The hole for Steve Ballmer and the Los Angeles Clippers just keeps getting deeper, and it doesn’t look like a tree is going to be planted in it. It turns out that Pablo Torre Finds Out, the podcast that broke the story of Kawhi Leonard’s alleged no-show job from which he made millions, allegedly to circumvent the NBA salary cap, didn’t lay all of its cards on the table at once.
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The Clippers have been scrambling to find a way out of being on the receiving end of the NBA’s hammer of justice, putting out statements refuting Torre’s reports, saying that all the facts will come out in due time. The team claims that Ballmer was defrauded by scammers.
They have also stated they never used the tree-planting company Aspiration as a way to pay Leonard more than what he was owed from his contract with the team. Torre, meanwhile, came out today with new incriminating receipts.
The paper trail shows that when Leonard was due to be paid another $1.75 million from Aspiration, which was in the midst of going under, a curiously timed investment of $1.99 million was made by a company called DEA 88 Investments.
“1.99 million comes in nine days before Kawhi Leonard is scheduled to get paid, amid the total collapse of the economic premise of this entire company, but here’s what’s even stranger,” Torre said.
“According to our review of Aspiration’s cap table and bank statements, there is no evidence that prior to December 6, 2022, DEA 88 Investments LP had ever invested in Aspiration before,” he added.
Torre did some more digging, intrigued by the timing of a new company choosing to invest, and a week later, Leonard got paid. After a thorough investigation, he found that the registered agent for DEA 88 Investments was Dennis Wong.
The plot thickens here. Wong is the vice chairman of the Clippers, the college roommate of Ballmer. He is also the only other person besides Ballmer listed as a team owner.
Wong owns 1% of the Clippers and can often be found sitting courtside next to Ballmer. Torre showed video of him being present at various important team functions, such as when the ground was broken for the Intuit Dome. Ballmer even gave Wong credit at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new stadium for helping get the project off the ground.
Worse yet, Wong’s daughter worked for Aspiration, which really undercuts the plausible deniability he and Ballmer have in this situation.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said yesterday that the burden of proof is on the NBA to prove any wrongdoing by the Clippers. If the firm hired by the league is half as diligent as Torre and his team have been, then it looks like this is only going to get worse for the Clippers.
At this point, nobody knows if Torre is keeping his powder dry with any more damning evidence. So, if the Clippers put out any more statements, they’d better be careful that they don’t leave themselves open to any more gotcha moments.
This is getting worse by the day for L.A.’s second team. All thanks to some dynamite investigative reporting.
