Clippers Judgment Day, the NBA's Hammer and the Investigation That Never Ends: Kawhi-Gate, Part XV

0:00ふ、「さんと 氏彦の問詞作詞で robot art playing theme Okay. I think we need to start David Samson, Amin Elhason by saying that I have missed you. I've missed you both. And my phone is basically a non-functioning object at this point. Holy shit, we've made it to 364 days and good to see you guys. Pablo, we figured it would be at some point. Adam kept saying it's imminent. It's imminent.

1:03And I guess imminent was one year shy of the first show that we all did together on September 3rd. The Pulitzer Prize winning Edward Merle award winning show that we did starting September 3rd. And I think people are expecting us to be doing the snoopy dance right now. But I think it's important to note that there's 35 pages to go through, that there's a lot of both nuance and sledgehammer contained in the report that Wachtel released in full through the NBA. There's press statements already from the Clippers. So I think we needed to go live and wanted to go live. But wow, I'm still digesting. Yeah. I mean, how are you feeling, man, before we get into all of this? Oh, I mean, in many ways, overwhelmed, but at the same time kind of, yeah, that's what I expected. I go back to the very first episode that we did that, as David mentioned, the Edward R. Merle award winning Pulitzer Prize winning episode, where red from Article 13 of the Collective Bargain Agreement. And it said,

2:07the words cannot rationally be explained. It was that end of the part where there is compensation for services rendered that is not commissarate with fair market value. Those two statements right there, I said to myself, oh, I mean, there you go. And so we, in many ways, we spent a whole year compiling information and testimony and kind of just kind of the nuts and bolts of all the different things that were allegedly happening behind the scenes. But at the end of the day, it's all kind of superfluous, you know, in a weird way. And then all that matters is those two lines. Yeah. If you can't explain it, if you can't explain to me why Drake Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Downey Jr. make more than than quite Leonard does rationally, then I feel like there it is. That's the whole case right there. So so David, before we get into any of this, I want to now acknowledge we've been letting people sort of trickle in.

3:10You've been on for about three minutes, I think. And I want to get to what I've been so excited to get to for more than a year. As I've been reporting a year in public with you guys, two things are true about what we're going to do here today. One thing is there is more to come than is in the NBA's report. This is not everything. There is still more. I don't even know if we're going to get to that. But there's even more public. Can we pause right there? I think that might have been the thing that took me back the most. When I walked out, left is like, this isn't even all of it guys. There are things that we have been investigating, continue to investigate today. The SEC got involved with the electronics, which we will get to. That was before all this happened. There is more. And yet there are things that I learned for the first time in this report. And it's delightful. It's the lightful as a journalist to see what was known, what wasn't. And we're going to get to the

4:1335-page report by Waukta Lipton, David, which dropped 90 minutes ago. We've been reading. Forgive this sort of like scramble here. We've all been reading. We've all been getting texts. Our phones are melted. And I think, David, we should just start with the NBA release. We're going to do a bit of a table read here. This is a way for you to catch up on what the NBA has ruled, which is not the same as our investigation. But you will see overlaps to a pretty incredible amount that will lead us to more discussion. So David, can you please begin? Mr. Leonard, through the conduct of Mr. Robertson, Uncle Dennis, for those of you who are just catching on. Mr. Leonard, through the conduct of Mr. Robertson, on his behalf, violated the circumvention rules by pressuring the clippers to assist him in obtaining off-court income opportunities, successfully obtaining those opportunities, and failing to reimburse payments

5:17by the clippers for criminal expenses. We could do a show just on those four lines. Exactly. I want to last one first if you'll let me for just quickly. Please. We didn't talk enough about this. When you've got players and they want to take a private plane somewhere and you are in a cap league and owners have private planes and they want their family to go in different places. When we give that to a player in a contract, that is part of the contract. That is income to the player. It counts in our luxury tax. If a player gets 10 private plane flights, that is part of the calculation. You're not allowed even in baseball to have a player and then start doing all these things for the player and not disclosing it. And it looks like in this report, what Wachtel is saying is, Kui Leonard received tons of extra goodies, shall we say, from the clippers

6:27and did not pay for them. That value of the goodies. If you fly from L.A. to New York on a private plane, call it $80,000. That counts toward the salary cap. If you don't disclose it, that is circumventing the salary cap. If Kui doesn't pay it back. And what this is saying is, there was no payback. David, David, the most common, you know what the most common form of this is, which I think a lot of people don't realize is tickets to the game. Players are a lot of certain tickets, but sometimes players have big families. Sometimes they have lots of friends and they're like, oh, I got 20 tickets every game. You know, there's just extra that I mean, we have to keep track of what tickets we give to players because players have to declare that. Hold on, guys, guys, guys, we're starting with the deepest possible cut of this report. Oh, my. It's the, that's literally like the last thing that the NBA's investigation found. I should sort of frame that was the

7:30Kui thing, though, Pablo. Yeah, you know, I know David and I were doing this with some sort of logic, but I just want to point out that based on this misconduct, the NBA has imposed the following penalties. I mean, the penalties are the Clipper shell forfeit five first round draft picks, one in each of the 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032, and 2033 NBA drafts. That's a lot of things. Five first round picks is a lot, and we should point out that there are things in the collective bargaining agreement that outline punishments, that outline finds to players and to owners, which is something we're going to get back to to explain to people what's going on with what the Clippers are reading and what's going on with what Wattell wrote. But that is a major thing for franchise to lose five first round picks quite obviously without getting a concomitant player. I mean, didn't, was the guy in the,

8:32the big trade for the heat, the guy got five first round picks for a play in the next. He plays. Oh, Michael bridges. Yeah, think about how many five first round picks. That's outrageous. What we're describing in the contours of it, and I'm realizing what I should be doing here is I should be the guy to read because you guys are going to react. Yeah, because that's that's typically how this show has worked for a year. But this is the largest punishment in the history of the NBA. Yeah. And so the Clippers get five 30 million dollars. Clippers owner Steve Balmer is suspended from all league and team activities for one year for knowingly seeking to help Mr. Leonard obtain off court income opportunities for approving a business deal that he knew was a precondition for aspiration to enter into an endorsement agreement with Mr. Leonard. This is part one stuff, by the way. Here it is that the NBA has confirmed in their investigation. And for Balmer's failure to create conditions under which his organization abided by the NBA's circumvention rules. And inside of this part, as we get to the other

9:36components of his executive structure. And we show you guys on the stream, like some of the excerpts and some of the elements and the tweets and all that stuff. This is where it gets to be sprawling in a way that is going to require all of our explanations, I think. Steve Balmer in this situation, when you're suspended from league and team activities, that means he doesn't go to owner's meetings. And you could say that's no big deal. Maybe doesn't want to go. He can't be around the team. He can't go into his own arena according to this punishment, as you just read. He will be attending a total of zero games, zero practices, zero league wide events, owners meetings, et cetera. This is a full one year suspension. Yes. Clippers president of business operations, Gailian Zucker is suspended without pay for one year. Clippers president of basketball operations, Lawrence Frank is suspended without pay for six

10:39months. The Clippers organization and personnel are subject to a compliance and monitoring program. I mean, these are the, this is the right hand person in charge of business, who we've talked about at length, Gailian Zucker and the right hand person in charge of basketball, Lawrence Frank, who we've talked about it like. You know, first blush that reading through the document, Pablo, Gillian Zucker does not come off positively a whole movie inside of a movie with us. Yes. The full statement from in the document from Wachtell Lipton says that she's suspended for without pay for one year for being primarily and directly culpable for impermeasable endorsement arrangements. And for providing false and misleading statements to investigators, they made it a point they even contrast it directly that the statements from Ms. Zucker versus from Lawrence Frank saying, Lawrence Frank took culpability, he took accountability, he said it was on me and you know,

11:43he basically was up front. And meanwhile, Zucker basically either blamed subordinates or said did not remember or would give statements that were contradicting to other statements he had given. I mean, reading through it was a tough read. And if you're a big fan of Gillian Zucker because it was, it was the investigators pulled no punches in letting everyone know. Even more, I mean, what Wachtell found is that Zucker and Frank and Bomber, they knew the rules as Frank said. And we said it in one of our shows we showed Lawrence Frank answering a question from the podium. We know the rules. Do you remember that? Do you remember that? Everybody knows the rules. They know the rules. We know the rules. We know the rules. Everybody knows the rules. It turns out that Lawrence Frank indeed did know the rules and violated them. What Wachtell also said in this report is that what Zucker did is that she

12:47also knew the rules and she not only misled the investigators, which is a big no-no when Bomber had said it's full cooperation. That's not cooperating when you lighted the investigators. Number two, what Zucker did is she knew the rules and then violated them in plain sight. There is a paper trail. The work is amazing. The question of documentation and evidence, right? There's a whole new cycle about is their evidence. We have said for a year on the show as we provide evidence, as we provide documents, emails, whistleblower, testimony, all of that stuff. We've been saying there's evidence what Wachtell has in their capacity to interview NBA employees specifically as well as provide a mean the pressure of the NBA on companies that might want to do business in the future with the NBA was seek and find evidence. And so I credit the ability for us to read this 35-page report because that was unclear to me,

13:51right? It was unclear would we get an accounting of some of the accounting and some of the paper trail which as we'll get to as you'll see was allegedly a court well according to the NBA's finding it is settled. The paper trail of emails that was set up to deliberately mislead people in the future who would see this and think, oh, of course, this was done by the rules. When of course, it was provable that it was to violate. Which of course is what a mean said in one of our episodes when people have said to us, this is so obvious or this is so easy to ascertain. It's the opposite. The way that it was done was in a way to not get caught and they got caught. And what Wachtell is doing in this report is showing the way in which they got caught which provided basically the buttress for the NBA to put this punishment on the clippers which I'm happy to argue with you both.

