guy work and I'm not having to pay for it.

That's what it is. So Randy Shelton, spoiler alert, would in fact get hired by the Clippers as an assistant coach, a full-time assistant coach on the performance staff in 2019, once Kauai signed with them as a free agent. This lawsuit is actually Shelton claiming that his eventual termination by the team was wrongful, and you should know that the Clippers have denied both the tampering claims and the wrongful termination, and they've said that Shelton just wants more money. Again, as with the 11 aspiration investors, I didn't write this lawsuit, not involved in it,

can't vouch for its outcome, but the legal proceedings have been heating up, behind closed doors, and information keeps shaking loose, which provides me with more leads to check, David. For instance, back in 2017, okay, this is months after the Clippers hired the assistant GM-Markews and allegedly assigned him to recruit Kauai Leonard

through Randy Shelton. Here's something else I found. Shelton also filed some page paperwork of his own that fall with the Secretary of State in California. And this is not mentioned in the lawsuit at all. But we found it in our research, in our due diligence, and David, you might notice that the title of this new company sounds a little familiar. Limited liability company name, KL2 Performance LLC, filed October 5th, 2017.

for service of process, Randy Shelton. Now, you may, of course, recall that KL2 Aspire LLC, founded in 2021, is the entity which kicked off the prison that I'm currently still trapped in. And that is how the clippers were allegedly getting money to Kauai through a third party, in violation of the NBA salary cap. And Kauai, just as we zoom out here for a second, along with Uncle Dennis, would go on to form 16 of these KL2 LLCs. There's KL2 Content LLC, there's KL2RIFC LLC, there's KL2RIFC real estate LLC, and on and on and on.

Almost as many times as we were called a podcast by Steve Blomers Lawyers. But KL2 Performance LLC is historic in its own way, because KL2 performance is the first KL2 variant ever registered. The patient zero of KL2s. Four years before KL2 aspire, KL2. KL2 performance becomes the patient zero. And at this point in October of 2017, as you may notice, there's no mention in this filing of Uncle Dennis.

And by June 2018, as I mean you were alluding to earlier, the medical drama with the Spurs escalates to the point where Kauai formally demands this trade, a trade to Los Angeles, and instead gets sent to... The Great White North, Toronto. Hell yeah.

At which point, according to Randy Shelton's loss suit, Clippers president of basketball operations, Lawrence Frank, met with Randy Shelton as well, David. Frank himself met personally with Shelton and San Diego in or around February 2019 to discuss Leonard's willingness to join the Clippers and assuring Leonard through Shelton that the Clippers would provide all necessary provisions for his success at the highest level in free agency and all of the vital members who could have an impact on sick Leonard's decision. Frank personally assured Shelton that he would have a position with the strength condition and performance department for the Clippers

if Leonard decided to join the Clippers in free agency. Still, during Leonard and the Raptors championship run, Shelton again was asked to meet with the Clippers regarding Leonard's willingness to sign with the Clippers. In this meeting, Shelton met with John Mayer, the director of medical and performance for the Clippers, and Lee Jenkins, director of research and identity. But Randy Shelton was far from the only person allegedly getting the full court press from the Clippers, as Steve Ballmer suddenly found himself competing head to head in 2019 against who, I mean? The Los Angeles Lakers. The Big Brother Lakers who already had LeBron James.

And I know this part because of yet another lawsuit that got filed against the Clippers. This one from 2020, and this one filed by a long, long-time friend of Dennis Robertson by the name of Johnny Wilkes. Johnny Wilkes was teammates with Uncle Dennis on their basketball team in high school, and Johnny Wilkes was presented as the plug to Uncle Dennis. And the plug claimed that the Clippers promised him something in return for helping deliver Kauai to the Clippers. And Wilkes recently described this to a friend on a YouTube video that has been viewed at last check by 175 people. What? How much did you ask for?

Let me ask that. $2.25 million. And that was cheap for a Co-Wineeringer. I should have asked for $10 million. I should say that an L.A. judge dismissed this case in 2022. They pointed out that the plug, Donnie Wilkes did not have a written contract with the Clippers. And Wilkes lawyer also did not respond to multiple of our requests for comments.

But the reason, again, I bring this all up now is because in the course of this lawsuit, the other lawsuit, we also get access to verifiable information. I'm just doing my due diligence. Thurrow. And I keep on getting information that we wouldn't know otherwise.

