Kawhi Leonard Signed a Secret $28M Deal. Steve Ballmer Funded a Fraud. We Followed the Money. | PTFO
- Thread starter parisian
- Start date
Fucking snitch ass Pablo Torre
I don't anything about dude . I just know his channel has excellent investigate journalism pieces
I ain't. I like his channel
It appeared that he had some smoke, but a blanket would extinguish it.
Team-Kawhi: Get Money!!!
kool dat, bruh....
I recommend these music podcasts for the playlist rotation. Been listening to them in recent years ...
- One Song
- Song Exploder
- Switched on Pop
Hmmmmm.....I haven't listened to music podcasts recently except for Joe Budden and that's not a music podcast anymore. I don't know where I stand with looking for new music....hmmm. Most of what I find in new music is old, but it's new to me and it's not radio friendly. I was watching this German TV series Cassandra on Netflix and they had this earworm of a song.....
here it is:
Kinda catchy...lol
Thanks for the song.
Regarding the music podcasts - these ones break down song structure, samples, etc. Add this one to the list as well, if you're interested. Heat Rocks (from the Maximum Fun network). I listened to 12 - 15 episodes or so last year from their archives ... really enjoyed the Nas ep'.
Episode 93: Art of Sampling #2 with Thes One on Nas’s “Illmatic” (1994) | Maximum Fun
In our first episode from our four-part Art of Sampling series, we focused on one of the classic sources of samples from the mid-80s: the James Brown anthology, In the Jungle Groove. For #2…
maximumfun.org
Heat Rocks | Maximum Fun
maximumfun.org
I think I lean towards shows where they breaking down feature films rather than music.....I saw this good doc. on actor Rutger Hauer, I learned a lot about The Netherlands and how Rutger used to basically used to swim in raw sewage as kid in Amsterdam...lol. Also, it's about his rise as an actor in Europe and then he goes to the USA to embark on a career. Really, his whole life he was a nomad seemingly living out of an AV even though he had a proper home. It was interesting.....here's the trailer:Thanks for the song.
Regarding the music podcasts - these ones break down song structure, samples, etc. Add this one to the list as well, if you're interested. Heat Rocks (from the Maximum Fun network). I listened to 12 - 15 episodes or so last year from their archives ... really enjoyed the Nas ep'.
Episode 93: Art of Sampling #2 with Thes One on Nas’s “Illmatic” (1994) | Maximum Fun
In our first episode from our four-part Art of Sampling series, we focused on one of the classic sources of samples from the mid-80s: the James Brown anthology, In the Jungle Groove. For #2…
Heat Rocks | Maximum Fun
Snitch ass muthafuckas!!!
This is hella good. Damn.
Right.
Not remotely the 1st or the last.
They just got caught.
Like in the Minnesota KG days when they got caught double dealing behind the scene.
I'm not even sure if the Clippers have any draft capital for the league to seize, but they gonna get hit with something nasty.
100% real journalism
The alleged scandal involving the Los Angeles Clippers and star forward Kawhi Leonard brings back painful memories for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The discussion surrounding the situation has opened one of the deepest self-inflicted wounds in Timberwolves history, the infamous under-the-table dealings with forward Joe Smith in 1999 that are largely blamed for the franchise’s failure to surround Kevin Garnett with a roster capable of contending in the Western Conference.
For a team that passed on Steph Curry in the draft twice, nearly left Minnesota five years after entering the league as an expansion team thanks to financial difficulties from its original owners and once went 13 straight seasons without making the playoffs, the Smith catastrophe may be the biggest black eye the Wolves have ever suffered.
The Wolves were docked five first-round draft picks (two were later reinstated) and fined $3.5 million, while owner Glen Taylor and general manager Kevin McHale both were forced to stay away from the team.
The Wolves saga with Smith has some glaring similarities and significant differences from what the Clippers are being investigated for regarding Leonard, including that Taylor and McHale admitted to the wrongdoing when it was discovered during a court proceeding involving Smith’s agents.
“There are eight to 10 teams that do this all the time,” McHale said at the time. “They’re just good at it. We’re bad.”
The Clippers, meanwhile, insist they have done nothing wrong.
“Neither the Clippers nor Steve Ballmer circumvented the salary cap,” a statement issued by the team read. “The notion that Steve invested in Aspiration to funnel money to Kawhi Leonard is absurd.”
If the NBA’s probe finds that Ballmer and the Clippers violated the league’s collective bargaining agreement, they could be in line for a punishment along the lines of what the Timberwolves endured 25 years ago. That makes now a good time to revisit the Minnesota scandal.