14:51I think given the Wachtell report that the punishment is light and we can talk about that later, Bob. No, no, I mean, let's frame it. I mean, because one of the things that I thought is what David just said, which is when you get the sweep of this, there is, I would say almost, let's wait, I want to put this, if you had told me, here is a report, 35 pages, read it and tell me what you think the punishment is. I would read this as enthusiastically and as eagerly as I did. And I would say, I think they're taking the team away from Steve Balmer. Oh, that's, I didn't go there, Pablo. Me neither. Because I think they go there for server. I think they go there for workplace misconduct, sexual misconduct and things and racism like with Sterling. So I didn't think they go there. I thought that it would be a larger fine because I believe and sources are telling me in the period

15:52after which 90 minutes. So this is very fresh. So I'll just say the collective bargain agreement sets out a system for how you can dispute findings. It sets out a system for how players can. It sets out what owners can do. It also sets out what owners can get fined. And it is my understanding that this is larger than a fine that you would normally see out of a CBA, out of a violation of salary cap circumvention. It is the largest of all time. And the evidence was so overwhelming. But a factor to me has to be that $30 million is significant. Steve Balmer is going to write the check. The bigger issue for Steve Balmer is not the 30 million. It's the fact that from day one, when he sent you a statement that this is all provably false. He gives an interview to Ramona Shelburn day two that was all a lie. He doubles down on it doubles down on it and all the evidence

16:56collected by Wachtel 200,000 pages all the 70 people interviewed. It all points to the fact that Balmer led the salary cap circumvention campaign. I think that's the big reveal, right? Is that there was a moment where people would push back so is it possible that this all occurred while Steve was waving his hands and cheering or was the whole new cycle with the SPN reporting it for the rest happened like no, but I want to speak. But I mean to your point, that was the reveal, which is this is a story about an organized campaign to get something that they all knew not once, but twice, but three times since 2015, as we've been saying, with the Andre Dorn and Capster Convention that they should not be doing. And that was another point, made by Wachtel in the report that Steve Balmer is not a first-time offender. They went through in the report the ways that the rules are. It's recidivism. It's recidivism. And so look, I should say

17:59here as Mr. Leonard is required to pay the league $700,000. Mr. Robertson is banned for a period of five years, all that stuff. I also should say that the Clippers have now publicly come out with a response. And I mean, would you read this please, the Clipper statement. Yes, this investigation has been flawed from the outset. And your decision issue, this report would not end. To the NBA, your decision, I ask you, this is directly in a letter to Commissioner Silver, we should point out this is a letter to Commissioner Silver. This investigation has been flawed from the outset. And your decision issue, this report without any notice of the Clippers or their council is inexcusable. This type of witch hunt flies in the face of fundamental fairness and of the integrity of the league and of this sport that we all love. We're exploring every legal remedy to address this gross injustice. I cannot believe that the Clippers did not communicate with

19:02Kawaii Leonard. The first thing I do when I get this report is I am saying, Hey, what are we doing here? Because Kawaii went the other way, the complete other way. Oh, David, the question of what is the union going to do and Kawaii Leonard going to do? This was mentioned for shadowed as if they were in lockstep with Steve Balmer's Clippers, right? That was the whole thing was come and try it, right? Come and try to punish this. This is clearly something that you can't punish without a reasonable arbitration process. And I want to point out that the Clippers released an earlier statement in which they said we vehemently reject the MBA's findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation. So you can justify a free determinerative rather than facts and evidence. And then we go on to say, for the past year, we cooperated fully in a good faith and we will now fight just as hard to demonstrate our innocence. We intend to vigorously challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available to us and look forward to an ethical and impartial arbitration process. And I want to raise the question of, wait a minute, how are they going to

20:06arbitration now? How does that work, David? So let me explain. I have no idea how the Clippers released this statement because you fire the lawyers. There is no arbitration process available to Steve Balmer. And having spoken to people within the league and my experience in baseball, there are exact things that go to arbitration, exact fights. This is not one of them. It's not allowed. The arbitration would be contained within the CBA and would be filed by the union on behalf of Kauai. Right. That's that's the big piece here. Is that I mean, the union and Kauai said are bad. And now the Clippers are trying to activate an option that according to our understanding at this point at 627 PM Eastern, they actually need the union to activate to get to the system arbitrator. Well, to get well, no, because sorry, Pablo, but see, this is live, but no.

21:08The MBA and a team could agree to an arbitrator to submit to an arbitration process when there is a dispute between the league and the club. Both sides would have to agree to that. That's number one. Number two, what the Clippers say specifically is we intend to vigorously. I love when you use that adjective for no particular reason. That's as though sometimes you challenge findings in a not vigorous fashion, but they will vigorously challenge these findings where the only avenue available to them is the court and not the podcast court, not the arbitration system. I'm talking about the court court, the real court. So all Steve Balmer can announce is that we intend to sue the NBA because of their findings. But this is the thing that I'm kind of circling here as we saw this out live is that arbitration was contingent on the union. And the union is saying we're

22:12actually settling. And so the only available option, the saber being rattled is literally suing Adam Silver or walk to Lipton. It's suing the NBA itself. And we, as David likes to say, I mean, wait to see if they're going to do that given what we're about to outline in this report. It's or a worse. It's the snake that eats its own tail. Right. What do you you're suing? In essence, like David said, the arbitration exists between because players labor and management. Exactly. That's why we're collectively bargained. Yes. That's what this collective bargaining agreement is between labor and management. And so this is management, swing man, other management. I just I'm not I'm not quite understanding. And David, like David said, you know, this is where you probably want to get on the horn required before he puts out a statement. A statement which says, quote, I accept full responsibility for lapses and judgment by people within my inner circle and regret the distraction. The situation has caused the fans and my family.

23:16So we've presumed by the way, there there it is. Uncle Dennis, you know, the marks left on your back. That is what it was just driven in the form of this statement. But as I return to Toronto, Kauai says, I am focused on what I can control closing this chapter moving forward with the clean slate. And so here's the interesting sort of like thing. I mean that you're noticing, right? Kauai's like, so I can move on with this, right? Peace later. Hey, I was not over there without graphics and $30 million. Well, there's something out. Oh, guys, you know, the NBA gets to approve any trade. There is a world where the clippers now trade Kauai to the raptors and the NBA does not approve that trade because what the clippers are trying to do is restock their draft picks. But there was no scenario under which the league was going to grant Kauai free agency. That they would never do that to a player. He's got one year left on his deal. If he wants to son a new deal, let him play healthy and play well and get a new deal when he gets it from wherever

24:20he gets it. But if the clippers are allowed to get their first round picks back from Toronto, and I mean, what was the deal with Toronto and the clippers? I assume. Great. How many picks? Leave those two first round picks in a couple swaps. So the question is, will the NBA be inclined to allow the clippers? Was that part of the negotiated settlement that we thought existed with the clippers? That the clipper statement claims never happened. So this is all sort of the framework for these findings. And the findings are, I must say, this truly remarkable in ways that I want to get to. The beginning of it, page one, and I think this is, look, can I just say this? We're going to jump around here, but I just want to acknowledge that September 3rd, 2025 in the life of our show is one thing. And it's an incredible thing to have done this for a year with you guys. This is part