And it also indicates directly what Team Bomber was taking time to thoroughly sniff out about Team Kauai Leonard. Because text messages obtained by Pablo Tore finds out show that Donnie Wilkes, the plug between Team Kauai and Team Bomber, was communicating specifically with Clippers consultant

and executive board member Jerry West. The late great Jerry West. A former Laker and basketball hall of famer who left a similar job with the Warriors to join the Clippers in 2017. The same year they hired Assistant GM Mark Hughes. I mean, this is how the New York Times explained the hiring of Jerry West by the Clippers.

The idea to pursue West came from Ballmer's former Harvard classmate, Clippers minority shareholder, Dennis Wong, who was once part of Golden State's ownership group. He kept saying, quote, we need a guy like Jerry West, unquote, unquote, Balmer said. And then on July 1st, 2019, this is the first full day free agency was officially open for business. Balmer and Lawrence Frank and Doc Rivers officially pitched Kauai Leonard and Uncle Dennis in person at the house of, of course, Doc Rivers. And that day, the logo left Johnny Will.

a voicemail. This is Jerry calling. You know, I really want to thank you a lot for, you know, trying to help. I heard this morning that everyone over in the Lakers can think they're going to get him. I just find that hard to believe that he would want to go to that show where he would not even be when he'd get his name in the paper, and he wouldn't be the face of the franchise. that's for sure. He might be the best player on the team,

but I hope things are well, and, well, again, I really, really appreciate everything you've done. Johnny Wilkes' YouTube channel is pretty wild, by the way. That's where we're pulling this out. That's where the voicemail comes from. No one was watching this stuff, but... They are now.

That's Jerry West. That is verifiably Jerry West. And again, I think it speaks to the fear, the actual fear of losing out on Kauai that Doc Rivers, in that quote, that Amin read before, spoke to, when he said the team might as well move to Seattle

if they don't get him, because this is Jerry West, also now texting Johnny Wilkes to follow up. And so, David, you get to be the logo with the gray bubbles. I mean, please be Johnny Wilkes. The plug with the blue bubbles. And we'll start with David. Just wanted to thank you for your help.

If he would go to the Lakers, he would be LeBron's caddy. Hey, Mr. West. I was with Dennis this morning when you called, I know you guys are meeting at 3 p.m. at Doc's house. Good luck. And later, the plug, Johnny Wilkes, followed up with another reply to Mr. West. Dennis is kind of excited about this meeting with Mr. Balmer. Good luck, Mr. West. Balmer spelled B-O-M-B-E-R, by the way.

That's right. To which Jerry West says, When can we expect a decision? Don't want to be a pest and frankly don't want to bother Dennis anymore. If you hear anything, please let me know. Thank you for all. your help. Should be noted that the communication between Jerry West that David led with and the responses from Johnny Wilkes that I read occurred on July 1st, 2019.

That last response from Jerry West, when can we expect a decision, happens July 4th, 2019. That's very good because what I was noticing is that the guy's phone was at 1%. I unfortunately missed both of those details. Well played by both of you. Speaking of Mr. Bomber, sealed within the filings in the case of Johnny Wilkes v. L.A. Clippers are text messages. First described by the Washington Post Sports Department, R.I.P., but we now have obtained the screenshots because this is Jerry West and Steve Balmer himself now trying to speed close on their most important superstar. For instance, this is one on July 5th, and Mr. Balmer says,

Where did your guy think he is leaning? to which the logo Jerry West, who has been again plugged in to Team Kauai via The Plug, responds. Could not get indication. I would hope that with everyone involved on his side who are pro-Clippers, they are telling him that this is a chance of a lifetime

to be involved with you and our organization. All which means that Steve Balmer was diligently. And also that despite what Randy Shelton, the Avatar Whisperer, and the Uncle Dennis plug, Donnie Wilkes, and the clipper is full court press, and the offer to trade five first rounders and two pick swaps, plus future MVP, Shea Gilders Alexander for Paul George,

which Kauai Leonard also demanded, it remained unclear what the decision would be until the very end. Like, that's how much leverage. Team Kauai had on the richest man in all of sports. And this helps further explain, I think, how Mr. Bomber felt at that introductory presser in July 2019. Say hello? Kawhi.

