The Deep 3 Podcast - The Clippers Are In BIG Trouble... | TD3 Clips

Episode Date: September 6, 2025

The Clippers have been accused of cheating the NBA salary cap to sign Kawhi Leonard! What happens if its true?? #nba Check out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/ Listen on Spotify!: https://open.spotify.com/show/3elbbqVumwqz8wlIdknsLW Listen on Apple Podcasts!: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-3-podcast/id1657940794 Follow us on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedeepthree Follow us on Instagram!: https://www.instagram.com/thedeep3podcast/ Isaac's twitter: https://twitter.com/byisaacg Mo's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_ Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Kauai Leonard has signed a $28 million endorsement deal for a no-show job with a fraudulent tree planting company funded by $50 million from Clippers owner Steve Bomber, according to documents obtained by Pablo Tori. quote, it was to circumvent the salary cap per inside source. What the hell? I feel like this is the second time or maybe third time in the last, in the course of 14 months or some weird random news has came out about the Clippers. And about Kawhi Leonard. This man is, he has the reputation of being this like low maintenance guy who doesn't cause any problems comes in, trace the job like a 9 to 5.

There is always a story about Kawhi Leonard if you really think about it. And of course it happens to the Clippers. Like this is, this is just peak Los Angeles Clippers. Something funny is going on. You guys are messing with the salary cap? Out of all things, like yes. And I will say,

I don't care about any of the reporting when I say this. I believe Steve Balmer is a crazy man. And so like, if you could have told me that Steve Balmer did anything, I'd be like, yeah, I can see it. I can get there. So I watched this whole episode I think you guys did too

of the Pobulatory podcast where he talks about the story that he's reporting on him breaking and the short version is in 2021 the Clippers and specifically Steve Bomber had very close ties to this company called Aspiration

that their whole thing was bullshit, it was a ridiculous company that they parted up with corporations to have a carbon neutral footprint by basically planting a bunch of trees for them and giving them good PR that they're making themselves

carbon neutral by replacing as many trees as they are carbon admissions, which is like a nonsense principle to begin with. But that was the whole point of this company. And Steve Bomber was exclusively tied with that. He had a lot of investment and connection with the CEOs, these companies. And in 2021, there was plans for this company aspiration to be one the lead sponsors of the Clippers. That fell apart because the company went under, but they still owe a lot of money to the Clippers and they have some business ties. Well, as a part of that rollouts, Kauai Leonard is sponsored by aspiration, given a $28 million contract and $20 million in

stocks to Aspiration, and he is listed with a bunch of other celebrity endorsements they did. They were endorsed by Leonardo DiCaprio, Drake, Robert Downey Jr., all these A-Lo celebrities, and these A-Las celebrities are public-facing. They made Instagram posts, they did commercials, all kinds of stuff, as you would expect from a normal sponsorship. Kauai Leonard has never once mentioned Aspiration by name. He is their biggest sponsorship by far. His $28 million plus $20 million in stock is per Pablo Tori's inside source, four times as much

as all the other celebrity endorsements combined from those big names I said and Kawhi Leonard has done absolutely nothing appeared absolutely nowhere spoken about it absolutely zero times it looks to be a deal that nobody would know about if this company didn't go bankrupt and have to show their documents

and it's crazy because in the report they were like they're breaking down the contract and like what Kawhi has to do or what he can and can't do within this thing he didn't even have to like actually send a tweet himself he could have just liked something and it would have

counted as as some type of endorsement. And you didn't even do that. For aspiration, you could have liked, you could have retweeted, you could have left the comment, anything. And so for, for Kauai, who probably doesn't even, like, run his socials like that or he isn't even on social, you could have had somebody on your team, do all, do all of that, and it just never happened. And, like, so the ways, the way, there was also a clause where they said that Kauai could

decline to show up at any, like, aspiration meetings or decline anything that they ask of him if it went again. against his beliefs, and then they never specifically defined what his beliefs were. So at any point, he could just be like, no, I don't really rock with that. And then like, okay, like, I guess you don't have to do it anymore. They broke down the whole contract on the show. I encourage you to go watch a full episode of the Pablo Tori Finds Out podcast. It was a great breakdown, great reporting.