25:2215. Maybe I've literally lost count. I don't know what part we're in anymore. I think this might be part 15. But for David, I mean, like, I just want to acknowledge September 3rd is a meaningful day. And I want to just stop here to acknowledge why that is. Thank you. The, our show, I mean, in Pablo, on September 3rd was the last show that my daughter ever watched me do. She got sick on September 12th and didn't watch, wasn't able to watch any more shows. And she just passed away, as you all know, on June 23rd. And I wish that she were able to watch this show because we talked a lot about the aspiration. As you know, we recorded that in the middle to end of August. And it was released on September 3rd. And I had spoken to Kira about it. And you guys have been, thank you for all your support. And I mean that I love you guys and Metal Arc and all of you. The Kira Flund is the thing

26:22that we want to drive people to. Part of the reason we're doing this show live is also to draw attention to that. The fight for a cure. We'd like to cure the old blasts, Omar. I'd like there not to be another Kira. I'd like no family to go through what we're going through and what we've gone through. Because to me, it is just impossible to deal with. And all of the people who've given in so generously is raised over $700,000. And it's we're just getting going. We started to fund research projects. One is being announced again in the next couple of days called Project Rose. And I would just say that anything that anyone can do for the Kira fund every dollar matters. And we're going to keep going because during the past year, it's been very obviously difficult for me for and I'm the least of it for Kira the most for our entire family. And it's gone exactly in lockstep literally. I mean, which is a year, like 365 days. Look, there is some symmetry to all of this. And by that, I mean,

27:30what we're not sharing as we report this story and doing episodes with the public, what we are trying to confirm, what money we're trying to raise as we do a story that's about following money. And I mean, can you just read page one, the start of it, and we'll get into the nitty gritty of this thing. On September 3, 2025, the podcast Pablo Torrey finds out produced the first in a series of episodes alleging that the LA Clippers, parentheses the Clippers and its owner Steve Palmer violated the salary cap circumvention rules of the National Basketball Association, parentheses the NBA or the League through dealings with aspiration partners, parentheses, aspiration and now bankrupt sustainability services company. Among other things, the episode part one revealed the existence of a four year, $28 million endorsement agreement between aspiration and Clippers player, Quile Leonard.

28:32Part two asserted that the agreement was never publicly announced and that Mr. Leonard performed no services under, excuse me, under it. And part three aired portions of an audio interview with an anonymous person asserted to be a former employee of aspiration, who alleged that the agreement's purpose was to quote circumvent the salary cap unquote. Shortly after the episode's release, the league hired Wachtel, Lipton Rosen and Katz, parentheses, Wachtel Lipton, to investigate the alleged wrongdoing. In the intervening months, the investigation scope expanded to cover additional endorsement agreements and other potential in priorities. And I just want to say, David, this is a story built on journalism. That's what this says. We are looking all the line, Pablo, of the entire 36 page report is the name of your show. But the reason we've been reporting it is because we think this story is fundamentally important. We think it's important to bring people

29:35what is not being told to them otherwise by some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in America who happen to control some of the most important institutions in America as in sports. We're doing a story about accountability. We're doing a story in which people, such as the source alluded to here, who we heard as source number one on September 3rd, 2025, took risks to talk about. This is a story about people who told the truth and people who did it. And David, as we continue what this executive summary is saying on the backs of people who were daring to tell the truth, the sources that we relied on, please give us the accounting there. The investigation finds that the Clippers organization violated the circumvention rules in numerous independent ways. By one, affirmatively initiating off court income opportunities between Mr. Leonard and four different companies doing business with the team. Aspiration, boingo wireless, dectronics and locked in insurance.

30:39And I just got to point out it hurts when you get scooped by a law firm. Man, you know how much time I've spent investigating boingo wireless. We haven't even get to say that in public. I wanted that so badly for us. I have boingo. I don't know if anybody wants boingo documents, but I got some boingo documents. Do you? Of course. Oh, man, recent thing, guys. That we should just know is that the NBA, the reason they were so concerned, the reason why Anders wanted to meet with us, they wanted to not get roziered. They wanted to make sure that if we're going to drip death by a thousand cuts, when do they end the investigation? In the report, they referenced something that happened August 17th with the, was it was that the ESPN story? Something happened August 17th. Mm-hmm. Yes. And then we did the dectronics episodes.

31:40They kept wondering, is there more? Is there possibly more? The answer is there is yet more. There is. There is. And this report will acknowledge that as well as I keep on referring to. What the point is what we try to do here is we try to report everything to the level of satisfaction such that we don't actually get sued. Such that we are correct. Be like the number of things. Anyway, I don't want to, this is not about our process so much as it is what has been found here. I understand why you're doing this Pablo because you're human. And we have all been, our processes have been impugned. But this is what the report says to foreshadow, quote, according to this witness, we'll get to the witness. The company was willing to enter into such a sham consulting agreement based on the promise to win a much larger, a much larger services contract with the Clippers. This confidential information came to investigators late in the investigation. And additional steps are ongoing to corroborate it. There is more.

32:41And the story and David, I want to get you back to the, to the bullet points here, but the point here, I mean, is that whenever someone has asked me, is the story over. The response has always been, there's more. And at a certain point, the tonnage of stuff that you find ends up being something you cannot sweep under a rug, something you cannot just dismiss, something that you cannot leak to some outlet to say, there's nothing here. And this is what we're seeing is what a parallel investigation was corroborating. And Wachtel had to acknowledge that in the report and they did. They had to literally acknowledge that there's more and that there could still be more with investigators. He didn't mention our name a second time in the report, but he's talking about us in general. And I would just say there could be more that investigators find. And we'll deal with that as a comment. So I mean, could you actually take over and read the next bullet point, bullet point two, as we have to the executive summary here?

33:44Facilitating the consummation of endorsement agreements between each of these companies and Mr. Leonard, including in some cases, by participating in the Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen, and Kat September, second, 2026. Development and communication of deal terms. Do you want me to keep on? I think that we should just keep going because there's a lot to get to. Point three, inducing the companies to enter into these agreements by offering and providing them with business from the clippers. Don't make them keep, can we please stop their problems and translate that one? We have to. This is, yeah, go ahead. Do you see what they, they're saying in the report that what we said about the electronics? When I told you in a show, I believe I was even in a volcano in place where it was a rusty Italy a couple of weeks ago. Dactronics, there are deals all the time where companies give money back to a team in by buying tickets, by buying a suite.

34:47And those deals are done all the time and that's acknowledged in the Wachtel report. What Wachtel is saying is that it was different. It was, we will do business with you if you do business with Kauai. And that's what we had been talking about. Dude, it's right here in the report. It was the only logical explanation for what Dactronics did. There was no reason to have him as a Kauai Leonard as an endorser of Dactronics. Go back and listen to that episode Pablo that we did about Dactronics. Oh, yeah. It's where, I mean, I mean, we were, I would say this, in our attempt to be fair within the access that we had, I would say that we were even restrained. Yes, yes, because what I said at the time was this is perhaps the most easily explainable version of capture convention that I think the layperson can understand about the hands, because aspiration was just such a crazy

35:48company to begin with. You have to explain what the tree credit, carbon credit thing and like people like what? This was easy. He's like, hey, you get to build our video board in exchange. We'll write into the contract where the next term money goes and you just go ahead and sign our guy to a deal. And that was the important thing in the findings is them being able to create the trail of money. From the clippers to the vendor, from the vendor to a choir letter that the walk to a lifting found that thread and connected it all in a way that I think we again being trying to be as inside the lines as possible. We led people up to that point and just and where as walked the lift and said, no, here it is. So it's what the question that walked tile answer and it's really impressive work. You see it laid out. It's what what holds the you fill in to the story that we could not access because it lies on

36:49participation from the from the one entity, David, that from the very beginning would not tell us the truth. And to jump in real quick, the other thing was they got some cooperation from some of these companies, right? Some joke, right? So electronics aspiration in part. Yes, but like it makes sense. It like if you're dactronics say I make video boards. You know who needs video boards and be a team's these video boards. Do I want to play defense on behalf of the clippers and then maybe perhaps X community keep myself from this entirely or do I just play ball? We got a foreshadow that one of the things that we underweighted because it frankly was a reflection of my lack of cynicism, which is crazy to say is how much every story that we've done is even simpler when you understand that the clippers were dangling clippers business

37:52in front of each of the companies in a way that feels so crazy to me when you see it laid out in a paper trail. It's hard for me to imagine looking back and we can just stick with dectronics because they were in the news today where there is an SEC investigation underway dectronics. The earnings call today. The CFO said the SEC has requested information from us. This is following our episodes. This is in addition to the MBA, which we now see what the MBA did with that information. And so the SEC has to be interested in this because that's where it's also not podcast this is actual problem when you're a public company. You can't do things like that. They don't, the SEC, I remind you, doesn't care about salary cap circumvention one bit. People have been asking, I mean, like why do you, this story, why do you care about it? It's just like because this is, I mean, beyond the fact that I don't think you need the SEC or walk to a Lipton to validate what's been reported because it feels like we did a pretty decent job