One conference finals. The only one in franchise history, though, so... Raise the banner. To quote Lawrence Frank again. Quote, we never had a conversation with Kauai or with any of his people. We always felt by doing it out in front,

we were being very, very transparent. We weren't doing anything behind the scenes. We know the rules. We follow the rules. With Steve in terms of how he does business, his integrity is number one. End quote. And in August of 2019,

the month after Lawrence Frank gives that quote about following the rules, knowing the rules. The San Diego Union Tribune reports officially that Randy Shelton is hired away from San Diego's state's basketball team by the Clippers as a full-time assistant coach on the performance staff, as allegedly promised. But not long after that, November 2019, there was a more subtle change in the business life of Randy Shelton, the trainer, and his Navi, Kauai Leonard. Because according to, again, the California Secretary of State's database, the

LLC Shelton had started in 2017, the same year he was being recruited by the Clippers and their assistant GM, KL2 Performance LLC, received a notice, the first in a series of delinquency notices. And by the following year, September 2020, with Kauai and his trainer both employed on the books by the Clippers, KL2 Performance LLC was officially suspended from operating as a business in California, indicating that the person behind it, for some reason,

no longer needed it anymore, the patient zero of LLC's had functionally expired. Asta vista, baby. To quote another political figure from the California State House. So this now brings us back to the year 2021. This is the year Steve Balmer and his staff would do their comically brief due diligence of aspiration in September. And around that same time, I mean...

Something very curious happened, and it is the next document in your folder. This employment agreement is made and entered into as of July 1st, 2021, by and between LA Clippers LLC, team, and Randy Shelton, employee. This is a fully executed copy of the three-year contract Randy Shelton. Kauai's trainer had signed with the Clippers to remain their full-time assistant performance coach. This is 2021. And again, in this legal back and forth, I'm not picking sides here.

I don't know who's going to win this case. ESPN has actually covered some of the stuff already. But there is one part of this document that's been so far overlooked. And it's not the arbitration clause in Shelton's contract, David. It's the thing in your folder. What section is this? This is section 13.

Notices. All notices are other communication required or permitted to be given under this agreement. shall be in writing and shall be sent via electronic mail to the email address set forth below and delivered personally or sent overnight courier to the addresses set forth below. If to team Lawrence Frank, L.A. Clippers, with a copy to Nicole Duckett, L.A. Clippers. Nicole Duckett was the Clippers' chief legal counsel representing Lawrence Frank. That makes sense.

but Randy Shelton's equivalent, who is also receiving every legal notice, is who? If to employee Randy Shelton, with a copy to Dennis Robertson. So this speaks to something else that Randy Shelton has claimed in this lawsuit, which is that his employment contract was personally negotiated between Lawrence Frank,

the president of the team, and Dennis Robertson, an unlicensed NBA agent, who was so unlicensed that Adam Silver, you may recall, changed the league rules in response to an investigation of his dealings in 2019 to prevent people like him from negotiating deals like this ever again. I remind you, I mean, of course,

that this contract is from 2021. But nonetheless, could you please keep reading from Randy Shelton's lawsuit? Moreover, plaintiff alleges that Mr. Robertson threatened him with exclusion from the clippers unless he agreed to pay 10% of his compensation, a demand that raises serious questions

of duress, coercion, and procedural unconscionability. This all means to translate it, that allegedly, Uncle Dennis threatened to fire Kauai's personal trainer from his job with the clippers if the trainer didn't pay Uncle Dennis

the agent fee. The kickback, yep. 10% of the salary in his employment contract, this would be weird, if only because Uncle Dennis did not work for the Clippers and supposedly does not dictate what they do with these shady side deals because they all know the rules. Uncle Dennis could claim that he is acting as Randy Shelton's agent. Randy Shelton's agent, whoever that is, does not need to be certified by the MBPA.

So it could be literally anyone. Well, what I am told reliably by sources close to this situation is that the Clippers were not only totally aware of this arrangement, allegedly, they agreed to this practice as a way of getting more money to Uncle Dennis directly. Randy Shelton's the person who allegedly is like, I don't love this. And so, again, we're evolving the question of, like,

what do the clippers know and how do they do business behind the scenes? It's very interesting to me because there's some of these social, Steve Balmer, as an example, an owner would not see this employment contract as part of his everyday job as owner. It's way too far below him. But you have instructions. Get Leonard done. And then Lawrence Frank would have to go to Steve Balmer and say, hey, we're going to need to do the following. He's someone in strength.