And yeah, like Donovan said, the contract clearly stipulated all these creative ways of saying he doesn't got to do shit and he's going to get a lot of money. They explicitly stated he doesn't have to do a single thing in many meaningful ways to show that this contract is stamped as a nothing contract. here's $28 million plus $20 million in stock. And the question is, why does this matter, obviously? Because this happened at the same time as him signing an extension in 2021

where he left money on the table. He did not take the full amount he could. And if you guys remember back to that time, a lot of people were like, huh, he's doing the clippers of favor. So they can continue to load up and can you have a good team? And then here we are with this,

a company that has weird ties to Steve Bomber, giving Kauai a weird sponsorship that makes no sense at all. And Pablo Tori got an inside source saying on record, her talking somebody from the finance department saying this is to circumvent the cap. Yeah.

And this is like a humongous no-no in the NBA obviously because we've seen this not happen all the time, but it's happened quite a few times in the league, several times of the league. And every single time that's happened, the league has done some major like belt-to-ass repercussions,

whether it be like taking away draft picks and just placing unreal, like, resenting contracts and placing unreal like uh man unreal belt-ass type of thing so it's like i'm curious to see immediately i think you'll have on the screen right there the clue president's going to sit here and be like oh yeah this didn't happen this is not true and also through this happening or coming over the last 24 hours too mark cuban went ahead and was like yeah steve bombers is just entirely too smart to leave just an obvious messy trail like this which I do agree to a degree, but also this feels like very tangible stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. So there is pushback where people were saying one. So a big part of the whole report is that one of the clauses in the contract was that if you were to leave the Clippers, that's the only way the contract could be defaulted on. So he doesn't got to do anything at all. You don't, this money is yours for free as long as you're member of the Clippers. And that was a clause. So people were saying that sounds like an immediate hush money.

Like what the fuck? All you got to do is be a member of the Clippers? Sounds like Bomber will put that in the contract. And like you said, Mark Cuban was saying that it is normal for a player to have a sponsorship with a team sponsor and the stipulation be a part of the team because they only sponsor this team.

And that makes sense on the surface, but you see all the time that players have sponsorships with teams and they don't even show their jerseys. Like, you know, they do, like when Dame is on Hulu, he has like a Hulu jersey, there's a lot of stuff like that, especially with local sponsorships do

where they have a blank jersey because they don't have the rights to the team. I find it hard to believe that if they really want, wanted to have kawai leonard it's aspiration really really wanted kawai leon i have find it hard to believe they'd give that much of a fuck if he's a clipper or not yeah and this whole thing is like obviously it's insanely important not not just because it's like oh like it's it's crazy they they pay kawai you know under the table if you are going against the cba which in any in any league

the cba is the constitution like that is that is law and so like if you are if everybody agrees like hey you are only going to pay players based on this specific amount and then you go out and you pay people outside of that specific amount, you are challenging the very fabric of what the entire league is built off of. And so, like, that's why, like, Balmer, Balmer doing this and Kauai doing this. If, you know, the NBA and their investigation comes out and they're like, yeah, this actually happened. It's going to get extremely scary. And I'm telling you right now, if you are a Clippers fan, go change teams.

Because you haven't had the success to back it up. if you get caught with your owner and your star player who barely plays and they're doing some wild salary cap stuff yeah there's nowhere to go there's no shining light this is your time now if you think that anything is about to happen out of this switch teams make your life better because it's not it's not going to get easier after this yeah and again you said like you said the point when the NBA does their investigation which i'm sure they will do this is a big deal can't wait to see the details because the clippers

came out and they've denied it vehemently they've basically said hey listen if aspiration scam it and it got shit to do with us they're the scammers they're fraudulence they said we got scammed too that's crazy

that is their defense because aspiration scammed them they owe them millions and millions of dollars they're also owed money in their defaults from their bankruptcy so that's their defense

but again go watch the public thing there's so many details that why that sounds good on the surface they have a lot of explaining to do about certain things that make it seem more likely

than not that there is. You know what's the funniest detail about all this? Through aspirations, whole goal and their, like, their whole end goal and why they exist as a company, they built one singular tree.

They planted one singular tree reportedly. Yeah, the person, probably said, when they were talking to from the company, said there was one check of the trees are actually being planted in her time with the company.