38:54in laying it all out. It's because there is consequences. There was a set of consequences that the dectronics CFO said when he said, quote, we have received requests for information from the MBA. Additionally, the Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking information from us concerning the company and Mr. Leonard. We take these requests seriously and are cooperating. At this point out of respect for the respective processes, we will not be providing further comment. It can't float. Their lawyers will not. There is not one scenario under which the corporate lawyers for dectronics, a public company will allow them to comment at all. Of course, they're going to cooperate fully because again, dectronics doesn't care about salary cap circumvention. They care about SEC violations. It's how the salary cap circumvention speaks to everything else we've been saying. It's the story. It's the story of what an organization will do when the rules prevent them from doing it. What else it costs them in the process of trying to get to, I think, part five of this list

39:55here, if you want to skip ahead down to that past the expenses that we've already referred to. It's failing to report improper solid citations for off-quart income opportunities made by Mr. Leonard's uncle and business manager Dennis Robertson. The pattern of conduct reflected here, involving four separate arrangements, sharing many common characteristics, further demonstrates the clear violation of NBA rules set forth in this report. So, a locked-in insurance company, by the way, we hadn't even mentioned. That was merely, I mean, it's just, they refuse to cooperate. Boy and go, again, more later on that, dectronics, we've talked about it length, aspiration, of course. And it gets to the sea suite. It gets back to who was in charge. Oh my gosh. There's something else that happened with aspiration that I was not aware of and I may have missed it while doing all these shows. We always knew it was a $28 million four-year deal, $7 million a year. I read in the report and I don't recall thinking this way, where did that $7

40:59million come from? In the report, Wachtel says that the clippers claimed that there was, they wanted $7 million of carbon offset credits. They said to aspiration, we will give you $7 million to plant trees and coincidentally, $7 million per year was given by aspiration to Kawaii Leonard. So this is how I followed that scent and found that was no coincidence. And when aspiration started not getting the money, they were like, we're not going to keep paying Kawaii if we don't get the money. So this was part of the carbon offset for the key of forum. It's a forum deal. And what they did was basically said, all right, let's just buy $28 million worth of credits. We'll pay you $7 million over 40 years. How's that sound? Which is how no one does carbon credits. You usually assess what's my carbon footprint. And then you purchase said carbon credits offset, clippers said,

42:03go to blank check basically, say, here, take this, just, you know, keep the change, kid, or whatever. What happens in this story with all of these companies? What's the pattern of the three line we will establish? It's that it wasn't just fake jobs for Kawaii. It was fake jobs for the companies. They invented jobs. Consulting, I mean, like apples to apples, round peg, round hole, completely timed exactly in conjunction. And as Joe Sandberg says at one point, which I hate to step on the aspiration story as we're still like, we're still on page one basically. But Joe Sandberg at one point, it's revealed texts, quote, should I call Dennis and Kawaii and tell them that deal is off because we got fucked. He turns it to Nino Brown at the end of New Jack city. He says, I'm going to stand up and I'm going to name everybody. Everybody. And so here's the thing about Joe Sandberg that everybody leaned on was the guy's convicted felon. He's going to federal prison.

43:08And in fact, he is who was sentenced to 14 years. And everybody, not everybody, I'm overstating it. But lots of people were saying, but he's a scammer. He scammed everybody. And on some level, of course, what we've said from the start is it is entirely possible. Of course, that Joe Sandberg scammed all of his investors along the way, both the former and yet, and yet what he was doing was partnering with Steve Balmer and Gillian Zucker and Lawrence Frank and the Clippers to deceive the NBA. And when you get to Dectronics and apparently Bongo and locked in insurance, the same playbook is run. I'm Natalie Ketroweth. And as the Mexico City Bureau chief for the New York Times, I started looking into the scene of Loa Cartel and Fentanyl production. I was trying to understand why this drug was killing so many Americans. And to do that, I knew that we had to get inside of this criminal

44:09organization. It took us months and months of work and multiple trips to Cine Loa to actually get into this Fentanyl lab. There were a lot of risks involved in the reporting, but people got to have a real inside view into the organization that is making this drug. And they saw the process with photos and videos and interviews. This is the kind of work that we're able to do because of our subscribers. If you'd like to subscribe, go to nytimes.com slash subscribe. Well, that was the other amazing part where the four deals before aspiration were all initiated, negotiated and executed with it basically a couple of weeks during the pandemic, during the death of the pandemic, when people didn't know whether their companies would survive or not. Right? It was, again, it goes back to, I don't know if this was magnificently orchestrated or just

45:16sloppy executed because when you look at it in the context, it becomes so obvious. Oh, no, of course. But this is a potelow. That's us guys. That's not a slot. No, we, it's how I want to go through 7,000 pages of documents and find sources. It's finding people who said, this is what's really happening. And the question is, how do you corroborate that? And this is the story of corroboration. And that's another thing that Wachtel put in that 36 pages. When you do an investigation and you have witnesses come in, you evaluate their testimony, which is what we've been doing the entire time, so I would just point out when you have a convicted felon, a fraudster, a liar, and the liar tells you the sky is blue, you do not conclude the sky is blue. You try to find corroborating evidence, corroborating witnesses. Wachtel specifically said in the report that everything Joe Sandberg said to us, we discounted because he's a felon. But it turns out that we had corroborating

46:23evidence from witnesses and documentation that everything this convicted felon said happened to be true. That's yeah, that's exactly the point. It's a hey, we get it. This guy is unreliable. That's why anything that we took from him had to have another kind of corresponding corroboration from some journalists. Well, no, beyond us from the internal documentation. I'm saying journalists get more than one source. Oh, yeah, you're going to go with something. You're going to get a source and you're going to crop right. It's why we haven't been able to unveil everything that we think is true. It's because we didn't have the sourcing nailed that. It's why I applaud on some level. I mean, look, there are two things I applaud. I applaud the ambition of the Clippers because Holy crap. And like you guys, you guys wed for it. And I applaud Wachtel for telling us in detail what they found so they could show

47:25that this is something that they couldn't just dismiss. And so look, it gets to Gillian Zucker, the president of business and Lawrence Frank, the president of basketball, quote, in addition, Steve Balmer owner of the Clippers and its affiliates knowingly sought to help Mr. Leonard obtain off court income opportunities. And at least in one instance, engage in a significant act of team solicitation. Mr. Balmer also failed to create conditions under which his organization abided by the MBA circumvention rules. And especially, egregious laps because the Clippers are a prior offender of those rules and are previously and specifically investigated by the MBA with respect to Mr. Leonard. This goes to our show where Steve Balmer has been very clear. And we talked about this so many times, guys, ready? Off to the races. That was Steve Balmer's number one defense. We are allowed to facilitate an introduction, but that's all you're allowed to do. And then Steve Balmer, quote, aspiration and why they were off to the races. What Wachtel found is

48:33the races were rigged that not only were they not off to the races, the races were being run by the Clippers and by Zucker and by Frank and by Balmer. And that is a really, really important thing to note, in my opinion. The other thing is one of the big defenses that Steve Balmer had was I was scammed. This guy's a scam artist. These people were people who were taking advantage of me and others and other investors. Well, when you put it like that and then you look at what happens in the document and you say, well, no, the initiation comes from the Clippers end. And oh, by the way, it wasn't just that scam company, but several real company, real businesses that aren't doing, you know, some weird tree thing. That's the part where it's like he's presenting it as a victim. That was a big part of his defense. Mark Cuban's defense of him when he came on. I miss Mark, by the way,

49:36I miss Mark Cuban. He said you a very nice message. I hope you saw it on Twitter. He wished us congrats and team-shitting bricks appreciates the message. By the way, Mark Cuban is he said to his credit while he told you that this is ridiculous. What he did say is Pablo, if what we said on September 3rd is true, then they should basically throw the book at Balmer. And what Cuban by saying congrats Pablo is saying, yeah, team-shitting bricks turned out to be the right team and it was true. I just like to point out also that, you know, we don't say this for credit. We don't need congrats for this. The trophy case is full and it would armor or the Pulitzer prize. Those are our prizes. Those are our trophies. This, this is just... Oh, this is this is this is a dessert. This is to me like, what else if we had the powers of the NBA, what would we want to know? And we got today,