We're going to have to have this guy and that guy. And Steve Balmer, that is only approved by the owner. You would never have a GM who would agree to hire people outside of. on the court players without speaking to the president or the owner of the team. In my experience, that would be very rare. I'm still stuck on the 10% that comes out of Randy's contract. Doing that would allow the clippers to compensate Dennis Robertson without actually having a direct financial paper trail.

It's like, oh, no, we have nothing to do with it. That's Randy kicking back to his agent or his representative. It's why I was looking at what his pay was. Yeah, so, yeah, I looked at that too. A couple hundred thousand dollars. Listen, it ain't nothing. It ain't nothing. That is a shocking amount to get paid.

It was a three-year deal, $2.25, $2.30, $2.35, but take to 10% out. Right. And so he's still getting, in theory, you know, $200,000 just for purposes of ease. And also, don't forget the playoff bonuses, which at this moment, they're believing they're going to have some deep playoff runs. And the playoff bonuses escalate as you work through the playoffs. But there's another part of the contract I want to draw your attention to, because the start date is, July 2021. This is a month before

Kauai signed his first extension with the Clippers in August of 2021. But when was his contract actually signed, David? 11-11-2020. That's good luck. So I hear. Randy Shelton signs at 11-11, 2021.

Lawrence Frank signs it the next day, 1112, 2021. And this date, in November 2021, brings us back to, again, a familiar point in our grand timeline here. Because November 11, 2021, happens to be just 11 days before Uncle Dennis Robertson filed new paperwork for a new organization, which was, according to Team Balmer, again, totally independent of the Clippers.

I mean. KL2 Aspire LLC. File date November 22nd, 2021. The document, the LLC, we started this Godforsaken series with. Whose Legal Notice is section also for the record lists Uncle Dennis Robertson with the same exact Palm Beach address listed on Randy Shelton's contract. And so again, just to quote former Clipper General Manager Michael Winger, how many fucking side deals do we have with Kauai Leonard?

And this also brings us back, once again, to the side deal that Steve Balmer and Lawrence Frank want you to think they had no oversight of, no awareness of, nothing to do with. Even though Steve Balmer did go on to ESPN to admit that something happened, that's notable, in the month of November of 2021. We even found the email that makes the first introduction. It was early November. I won't remember the exact date. So where could any of this circumvention have happened? It didn't.

It couldn't have. The introduction got made. And then they were off to the races on their own. We weren't involved. And that is the closest thing that Steve Ballmer has produced to, let's call it an anti-smoking gun. even though this email actually proves that Steve Balmer personally knew that aspiration was asking to do business with Kauai Leonard. With the implication being that despite how incestuously intertwined all of this is, the clippers and aspiration, especially sponsorship deal, carbon credits, ownership groups, personal investments, team Balmer had no idea about the millions of no-show endorsement dollars secretly flowing in to KL to aspire LLC, even though the only logical reason they'd be secret in the first place is because the deal itself.

broke NBA rules. And so in fairness, to bring it all together, you may not be thinking, we started this part of the story about these LLCs, the KL2s, the patient zero, with 2017 and Randy Shelton's registration. But we also haven't mentioned the name of Dennis Robertson

in connection to KL2 Performance LLC in the way that he was with KL2 Aspire. Well, I told you that KL2 Performance LLC was suspended by the California Secretary of State in 2020, sat dormant for several years. neatly matching the timeline of Randy Shelton getting paid on the books by the Clippers. Asta la vista, baby. Exactly right.

Except just a few months after the Clippers finally terminated Shelton, July 2023, the event that sparked the whole lawsuit, something else happened that nobody seems to have noticed. Because on September 27, 2023, KL2 Performance LLC was revived. I'll be back. God. That's good. Thank you.

And a new statement of information was filed with the California Secretary of State, a filing that named for the first time as new manager, David who? Dennis Robertson, Pablo. With the same Palm Beach address as on the KL to aspire LLC paperwork and on Randy Shelton's contract. And if I am Wachtell Lipton, the NBA investigators, one question I'd personally want to know the answer to is why. Why would that happen? Why did he care about reviving a defunct LLC

started by a former trainer, Randy Shelton, who Dennis was charging 10% of his salary? Why would he want to do this once Randy Shelton had left the Clippers? Just asking questions. Why? That's a good question. Why? Why would he do that?