So big fraudulent company that maybe they did fuck the clippers over. The fart to me that can't get over, that there's like, There's reasonable defenses that you could say, okay, maybe it does make sense that a company that's working with the team wants to sponsor a player on the team. So if you leave the team, they know I'm going to work with them. Okay, I can understand that. I guess. In the reportings post-bankruptcy of who they owe money to, as long as the teams, number one is the

Clippers. They have like $300 million. Number two is Kaui Leonard, above all the celebrities like I mentioned. It's owed out to an LLC named KL2 Aspire LLC. Yeah. That LLC was founded in November 2021 right when this deal started so this LLC was set up exclusively to pay out Kawhi Leonard through a spire these motherfuckers put a spire in the name of a new LLC so that makes it even fissure that this whole thing was made exclusively for this and this deal that doesn't make sense outside of the context of cap circumvention listen that that's just that's just uncle Dennis being very organized or very organized you know he needs to know this money's coming from here this money's coming from here and I don't want to I don't want anything

to get lost. I need to know what accounts I need I need to go to and that's fine. It is it is also funny because like I've like you kind of also seen like some I've seen some people make the assumption of like well, you know, isn't this, you know, kind of happening with everybody like especially like when LeBron went to went to L.A. Everyone's like the Lakers are putting him like they're sponsoring his Spring Hill, right? They're in his production. It's like this is a whole like entire level of salary cap circumvention. Yeah, this is money for nothing. Like there's always going to be a team being involved with players outside of sports

like in ways that like, you know, you can tangibly sell as like making sense for the owner. You know, they're doing connections like off of like schmoozing. This is straight up here's money to do nothing. And the company giving money to nothing was given money by Steve Bomber. Like there's so many connections that yeah, you can't really justify it for that way. And the reason why, to your point earlier, it's so scary to be a Clippers fan is because, of course, you're a Clippers fan. You play a specific role in the NBA, but also, like, looking back and being president, looking at the current state of your team, they're not in a bad position at all. They made a ton of good offseason moves with John Collins, Brooklyn Lopez, and all that.

But moving forward, you don't have any future picks at all. And what tends to happen when it comes to consequences for moves like this that we've seen in the past? Is there like heavy restrictions, whether it be like potential contracts being voided or the NBA resenting your future draft picks? They already don't have anything. So we could be in a situation where we see the clippers aren't able to build off of their team with any type of young talent or youth, which they don't usually do a good job anyway. but in general when it comes to the state they're in right now we could see them without a draft pick for the next like eight years or something crazy

you say they don't have the draft picks normally because they trade them for winning out pieces so less ammunition to trade who knows how long Kauai has left like he's where every year it's 40 games a season like any year could be the one where he's cooked so if you're gonna be entering a new era without him without any young prospects like you said

and then your picture may gone for years like it could get beyond spooky like we talk about the Brooklyn Nets post big trade when they traded for KG and Paul Pierce and how they gave all the picks of the Nets, I mean to the Celtics, and they were just desolate for young talent for a long time

having to build from, I would say build from the middle, but it was more like build from the basement without the benefits of the basement. Just scraps. Yeah, it could be that situation. Like, it could be the same thing. I also saw, like,

because after the episode came out, probably he's been going on a whole bunch of other shows, obviously, to talk about the story. And he went on, on Dan Patrick's show. And he said that some people, afterwards he's like my like tip line has been blown up with people like hey look into to the nix and janea brunson because he gave up 113 13 million yeah and like and hearing that i was like listen man it is what it is and like obviously doing doing this reporting it is it's so important

obviously like in the NBA landscape but if he finds out that the nix did something with brunson you know stop snitching for the clippers honorary report Porter for the Knicks, snitch. Yeah, and the funniest outcome would be if the clippers really had nothing to do with this. And Kauai just has some weird deal with aspiration on his own.

Like, he's like Tony Soprano forcing these companies to give him money for no reason. Who is his uncle, man? They run the underworld of Los Angeles. Jeez. Because, again, if you were to believe the person that's Populatory had on the episode, which is an aspiration accounting former employee,

she said, this money, this $28 million was treated as the biggest priority in the budgeting that Kauai must get paid. All these other people were going bankrupt. We can figure out ways to skimp them and pay them in the future. Kauai must get paid and it hung over the whole company. They talked about it in a like, don't ask, don't tell,

type of thing. At a point somebody told them, this is, to the caps of her convention. Like, this was apparently to her, a big part of the company. So, if you were to believe her and some reason they are paying Kauai Leonard as a priority, either Bomber is cheating or Kauai is Tony Soprano and they run these

motherfucking streets and they have to give them money to avoid getting their knees broken. Either way. Some scamming's happening. Yeah, either way, Kauai is a hilarious individual. Like, no matter what comes from this, Kauai is interesting. I just like, yeah, it's, oh my goodness.