50:38like it's it's been so fun to read. My regret is that we didn't have more information or I didn't have more on Zooker because for me as a team president for all those years, I would love to have done a show with you talking about all the things that we figured out or found out that she did versus what you're supposed to do, how you're supposed to do it. So let's let's wait. Let's get okay. Wait, how are you supposed to do it as in following the rules or how are you supposed to do it as in skirting the rules, David? Both. Okay, I want to do that show. Not today, but we got to do that show at some point. Yes, what was being described in the report was the Clippers did know the rules and what they did, what Gillian did, is that she created a paper trail of emails in which the introductions were manufactured so as to provide legal cover by the NBA rules in the future. So that if called to the mat, they would say, of course, this is how it happened. And of course,

51:39what was also findable, if you dig deep enough, is that none of this passed the smell test. And in fact, there were other communications that showed that this was all orchestrated for exactly the reason of circumventing the rules. So look, I want to get to man, there's we get to here we go. There's a quote. There's so many. This is by the way, I'm referring there to the introduction emails, which were written to appear responsive to requests from partners. In fact, the Clippers initiated all of it. That means because that was just using what you just said, Pablo, there is a rule in the CBA of how you are allowed to act when it comes to players and team sponsors, players and team business partners. What the Clippers did is they thought that they could get away by being involved. We read emails that were back and forth. Remember, we had the Clippers redacted emails. When is Kauai going to do this? Do you need help with Kauai doing that? And the reality is what Zooker did basically said,

52:43I know the rules, but I got to find I got to do the job for bomber here as a team president. That's what I would have told you on my show. My job is to do something for the owner and I know what my job is. So I'm out there trying to make sure that we're able to get these deals done for Kauai and she violated every rule with the emails that she sent. David, my favorite part was basically, you're not supposed to initiate the third party is supposed to ask and then you could say, yeah, I'll make the introduction. So the work around was in essence to say, oh yeah, following up on that conversation, we had the other day. So there's no original paper trail of, hey, how can we get quiet on board with us? It's always, oh, I'm following up on that thing that we talked about that we didn't email about. We talked about on the phone and here's our introduction. I want to skip ahead a little bit, forgive me because we're in the pandemic now. It's April of 2020, according to the report. And what happens here, this is, this is how it happens. Dennis Robertson speaks to the Clippers to Steve

53:45Balmer to Lawrence Frank and says, hey, we made these demands. How are you going to fulfill them for us? And Robertson complained to Mr. Balmer that Miss Sucker was making introductions for bullshit deals and that I, Mr. Robertson can't wait on Miss Sucker. I have to get paid. And what's he? Love that. Dude, what Steve Balmer responds here. This is a quote, Mr. Balmer responded by telling Mr. Robertson, then that he and Clippers personnel were all collective workers to try to help Mr. Leonard achieve his financial goals. I'm just like, what? How many smoking guns are we supposed to need here? Like, and to that. And Miss Sucker assured Mr. Robertson that Mr. Balmer would follow through on his promise. Like the whole idea of like, what do we, what's the threshold of like clarity here? We're so, I mean, look, anyway, I don't want to just continue to, to say, we told you so, but like, this is how the reporting came together. Let's, let's talk about one thing as it relates to

54:51Balmer and some of his other quotes that were problematic when he started with the provably false. That was the first statement as you recall to you and to your show, Pablo, before September 3rd. He said that he will be able to prove a show that all of that he did nothing that our assertions are provably false. Then he got rid of the provably false and later statements, but kept hammering the fact that he did nothing wrong. It was off to the races. Wachtell was very clear in this 36-page document that Steve Balmer's culpability is significant. And that is why the fine is 30 million, the five draft picks, the suspension of a year, which I reiterate, when you suspend an owner for a year. It's enormous. It's enormous. And so I believe having read the report that while it is enormous, that he could easily have suspended Balmer for longer, not forced to sell, but made him

55:53give up control as a possibility, suspend him from being a governor for five years or more. Could have been a punishment. His president of business operations, Gillian Zooker fired. Remember what happened with the Astros when the GM and the manager got fired for the garbage can banging. Remember that, but the owner, no, we're good. Wachtell did not find that in this report. You know, it's funny. Pablo going back to him saying we are collective workers trying to help Mr. Leonard reach his earnings. It reminds me of the scene in role models where I think Elizabeth Berkeley is the, not Elizabeth, Elizabeth Banks is the lawyer and she's got the guy in there and he says, we're going to pay the innocent. He's like, what do you mean? They have you on tape doing this. I could have been anyone. And then they play the tape. And he says, who believe it? Me, David Garvin stealing TVs. And it's this, it's, we are collective workers trying to get this.

56:57What? Like how is that? I mean, it speaks to the desperation. We said this at the beginning of our whole series. How desperate was the you, Balmer, the richest owner in American sports, one of the richest people on the planet to get a superstar that would allow him to compete as owner of the clippers. And the answer was look at what he was doing for not look the whole thing about it's interesting. The whole thing about the timber wolves, which is the previous precedent, right? The reason the timber wolves is small potatoes and why when I read this, I was like this feels like the definition of what you can't do as the owner of sports team is that this was vast. I mean, and this is the explanation. I just want to quote this part. As the evidence mounted that the clippers had again stepped over the circumvention line by providing improper assistance to Mr Leonard, the clippers advanced a novel theory. Affirmative, not responsive introductions of players, the business partners for the purpose of helping them generate off-court income. If such

57:58introductions are requested by the player representative, that's, that's, that's cool. You could do that. And if you have that understanding in your mind, then you're trying to drive four different deals through that framework or alternatively, right? We can't psychoanalyze the clippers. I don't know what they would say or that's what they made up when they were caught red handed doing something that obviously was never even vaguely okay to them. So anyway, we moved down as the clippers appeared to double down on this theory by issuing all of these publicly-wared statements. This was the August 17th thing. This is normal. We introduced stuff. Players and teams are introduced all the time. Love of partners, all that stuff. Based on the foregoing evidence, investigators find these statements to be inaccurate at best with respect to Mr. Balmer and clearly false with respect to Ms. Zooker, whose name I'll begin to pronounce correctly. Thank you, David Zurgeon. I was the way they treated her cooperation or lack thereof was so scathing. I was taking a back, David. I

59:04don't know if you felt the same way I did. I was shocked. I'm like, they did not mince words at all. They felt that she was, as it says, misleading them in the investigation. You know, there's no penalties in the Wachtel report. There's no punishments. That is their report of the findings. The NBA takes that report and then decides on punishment. Negotiates with the union on the Kauai punishment settles. Either Duzzer does not negotiate with the clippers. We need to find that out because the clippers clearly are acting like they're reading the report today for the first time, which I think is straight horse-socking. That said. You don't hold on. You don't think they had their hands on this? I think that they did not read the report the way we read the report at 4.30 or 5 o'clock. I think I think that there was a fundamental misapprehension that is baffling to me. It's about, I mean, look, I can't, I just, we'll leave it at that for now. We'll leave

1:00:09it at that for now. But the clipper statement is major. The clipper saying they are going to fight. Yeah, yeah. The NBA when they do this, if they, let me just talk about baseball for a quick second, if you think a team's going to fight the league, you start by talking to the team and trying to settle it before it's a fight. You don't want there to be a fight. You don't. If something's not covered by the CBA, the way steroids is, we can't fight when a player gets to spend the 80 games. That's the CBA. That's the rule. But if you think there's going to be a fight, you do a negotiation. Did the NBA and the clippers negotiate? The clippers are saying we had no idea that this was the report. And we are going to fight it vigorously. They're saying, well, that means they got a fellow lawsuit and they're working on it right now and they're going to have to sue. I mean, maybe us, but certainly Adam sur the NBA, I don't, they try to put Wattell

1:01:10in that, but I don't think that works at all. But in any case, that is a huge burden for Steve Balmer to try to get over in terms of successfully overturning the punishment. And the punishment is not Wattell based. The NBA chose it. Wattell doesn't say in here. By the way, by the way, I will say for the record here, whenever we got asked, whenever I got asked at least like which of the punishment be? I don't know. I'm not, that's not my job. My job is just tell you what the story is. It's to report. And then what happens after that, you can discern, but like, I mean, like, probably remember the Astros result was a suspension of hinge and a suspension of lunao, but Jim Crane then fired them the next day. What I'm waiting for and what I thought was coming before I read the Clipper statement when I assumed the Clippers were acknowledging, I figured that they would fire Zooker tomorrow the way the Astros fired Jeff Lunao the next day.