Well, by the end of September 2023, I am told, Aspirations' relationship with the Clippers was finally, officially terminated. This was later now than the team wanted to admit. We went over this timeline before, but I am told that the franchise's deal was over, at least by the time the new NBA season started. And by then, there was a full-on federal investigation,

ultimately involving the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the SEC, all of that was underway now, looking into Joe Sandberg in aspiration for months. Meanwhile, a few months later, I mean, in the basketball world, there was a new headline. January 10th, 2024. Kwai Leonard signs three-year, $153 million extension with Clippers, sources say,

three years, 153, sounds like a lot of money. It is, it is not quite what the maximum allowable salary for him would have been at the time. 9 million below. Which is interesting. Why would Kauai Leonard leave money on the table in a way that is totally antithetical to his entire ethos that we've covered extensively, why would you do something so inexplicable, so conspicuous, given how Team Kauai has behaved?

In fact, it was so conspicuous that this was kind of the first thing that multiple NBA executives pointed out to me when we published our first episode on this whole thing six months ago. And so I've now been spending the last several months chasing down

a number of pretty interesting tips about this moment in the timeline. All of which, raises this question about what happened once the Clippers finally terminated the aspiration deal. And still, according to the bankruptcy filing, had to deal with the fact that aspiration owed KL2 Aspire LLC at least $7 million. Right? And so, again, I don't know if our friends at Wachtell Lipton, the NBA's private white shoe investigators, have been looking into this part, but for now, let's just keep scrolling through the California Secretary of State database,

because it mean you'll notice that in the days before the Clippers announced Kauai's Submax extension on January 10th, 2024, a few new LLCs were born. KL2 Content LLC, that was December 28, 2023, KL2, RIFC LLC, January 2nd, 2024, and KL2, RIFC, Real Estate, January 2nd, 2024. January 10th, I will remind you all, 2024 was when that extension was signed. and unlike KL2 Aspire LLC and KL2 Performance LLC, the patient zero, KL2 Content LLC, KL2RIFC LLC,

and KL2RFC real estate LLC, all remain active to this day. And you'll be surely shocked to learn that the person who is listed as their manager on all these filings is a certain relative. It starts with Uncle and ends with Come with me if you want to live.

If I walked out Lipton, I have questions about all of this. I would just like to mention to you guys that starting LLCs is very common. Having them with names that you can keep track of for what they're for. So you'd have an LLC if you want to put your house into an LLC, which you should. It would be named after the people, maybe the house address. And the reason LLC has become dormant, also very common, is it is a pain in the ass. All the filing requirements in New York and debt. Delaware or California, wherever you have the LLC.

And if there's no activity, you can let it go dormant. You don't pay the fees. But then when you want to get it back going, basically what you do is you revive it Terminator style. And then you're allowed to use it again as the LLC. A neurocomputer. And all I am pointing out is that when I look at the dates here, the timeline, why did he start these LLCs days ahead of his sub-ex?

Mabax contract extension, and why is it that KL2 Aspire LLC and KL2 Performance LLC, patient zero, are the only two of these LLCs that are now non-functional, are now suspended? And these are questions that I simply would recommend that someone who had the power to compel people to sit down for an interview involved with the MBA might take interest in. And all of this, as information is concerned, brings us to another fun headline that I think is pretty cool. I mean, this is from a couple weeks ago. Resurgent Clippers give executive Lawrence Frank multi-year contract extension. This comes to us via Joe Varden and Sam Amick of the Athletic slash New York Times.

January 27, 2026, the L.A. Clippers and president of basketball operations, Lawrence Frank, agreed to a multi-year contract extension four league sources told the athletic. Contract details were not disclosed, though the extension is believed to be for four years. The athletic reported in December that Frank and his senior staff were on track for contract extensions.

Extensions for other front office staff are still expected to be developed per league sources. I can totally understand. We stayed with our GM, even when we stunk. And so, Balmer may be comfortable with Frank. Frank may know exactly where bodies are buried,

and the skeletons, and you keep signing those GMs. So that, again, in and of itself, there is loyalty between owners and GMs that can happen where you'd sign an extension to a guy where the results just aren't there. So I know a lot of people are saying, well, of course, the Clippers are playing a lot better. They didn't start their winning ways until December 20th.