Yo, they actually went around the cap. And it would be, once again, all of this is the most, like, clipper thing because you are cheating and you don't win at all. You don't get any of the benefits of going out. Damn, you don't even, like, make any long playoff run or nothing like that. You don't really get any. They had won.

And without Kauai, naturally. He wasn't there. Yeah. And so, and it's, it's also funny because some people were like, what if Paul George, whenever he was saying, like, listen, I want what Kauai got? Yeah. He said, I need that aspiration deal right now. What do you really mean by that, Paul, George?

Exactly. What are we talking about? So, this is obviously going to be a story to monitor. It's either going to get swept in the rug real fast by the NBA because, they don't want this Pandora's box opened, or this is going to be a story that defines the next year because Adam Silver is a type to be very harsh on stuff like this.

I think he's made it pretty clear. Like, when these players gamble, they're immediately shunned a second later. Like, he's kind of a no-nonsense as far as this stuff. I think he's, you can tell he very much cares about the reputation of the NBA. And with all the, he keenly understands the intersection he's at now,

being somebody that's opened up the doors to gambling, open up the doors to wide access to players in media and the internet and all these things. he knows he's been like very liberal in that way but also understands the spotlight that comes with that seems like he knows to allow nothing and wants to make sure that the company's brand is protected so if this is real and the clippers are if there's a shred of evidence to point towards them I think they're cooked yeah because like if so if the NBA like does do the investigation it's really going to be like a reopening of the investigation because remember the clippers

were under investigation for tampering yes and so then like around that time so very came out and said he views salary cap circumvention as a cardinal sin and so this is like you said this is something that obviously like silver cares about and he is like even even on like on punishments like we're starting to see especially when it comes to reputation like if you go to the to the to the to the jah thing jod technically didn't like he didn't break any laws right and he didn't and he didn't do anything explicitly wrong but you playing on instagram live with guns it makes everybody look bad and so now we're going to give you this this uh this punishment and some people are like

you know 25 games for not breaking the law seems kind of excessive right like a quarter of the year seems it seems a lot but but like you said the and like the NBA has always had this weird like perception and this weird uh you know a reputation and whether that be like the racist connotations yeah in the early 2000s but like every decade there's something that they're always dealing with. And Adam Silver, who is somebody who has worked in the league office for a long time, obviously, has been the commissioner, was the deputy commissioner. He very real, real, like, understands how the league is viewed, how it has been viewed. And knowing that, like, in the next 10 years, this is how people are going to view if you let

this lot. Exactly. A lot of baggage comes with being the Black Sports League. There's so many underlying racist currents with that that they don't want to play into in different ways. and yeah this isn't that but I think what you're saying in that way because of that plays into the whole idea of them caring as much above perception as anybody like the NFL let some shit slide like I think they know their reputation as Teflon

so they let these motherfuckers go out there and play that have crazy charges they slap a six game suspension on the wrist and say go for it because we know we're Teflon we're not really getting that type of criticism like that like the worst thing the CT stuff was a big deal ate that shit off their chest they're fine NBA like you said for all the reasons you said

has always been harshly criticized. They know that matters a lot for them. Yeah, they need to go ahead and lay some type of law down in my mind because it's just time and time again where weird the weirdest things are coming from Kauai in his camp and I guess specifically his uncle Dennis because remember back in 2019, 2020 when he was a free agent, he, between the Lakers and the Raptors and I guess the Clippers were probably the team or were the team to go ahead and subside to that to his request. He asked for like, a house. He asked for like a private jet. He also

asked for ownership in whatever team that he wanted to sign to as well. Yeah, that's another reason why this looks fishy because we've seen, we've heard rumors about this type of stuff. Exactly. And like, it's been fishy for years. Something legitimately has to be true. That's why I'm like,

we're going to see some ramifications and some consequences take an effect. There's too many dots to not notice. Like, exactly. We have report. I remember there's a headline that none of this could be proven at the time that Jeannie Bust said no to legal request by uncle dennis and there's also reports that he wanted $25 million lined up in sponsorships

from the Raptors owner if he were to stay and these were just like reports that were like tied 25 mil oh same number so like this type he added that extra $3 million for inflation Uncle Dennis is on it not not inflation Los Angeles taxes either way he said

I need just a little bit more I have my number we're going to get to it and when there's smoke there's goddamn fire and I smell some heat yeah yeah someone's going to do.