1:02:15That he was suspended by the league and that they would, and now she would just get fired. And I would expect that to still happen. I know we'll probably get to it later in the document, but how do you think it feels to be a subordinate under Gillian Zooker to find out that when she talked to them, she was like, uh, one of these guys probably did that. I didn't do that. That's got to be the worst because because I think that that's got to be because, you know, David, I'm thinking about what you're saying. And in a way I could see Lawrence Frank not getting fired because good soldier. I went out and I did what the general asked me to do and they said I got suspended and I took the suspension on the chin. Well, let's hold on a second with that because we also reported, and then it got announced, I believe Pablo did Lawrence Frank get a big extension recently? Sure did. Sure did. A four year extension went what month? December, I believe, but we'll fact check that. The investigation is ongoing at this point. Lawrence Frank knows what

1:03:18happened. Bomber knows what happened. He gets the extension. You can fire Frank, but you can still pay him out. You can fire him for cause. And then you don't pay him or you fire him without cause and you just pay him. And that could be the reward for Lawrence Frank for being the good soldier. He gets to spend it for six months and then gets fired but paid that four year extension. Does it separate? Is it just to separate yourself from from the bad PR, the bad juju of the Astros did with Luna and and and their manager, AJ Hinch, you got to separate yourself. You're Steve Bomber. If I'm the owner of a team, I want to separate myself from all of this. Well, this is so, but this is the challenge, right? So as we go through this and will not get to all of it because it's way too much and I encourage people to like dig in as we continue to cover it and investigate still, especially now that it seems like the story isn't over yet, which is perfect for what the story has been this whole time. The question is, so how do you explain all of this?

1:04:18Like you can go and go to court and I, perversely, of course, want more documents. I always want more documents, somehow still unsatisfied with the documents. But I mean, how do you rationally explain what is in the documents? This is what I go back to. It's section, it's article 13 section two, part D, violation of section two A to be above, maybe proven by direct or circumstantial evidence, including but not limited to do evidence that a player contract or any term or provision thereof cannot rationally be explained in the absence of conduct, violent. That's all we're talking about here guys. Give me a rational explanation for all of this. So if I may push this nudges this thing forward, Pablo, and the efforts to get as much as as we can, a lot of people kept asking, what's taking so long? What's taking so long? Why is Wachtel taking so long? Pablo and his crew are running rings around, you guys, what's taking so long? Well, it turns out Wachtel did not pull

1:05:23punches on that either. Quote, this effort was challenged by, among other things, the approach of the clippers and their outside counsel, who at times delayed in responding to request for information and operated in an adversarial or obfuscatory manner that slowed investigate the ability to gather the facts. Thank you. I would advise you got that word, I couldn't do it. From the perspective of due process, however, the clippers were zealously represented throughout this investigation by outside counsel seeking to protect the team's interests. I mean, we read in the episodes we've done in, by the way, there's a civil trial happening, aspiration investors, suing Steve Balmer, 11 of them, by the way. And in the filings provided by Steve Balmer's attorneys, his personal lawyers, not only are we trashed and the whole thing dismissed, but to say the least, it was quite zealous how they've done this. I know that the clippers have been working with their own PR outside people. Sure. I have not talked about this because I'm not

1:06:29trying to, whatever, but like they have been working behind the scenes this whole time trying to zealously create a story favorable to them. And so when it comes to what did they know and how did they choose to hide it or obfuscate it? What everybody knows who's been plugged into this doing interviews this whole time is that they have been remarkably strategic and the lack of plausible explanation of rational explanation for a year speaks to what this report and our reports and anyone who does actual legwork on this begins to realize, which is of course, it's going to be a story about salary cap circumvention. People really were confused a lot. I'm now thinking back to the last year where my head was spinning for most of the year and still is. But when it came to this story where the real confusion was is people would come up to me all the time and it really happened a crazy amount of times. Are you just after bomber? Like is that what you're doing?

1:07:36Or are you David hangs out with different people? I mean, you know what? I got all the time, David was like, why are you guys hanging on? Why? I'm like, this is not a so funny. I got all bomber and you got all kawaii. I got away that. I just got our interview just prostituting yourself for clicks. Oh, by the way, three three ain't bad. We're at an hour and seven minutes. There are more clicks that I want to get out of this. But listen, here's I want to get to the part that is so remarkable and this is where again, tip your cap to an investigation that surfaced new things, right? And so this again, stuff that's existing in the realm of rumor that we could not publish. I want to I want to get down here consulting the consulting contracts because this is maybe my favorite part. I'll just read this in early June 2020 at the time of Miss Zooker's introductions. None of Boingo, Dectronics and Lockton had commercial agreements with the Clippers. But all three

1:08:38companies were an active discussions to provide business services to the team or its arena. You've been saying this for a while. The Intuit Domes construction was this gateway to get all of these business deals. But I proceed to quote, within weeks following the introductions, either before on the same day as the company signed endorsement agreements with Mr. Leonard, each company entered into a multi million dollar consulting agreement with the Clippers. Two of the companies received almost the entirety of their consulting fees up front in payments of $10 million each delivered prior to these companies entering into endorsement agreements with Mr. Leonard. The third company received its first annual consulting fee of $2 million one day after making its first payment to Mr. Leonard under the endorsement agreement it had entered into with him. And what does that say David? It says that these companies were themselves getting no-show fake jobs to funnel money to pay Coil-High Leonard.

1:09:43Well, but they also were getting more than that and because if they're getting an opportunity to be a part of Intuit's construction. So don't say Dectronics got nothing they got to do the HALO scoreboard. Don't say boy go got nothing if they get to be. Oh David is David has David has stopped. Frozen. I will pick up the thread as David hopefully reset. Let me let me let me let me play my role as the dumb observer, Pablo. But these consultancy gigs happen all the time. I'm sure these companies have done consultancy before with other vendors. Yes, no. It's so clear that there is no real precedent for the types of jobs that the company's got. There was an exact who told the walk to elliptan investigators like we've never done that. We've never had a consultancy gig. Indeed a credible witness with direct knowledge told investigators that the consulting agreement one company signed with the Clippers was in fact a ruse designed and intended to be a vehicle for the team to provide the

1:10:46company with funds to be paid to Mr. Leonard. According to this witness the company was willing to enter into such a sham consulting agreement based on the promise to win a much larger services contract with the Clippers. This confidential information came to investigators laid in the investigation. This is the additional steps being taken to corroborate it. So David where you dropped out was the point of they were doing nothing in these fake consulting jobs. But what they were doing by funneling money to Kauai was putting them in play in the case of Dectronics for literally a 100 million dollar deal to build the halo board which as we've established in our episodes kind of saved the company. This is no small part of this finding by Wachtel because this is what I have been describing to you on this show and on nothing personal when you're building a stadium or a ballpark or you're doing any sort of business with sponsors. There's a lot of room to fudge numbers.

1:11:46There's a lot of room to hide money. There's a lot of opportunity to do things that may violate rules. And what Wachtel found very clearly is that there was a immediate causal relationship between Dectronics getting the business of the scoreboard and doing a endorsement deal with Leonard. That is a violation on myriad levels. I mean could you read this part here in the doc? I wish we had folders but we got to obviously do this Jerry rigged but it's the part where I'm highlighting it. It's at page 19 at the bottom. Page 19 of the document but if you just click to me it's under the Dectronics section. Gotcha. I got it if you need it. What's the first couple? Dectronics relieved. That's yelling to enter into a commercial relationship with Mr. Leonard could jeopardize its ability to win the bid for the into it. Later in May 2020 in a call with

1:12:50a senior executive of Dectronics a senior clippers executive specified the precise financial terms that the clippers expected Dectronics to provide to Mr. Leonard in the endorsement agreement three million per year for two years. Fast forward to February 2021. This time the clippers executive told Dectronics that because the team had decided to increase the amount it would spend on the scoreboard Dectronics had correspondingly increased the amount it would pay to Mr. Leonard. After some negotiation and again based on its concern that failing to comply could jeopardize its business with the clippers Dectronics ultimately agreed to increase its second year payment to Mr. Leonard by two million dollars. In return the amended agreement called for Mr. Leonard to provide additional services. This arrangement was reflected in an amendment to the Dectronics Leonard endorsement agreement executed on May 20 2021. And this is Wachtel's read. Quote to underscore

1:13:53the point the impetus to provide this additional two million dollar payment to Mr. Leonard did not come from Dectronics instead it originated entirely from the clippers. I'm smoking the gun because it's all that everyone said to me. Are you after Balmer? What are you doing? You have no smoking gun? You guys are not journalists or morons. Wachtel in their ability to spend Balmer's money which we need to re-point out that Steve Balmer paid for this investigation just a quick side note for everyone to remember how that will do. We'll do it. We'll do it. We'll do the full accounting at some point in the future when the legal bills are all tallyed because they're not over yet. We learned. No, they are not. So it's just a very clear and when the evidence becomes that clear and then you have it again happen and what Wachtel said in the report is it wasn't just Dectronics. They went endorser by endorser of Kauai and showed the same pattern and that's how

1:14:54you end up with this penalty. And that's how you end up talking about aspiration where we started this story as almost like you know close to the end I think of what we can do here in one episode which will of course follow up on. But the summary here as we get to aspiration is a Gilean Zooker story here. And look we've had emails in which Joe Sandberg is talking about how helpful Gilean is going to be we should activate all this stuff. I don't want to do the aspiration series again. But here is the summary from Wachtel which is that it's October of 2021 and Miss Zooker raised the topic of endorsement agreements between team sponsors and players and she used Mr. Leonard and another player foreshadowing as examples of players with whom aspiration could partner. Miss Zooker told investigators that she told Mr. Sandberg that NBA rules prevented her from providing such assistance but the record establishes that she acted otherwise.