Like, up until that point, the team was 6 and 21 on December 18th. So whenever that conversation started, it was not with the expectation that they would go on this miraculous run. This was season one, two, like, horror show era flippers. There are teams who keep their GM when you have losing seasons. Sure. We did many times. If you're being sued and if, yes, you're being investigated and you didn't know any of this,

it would be pretty hard for me to say, you know, the guy who's responsible for doing all this behind my back, give him a couple more years just to make sure. Maybe he had a plan here. If I knew... Hush money. And I'm not going to say Hush money. Hush money. That's the concept.

So I should say that what multiple NBA executives tell me is that they view Lawrence Franks for your extension as quote-unquote, Balmer Hush Money. Oh, I didn't know that. And look, these are people observing it from the outside, right? So in fairness, again, maybe there's a chance. LLCs are revived for fun. You send your president.

It's at the center of all of this. because you just really have faith in him and the timing just happens to be coincidentally terrible. And you're complicit, whether there's something dastardly or not happening, right? Maybe Steve Balmer thinks we're just assholes who won't leave him alone, but he thinks Lawrence Frank has done a good job throughout that.

And these lawsuits and this investigation are all frivolous in nature. And, I mean, to that point, this is what Lawrence Frank told the athletics law Murray just yesterday. We haven't learned anything more than we have back in September. And to be honest with you, it doesn't impact anything we do. We know it's out there.

We know at some point there'll be a decision made. We very much feel the same thing that we told you back in September, that we're on the right side of this. And then whenever they make the decision, they make the decision, but it really doesn't impact anything we do on a daily basis. But before I let you guys go here, there is one more thing that I think people need to. know about here as we do more due diligence. Because the whole reason we've been able to dive into

aspiration is not just because of the bankruptcy filing, which confirmed the existence of KL2 Aspire LLC as a creditor. It's also because there has been that full-on federal investigation with the DOJ and the CFTC and the SEC and the SEC, which resulted in the FBI arresting Joe Sandberg, and another one of Aspirations board members, too. And this helped lead to further questions and pressure and litigation. And just the other week, by the way, Joe Sandberg's long-awaited sentencing hearing got rescheduled to the end of April.

Just in time for the NBA playoffs. Fun. What Sandberg's lawyer, who also represents Chauncey Bellups in the NBA gambling scandal, has said, Pablo Tori World's colliding. Much like the Terminator universe, there's just a lot of interdimensional travel.

Quote, other matters may play out in the future. We'll see. end quote. Well, you know, with the delayed sentencing, guess who's not talking? To anyone at Wachtell. Who? Joe. But here's the thing, is that after a year of my reporting on this, what multiple sources at aspiration now tell me is something even more interesting, which is that they believe that the reason the federal government got seriously involved in the case of the tree planting fraud and the NBA team is because there was at least one whistleblower, a government, whistleblower from inside of aspiration who went to the feds to report what they knew about alleged criminal activity by Joe Sandberg and others. Presumably in writing and presumably under penalty of perjury. And so I have one more big question for NBA commissioner Adam Silver and everyone involved in

investigating this story, involved in thoroughly doing due diligence, including, by the way, the multiple congressional offices pushing Silver to testify about the gambling scheme. as well as the richest owner in sports under oath. And my question is, if this aspiration whistleblower, who tipped over that first domino of a federal criminal investigation, exists,

did they explicitly mention Steve Balmer an NBA salary cap circumvention to the government? That's a good-ass question. Because that would feel like a smoking gun, as close as we can get to one in this whole story. if they want to come to a conclusion one way or the other, that's a question you have to ask and then get answered.

And if anyone can get to the bottom of that question, I do think it would change a certain declaration of innocence into something that sounds even more obviously like the opposite. Yeah, look, Dennis knows the rules, Kauai knows the rules, Mitch Frankel knows the rules, and we know the rules. Is that a guess or another? Yes. we all know the rules.

And I would make and I'll be Bach joke at the end here, David, but I mean, I already stepped on that. Oh, judgment day is inevitable. You went T3 at the end? Yeah. Rise of the machines. That one was not directed by James Cameron.

It wasn't? I don't believe so, no. Nor was Batman and Robin. We'll kill the dinosaurs. The eyes age. This has been Pablo Torre finds out. A Metal Arc Media production. and I'll talk to you next time.