Don’t you love it when the name of a podcast tells you exactly what purpose it serves? It sets the expectations, and it’s just amazing when the show delivers on it. Well, we are talking about Pablo Torre Finds Out (PTFO). In it, through some of the best investigative journalism the sports world has ever seen, journalist Pablo Torre does exactly that. He finds out things.
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Torre is finding out and releasing more and more about the Kawhi Leonard no-show job with Aspiration that he first reported weeks ago. It seems every time he presents new evidence of malfeasance by Leonard and Clippers owner Steve Ballmer to show that they really were circumventing the NBA’s salary cap, someone (usually former Mavs owner Mark Cuban) tries to poke holes in the story.
Cuban has been defending Ballmer this whole time, and he even appeared on an episode of PTFO a couple of weeks ago to argue his points. Recently, he asked Torre, in essence, to find more receipts. Torre did, and he released a new episode on Thursday morning to share his findings.
Torre presented a text message from Dennis Robertson, a.k.a Kawhi’s infamous Uncle Dennis, who has reportedly asked for outrageous things on Kawhi’s behalf during free agent negotiations with teams.
The message, to Aspiration co-founder Joe Sanberg, says, “Good morning Joe, hope you had a wonderful weekend. Just a heads up things are still dragging. Mike has the contact [sic] for 14 days now, haven’t heard back. Thanks. Just keeping you informed.”
Torre’s reporting found that this text was in reference to an extra $20 million that Aspiration was paying Kawhi on top of the original $48 million contract. The amount, Torre stated, was more than quadruple what Aspiration paid all other celebrity endorsers combined. He also found that this $20 million was paid from Sanberg’s personal LLC, which helped fill in the paper trail of Ballmer’s investments in the company.
This entire business is a bit difficult to wrap your head around. Here is a simplified version of it: Ballmer made multiple ‘investments’ into Aspiration, even after the company was in serious financial trouble, and each time he did, an almost equivalent payment to Kawhi was made shortly after.
The text Torre revealed proves Uncle Dennis’ involvement in the whole affair, as well as the complicity of one of Aspiration’s co-founders.
Every time Ballmer has denied wrongdoing or somebody has asked for more evidence, Torre has stepped up his game and delivered. At first, it seemed like he was purposefully withholding info to let Ballmer incriminate himself. But the latest episode of PTFO shows that the investigation is still ongoing, and he just keeps finding out more and more.
Things are looking worse by the day for Ballmer, and Torre’s reporting seems so strong that the NBA can’t possibly ignore it. Who knows what’s in play as a punishment here? The voiding of Kawhi’s contract, the forfeiture of multiple Clippers’ draft picks, and the possible suspension of Ballmer and/or forcing him to sell the team could even be on the table.