1:15:56And this takes us to Joe Sandberg the aforementioned convicted felon in federal prison who said to the NBA something interesting it seems because quote, indeed in that very same in that very same conversation and rather than simply supplying Mr. Sandberg with contact information for Mr. Leonard and or as representatives which is all that is permitted by the CBAs or convention rules. Miss Zooker told Mr. Sandberg that she would enlist a particular business agent to assist Mr. Sandberg in structuring the agreement, a business agent who was then under a retention agreement with the clippers and quote. And just to spell that out, there was an agency working for both the clippers and for aspiration and we will again have to hold on some of the reporting here but that agency ended up being a nexus through paperwork and money to flow. When you look at that part of the Wachtell report and again we just got it an hour and a half ago

1:16:57and I've done I will admit that I've only read the report once and I will have to read it again but one thing another thing that came to me while reading this report is that a conversation with Joe Sandberg Wachtell's the investigator had to find another way to get at the clippers and Zooker to get at the truth they weren't just going to base it on any testimony from Sandberg and what Wachtell said in the report is hold on a second Zooker did the same thing with four companies exactly this way. What are the chances that asked that Joe Sandberg's line but yet the other three companies it's exactly the same. Well, wait a minute maybe Joe Sandberg is telling the truth about this specific part which is not an SEC violation I remind everybody this is salary cap circumvention not SEC violation for Zooker and the clippers no criminal issue whatsoever but this is a damning paragraph when a convicted felon is explaining to the investigator something

1:18:04that is so easily corroborated that is when if you're Steve Bommer you say I can't go forward with my president of business operations. Of course I mean unless unless all of this was also something that was cool with him but as a matter you still sell her down the river you don't take it himself. It's like saying Jim Krain I had no idea they were banged up but I mean there's an email here yes we love documents yes October 28 2021 could you please read yes subject line aspiration and quiet Joe is making an offer to quiet to be a spokesperson for five million cash plus seven million in stock per year for four years as long as he's with the clippers can someone please come up with a wish list Joe should ask for from quiet Joe doesn't really know what to ask for which is the definition of a big job yeah it's even it's even better because

1:19:06it's better against September 3rd one of the areas where interestingly enough that Kira was involved when she heard the episode was the thing we talked about where I focused on that line as long as he is with the clippers and people were saying to me yeah that's not really any big deal that's normal that you wouldn't be a sponsor if you're with a different team and I said hold on this is not normal at all and there were people who came out publicly who said oh David of course it's normal no the reason why it's as long as he is with the clippers is that if Steve Bomers not paying quiet Leonard then he doesn't need aspiration to pay quiet Leonard it is right there is clippers day in the Wachtell report yeah it's it is normal David when you're talking about like dodge of date land or whatever like yes that makes sense that the local car dealer does not want to you know endorse an athlete who is not local to the area but when you're talking about big national

1:20:08brands example I use when confronted with the same kind of pushback with Steph Curry and Chase obviously there's a connection there between Chase as a team sponsor and Steph Curry if Steph Curry were to go to Charlotte it's not like Chase says well that's it rip that up don't want anything to do with you anymore we're gonna pay all this money if you stayed here it's Steph Curry that's the whole point and so when you talk about national brands and presumably national name superstar players these this you know term as they has to be a clipper becomes very suspicious indeed we have been saying this whole time for a year 28 million dollars over four years for a no-show endorsement job plus this 20 million dollars in guaranteed stock and here it is it's just it's it's just it's all the math is adding up and so we go through their more emails between the agent Gillian was the person wrote the email that I mean just wrote

1:21:09the agent and Gillian they're talking about how they want their thoughts on all this stuff agent writes back Gillian shared with me that you guys spoke she asked me to help you draft thoughts for the koai offer please review and let me know if this is how you were looking at this the next day zooker requests a call with uncle Dennis and Mitch Frankel remember him koai's agent koai claims to investigator excuse me zooker claims investigators that it's a quote preview and one day later November 5th 2021 Gillian zooker sends a formal quote unquote introduction email to mr. Robertson and mr. Sandberg which you may recall from the interview Steve Walmer gave to Ramona Shalburn that first week of September that is the bleeping email that has been cited as ex-culpatory evidence this whole bleeping time off to the races this was the introduction right and by the way when she gets on the call when asked about that call she says she does that always before

1:22:13an introductory email she gets on the call with the people let them know hey this introductory email is coming which reminds me of the curbian enthusiasm episode where Jason Alexander Larry David have an argument about having a meeting to set the meeting no we just had to meet you know this is the meeting the set when the meeting is what is that what you're calling someone to let them know there's an introductory email happening that doesn't make any sense but in essence that introduction emails what we talked about earlier in this episode which is she frames it as though hey remember when you guys asked here it is off to the races but as walktale points out this introduction came nine days after mr. zooker told mr. Sandberg that she would call a business agent to help him instruction agreement with mr. Leonard eight days after mr. zooker conveyed to the agent financial terms for the deal and one day after mr. zooker gave input on the deals term sheet off to the races please please please please read me the next part of this based on this series

1:23:18of events and based on the record related to boingo thatronics and locked in investigators find that the november fifth quote unquote introduction email from miss zooker was drafted solely for record making purposes and was not a genuine communication intended to kick off a deal making process mr. Leonard that was by this time already well underway that's a major paragraph when it comes to punishment too because that is exactly same that you did not file the rules the email was intended to comply with the rules we make the introduction and we're off to the races what is made clear by walktale is that it did not work that way this is not a crime of ignorance is what david is saying what walktale is asserting is this is an active cover up and at a certain point jose and berg is saying all of this in his texts and maybe you just discounted him because of the convicted felon aspect of his story which we get it but he says stuff as clearly as the clippers are asking

1:24:24us to do this with koal Leonard he is then getting mad because at some point with the forum deal which we talked about already there is a seems some hesitation some conflict on whether joe san berg co-founder of aspirations gonna get what he wants out of all of this and I mean this is the rational explanation part I want to zoom to this no clippers witness could provide a credible alternative explanation for the initial appearance of the seven million dollar annual payment from the team to aspiration in the forum agreement they found another it's it's it you scratch the surface and you keep on realizing the depth and what bomber tells investigators is that this was based on a study from a consultant but the consultant told investigators this whole carbon credits deal for the forum quote that the clippers had given him a twenty eight million dollar budget with which to address the forum's emissions not the other way around yeah no one does it

1:25:29like that folks nobody does it like that you got to figure out what your emissions are and then you paid off-set it you don't give them the money and say as I said earlier keep the change kid there is something that was not addressed in the report yes there were a couple of things I was looking for I'd like to bring it up because I found it to be incredibly coincidental the investments by bomber into aspiration the amount of the investments the investment by Dennis Wang did not appear in the report at all who does not appear in the report did not appear in the report despite as we've said one zillion times investing in aspiration as if it was a real company where was in default had its auditor resign had been under a pro by the SEC already and while by the way Kauai was waiting for his money only to get it nine days after Dennis Wang invested for the very first time the only outside investor to enter aspirations books at that point in December of 2020

1:26:32and I have an explanation for it because if you're walked out you're investigating salary cap circumvention you're not investigating the civil claim of fraudulent inducement to invest in a company the way Steve Balmer has said I got scammed what by not putting Balmer's investment into aspiration into the report they are acknowledging that two things can be true as we've said time and time again Steve Balmer could have been scammed by aspiration and Steve Balmer could have worked with aspiration to circumvent the salary cap and there's no reason for walk tell to address the first parts because that's not what they were hired to do so while I'm not happy they're not in the reports I would like to know what they found out mid that may be different than what we found out it makes perfect sense to me it would not be in the report because walk tell putting this together knows exactly what their job was to investigate salary cap circumvention not any sort of fraud

