Today is media day for 25 of the 30 teams in the NBA, and for most, it’s a joyous time for fans to reflect on just how close pro basketball is to returning to our lives. Most teams have been making moves this offseason to knock the Oklahoma City Thunder off their throne as NBA champions, or at the very least, to improve upon whatever record they put up last year. It’s a fun time for most teams, but not, it seems, for the Los Angeles Clippers.
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The Clippers have had a very trying offseason, thanks to the exhaustive reporting of Pablo Torre and his team on the “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast. Torre has been relentless in cataloging the relationship between Clippers star Kawhi Leonard, their owner Steve Ballmer, and Aspiration, a tree-planting company that has seemingly been used as a way for the Clippers to pay Leonard more than the NBA salary cap would otherwise allow.
Torre has been dropping heat for weeks by connecting the dots between Leonard, his Uncle Dennis, Aspiration, and the Clippers, and he’s back at it again this morning, just a few short hours before the Clippers convene for their media day. Say what you want about the man, but he sure does have a sense of timing.
In today’s podcast, Torre cited an article that The Athletic published a few days ago about Leonard’s 2019 free agency that said, “Had Leonard chosen to re-sign with Toronto, the Raptors could only offer $190 million over five years. His other suitors were restricted to $141 million over four years.”
Torre did some quick math and came to realize that the difference between those two figures is almost exactly the number that Aspiration agreed to pay Leonard, or as he put it, “A $49 million deficit that the Clippers could not make up on the books according to the CBA, which then brings back to mind, I dare say, the $48 million deal, negotiations for which Aspiration’s CEO totally does not remember having to do anything with the NBA salary cap.”
Any punishment that could be handed down to Leonard, the Clippers, or team owner Steve Ballmer would require a lengthy investigation from the league office, but Torre has done such a thorough job of reporting this story that one could say he’s handing them the case with a bow on it. He even went so far as to suggest what questions should be asked by reporters at media day today, and/or by the league’s lawyers when doing their own investigation.
“Did Steve Ballmer and Lawrence Frank really have zero idea about this $48 million deal that the founding sponsor struck with the most important employee in their organization?”
Of the $48 million Aspiration owed to Leonard, Torre reported that $20 million of that was in the form of shares in the company, which had a put option that came directly from Aspiration co-founder Joe Sanberg. Essentially, this guaranteed that Leonard would get his money even if something happened to the company, as he could “cash in” the put option and still receive the full $20 million, even if Aspiration’s stock was worth much less than that.
“It’s like investing in something with no downside,” Torre’s co-host Amin Elhassan explained, “because if it doesn’t work, you get your money back, but if it does work, you get to reap the benefits.”
What benefit could a deal like this possibly give to Sanberg or Aspiration? Legitimacy. Torre reported that in exchange for paying Leonard, Aspiration received from the Clippers, “The giant founding sponsorship deal, the signage all around the Clippers’ arena, the jersey patch on the body of the Clippers themselves, the sign on the back of the courtside seats. It was Steve Ballmer vouching for [Aspiration executives] with other investors.”
I can’t think of the last time that an NBA media day was so highly anticipated. The basketball world now waits to see how Ballmer and Leonard will try to explain this all away. Luckily, we don’t have long to wait.