1:27:34with Balmer and his investment into aspiration now David I have a question for you because the Clippers ownership structure is very uncommon in modern sports Steve Balmer majority owner Dennis Wong minority owner no more owners 99% Balmer 1% long right and so typically never been released before in the NBA you have your governor and then there's an alternate governor who is typically the other you know the next you know partner in line had Dennis Wong been in this and disciplined in this you have a situation where both the majority owner and the minority owner excuse me it's a great point that you're making behind the cough which is if you suspend Balmer and Wong then you have to put in some sort of process to vote can I can I tell you guys something interesting as I've come to know way too much about the ownership governance structure of the Clippers

1:28:37Steve Balmer is the owner here are two alternate governors that he has used in recent years Dennis Wong Gillian Zooker oh my god it's it's I'm like what's the name of that TV show with a chain of command or whatever where it's like what happens when the president and the vice president and the secretary is saying like they all die designated survivor who's a designated survivor here if Dennis Wong was out and Gillian's out and Lawrence Frank is out and Steve's out you know who's that is it Tai Lu who becomes the governor and that's I thought I think that I read something that it's gonna be Doc Rivers no they're bringing they're bringing Doc back that would my voice yeah my voice isn't that good but I'm still doing just for you guys hey Steve if you need I mean I mean has the only impression we're losing his ability to speak actually makes it more convincing if you need me just give me a call I'm on the golf course by the way I saw Doc in France

1:29:39and when we I was anyway that sounds like a terrible humble brag um but I got a call I got a call doc after this doc sat for the as for the walk tell investigations he's not in here either I just want to know there there are a lot of things aspiration investor at Doc Rivers by the way there are a lot of names in here which make me think that today but it's point there was a scope we've said this the whole time right an independent investigation is not journalism we credit what this investigation found we've done it for 90 minutes literally we've done that for 90 minutes but it's not journalism it's not telling you the story that I think the public interest most finds compelling it's quite compelling but the other characters that we've outlined here Dennis Wong being one of them David I can imagine a world in which the scope was given in a certain way and within that scope what became undeniable was the sweeping nature of this whole scheme and at

1:30:43that point the biggest punishment in NBA history does not need an expansion of scope which they were not given in the first place and I want to read what walk tell wrote in the report when they said as part of the investigation walk tell conducted 73 interviews of 60 people that's not a mistake 13 people interviewed twice because there was more that was discovered during the course of the investigation then they said that they reviewed more than 200,000 pages of documents it's the equivalent of filming 24 hours a day on the island for survivor and cutting it into a 50 minute episode this is a 36 page report they found and looked at tons of other stuff which is why they had to put in the report there may be more yeah and that's exactly what they said well let's get to our our conclusion here for now it's always for now with this story because what they say in the

1:31:46report is the evidence supporting these findings is substantial while it is possible that even more evidence will be uncovered as investigators continue to follow up on information that was recently received the record as developed is more than sufficient to establish the rules violations described in the summary report I mean we'd like to take over the next three the three individuals most responsible for the clippers rule breaking are mr. bomber miss zooker and mr. Frank David will you read the next I cannot because I was reading the report I got you know where I got you no where mr. bomber knowingly sought to help mr. Leonard obtain off court income opportunities and engage in a significant act of facilitation through the form agreement mr. bomber also failed to supervise his most senior business person while she systematically violated NBA rules hold on

1:32:46it's not letting me scroll and more generally permit a culture in his organization please stop editing so I can scroll and read it that allowed for the initiation facilitation inducement and potential funding of multiple endorsement agreements between mr. Leonard and team partners mr. Leonard through the conduct of mr. Robertson uncle Dennis violated the cba's circumvention rules by successfully pressuring the clippers over many years to assist him in obtaining off court income opportunities mr. Leonard also violated the cba by failing to reimburse payments by the clippers for personal expenses not authorized by the cba many of which were requested by mr. Robertson and so now we await further confirmation we've we're reaching out to boingo wireless by the way

1:33:51I don't even say what boingo is it's the boingo was the wireless internet provider for the into it though and if you look up who was on the board of boingo what connections do they have two certain clippers executives there is more there I dare say locked in insurance requesting comment from you as well and we await the conclusion of all the things that Joe sandberg is dealing with in the federal court system as well as the civil suit against the bomber which has been hinging on the premise of what does cap circumvention mean when you trusted a tree planting startup with millions of dollars every money because you were in it because Steve Balmer was in it to save the environment and so I will I will I will have David please hold for one second I will also read the end of kawaii Leonard statement quote as I return to Toronto I am focused on what I can control

1:34:52closing this chapter and moving forward with a clean slate did I miss the announcement of the trade we await that as well what happened such that the union and kawaii Leonard said we're going to settle and the clippers perhaps realized oh wait a minute our our door that said system arbitration on it may be just closed well I'll tell you what happened you we can start with the very beginning what was the punishment levied to kawaii Leonard the very first episode of this I was talking about what you can do in the collective bargaining agreement to punish players you can find them up to 350 grand you can void their contract that's about it for months I'd hear people reputable people on reputable networks they might have to see what happens with this quiet suspension I said what's

1:35:52suspension where you get this from because I'm reading this document every day I don't see anything where you can suspend a player well kawaii Leonard got vines 700 grand which I have to assume David that's what 350 per contract it's a settlement it's a settlement they could allege that it's two different instances they could allege four different ones and say it's 200 grand for each but the bottom line is it's a settlement between the league and the nbpa but the end and game here is quiet Leonard slap on the wrist uncle Dennis was already out of the picture he always moved on with his new agent right and he goes to Toronto a place where he's beloved Toronto gets to sit back and say woo okay he's here we know he wants to sign an extension he's a player that can move us up into the stratosphere of the eastern conference they gave up Brandon Ingram good player they gave a great big young player they gave up two first round picks a pick swap and they're saying yeah you

1:36:54look like you need it more than I do and so quiet Leonard if you're a quiet fan and this goes out to all the people for all these months why you guys hating on quiet oh you guys trying to get him suspended I said it's not a quiet Leonard story and here is the proof is in the pudding it's not a quiet Leonard story I compared it to watching the movie American gangster and walking away say I don't know why Russell Crowe kept messing with ti like what did you did you miss a whole point of the movie you thought ti was a set of the investigation it's this is a big bulletin board with faces and strings attached and in every one of these movies the guy at the top that's the big fish and then they get the coppers underneath and then you got the the guy the affiliates over here and then lower people and street people and all that stuff and what the walk to elliptan report in essence painted for us was this bulletin board with Steve Baumer at the top

1:38:02Gilean Zooker over here launch Frank over here and everything else was secondary to that power chain it is extremely telling here the two statements one by Kauai one by the clippers Kauai saying moving on you got it you got me I did this I'm done with Dennis I regret that my family members these other people in my inner circle why it's a negotiated settlement it's done there is no more action to be taken against Kauai and there's no more action to be taken for Kauai or the union against the NBA but then the clippers come out and they come out guns blazing quote in their statement the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative for the past year we cooperated fully and in good faith we will now fight just as hard to demonstrate our innocence yeah guys go ahead go ahead I mean I play this game all the time I try to put myself in their shoes

1:39:06and try to figure out what would my defense be David what what could they pot I mean first of all just let's start with this idea that there's a predetermined narrative set by whom why would the NBA want a predetermined narrative against its richest owner and it's there I say it's most popular owner yeah so listen to what he's a legend so I love the VM and Lee reject so that's worse than just rejecting you VM and Lee reject the NBA's findings but when you allege that there's been a heavily biased investigation that is a shot across the bow at Wachtell and Wachtell is in the business of being hired to do investigations the last thing they want to be seen is as heavily biased because they want more work more jobs more money for their own partners there was nothing biased about the investigation because it couldn't have been because again they submit to the NBA their findings the NBA then decides I agree I don't agree I'm going to do five picks

1:40:15one pick two picks 30 million five million Wachtell has nothing to do with that from the same release from the Clippers quote speaking to what they thought this was going to be unfortunately none of those promises have been kept in the last year Steve Balmer has spent nearly 50 million dollars funding an investigation by Wachtell lipped in rosin and cats that has stretched far beyond the bounds of what the leagues had out to investigate let alone the bounds of fundamental fairness and 50 million I would have taken the over it's been a year David David the lesson of this story is take the over every part of this is take the over we did accept in one thing accept in one thing any rational explanation that all of the sources and documents and evidence and at this point vetted reports from all all sides of the story right we are not

1:41:23Wachtell lipped in cheerleaders we have said from the very beginning this is not independent this is not journalism we were questioning we were questioning with them in a furry stuff and by the way as I as I continue to look into the rylan football club and Dennis Wong and all of these other proper names that are not even in this thing I just want to say please tell me how you explain the sum total of what the last year has revealed to us and we continue we continue despite the vehement to wait to find out so david samson i mean i'll have some i love you guys there is dare i say more to come

1:42:24you