The backstory
The Timberwolves and the NBA were emerging from a lockout in January 1999 that forced the league to shorten the 1998-99 season to 50 games. After two straight first-round playoff exits, the Timberwolves were looking for another player to help them get over the hump. They needed frontcourt help after All-Star forward Tom Gugliotta, who butted heads with rising star Stephon Marbury, left to sign with the Phoenix Suns.
Smith was the No. 1 pick in the 1995 draft, taken by the Golden State Warriors four spots ahead of Garnett. He got off to a strong start to his career but was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers midway through his third season.
Smith and Garnett were friends, and the Timberwolves targeted the versatile offensive player to put next to Garnett in Minnesota. When the league emerged from the lockout, free agency moved at a breakneck pace as the teams prepared for a shortened regular season. Smith signed a one-year, $1.75 million deal with the Timberwolves, a curiously short and cheap contract for a promising young player who turned down an $80 million contract extension from the Warriors before he was dealt to the 76ers.
Smith averaged 13.7 points and 8.2 rebounds per game as a starter to help the Timberwolves make their third straight playoff appearance. They again went out in the first round, losing to the San Antonio Spurs.
Smith signed a second one-year, cut-rate deal with the Wolves for the 1999-2000 season. He came off the bench for most of the season, averaging 9.9 points and 6.2 rebounds, and Minnesota won 50 games in the regular season only to lose again in the first round of the playoffs, this time to the Portland Trail Blazers.
That’s when things really went sideways for Smith and the Wolves. Smith’s agents, Eric Fleisher and Andy Miller, went through a bitter divorce that ended up in the courts. The discovery process produced documents that showed that when Smith signed his first one-year deal in 1999, there was a secret agreement that he would take two more one-year deals as well so the Wolves could earn his Bird rights and exceed the salary cap to retain him for a fourth year, at which point he would get a new four-year deal for a maximum of $86 million.
It was about as blatant a flaunting of the NBA’s salary rules as possible, and it brought swift and harsh punishment from former commissioner David Stern, a taskmaster of a leader who relished the chance to make an example of the Timberwolves.
The repercussions
There had long been suspicions of teams circumventing the cap with deals such as the one the Wolves executed with Smith, but there had never been clear evidence available to the league before that court proceeding. With the smoking gun in hand, Stern sank his teeth into the Wolves.
Minnesota lost its first-round picks in 2001, ’02, ’03, ’04 and ’05 on top of the maximum fine Stern could levy. It was a staggering penalty, one aimed at deterring any other teams from trying something similar. The picks in 2003 and ’05 were eventually returned to them on appeal.
McHale said at the time that he wasn’t aware of the illegal agreements and that he rarely read the contracts that he signed.
“I haven’t read a contract in four or five years,” he said.
Taylor took the blame, saying that the incident happened on his watch so it was his responsibility. After some negotiations helped both sides avoid arbitration hearings, Taylor accepted a suspension for his role in December 2000. McHale also took a leave of absence for the remainder of the 2000-01 season. Taylor believed that the Wolves’ status as an also-ran in one of the league’s mid-sized markets contributed to Stern’s harsh punishment.“We’re a little town, a little town out here in the prairie,” Taylor said then. “And it isn’t quite as important to the NBA as the other towns.”
Neither Taylor nor McHale was allowed to attend games, negotiate contracts or make basketball decisions during their absences. Smith’s contract was voided in the summer of 2000, and he became a free agent again. He signed a one-year deal but returned to the Timberwolves on a six-year, $34 million deal in 2001. After two more seasons in Minnesota, he was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks. He has been retired since 2011.
“They gave me a choice,” Smith said in a YouTube interview with VladTV last year. “Either I could sign back with Minnesota and miss an entire year, or I can sign with somebody else and then play that year out, and if I wanted to, I could come back to Minnesota.”
In the end, the Wolves sacrificed so much for a player who was a regular starter in only two of the four seasons he spent in Minnesota. The Wolves never made it out of the first round of the playoffs during Smith’s time there, giving Taylor and McHale little reward for risk they took.
Leonard has been with the Clippers since 2019. He has made the Western Conference All-Star team three times but also missed the entire 2021-22 season with a knee injury and has been in and out of the lineup in the five seasons he has been in uniform. He led them to the franchise’s first Western Conference finals in 2021, but the Clippers have been bounced in the first round in each of the last three seasons.
Similarly to the Wolves, the Clippers may not be in this position were it not for the courts. Aspiration, the company that paid Leonard, filed for bankruptcy in March after its co-founder, Joseph Sanberg, was arrested on charges of wire fraud. In August, Sanberg pleaded guilty to defrauding investors of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Torre cited the bankruptcy filing documents as key in his reporting. Ballmer was an investor in Aspiration, which also entered into a $300 million contract with the Clippers as a founding partner of the team’s Intuit Dome arena. Torre also said that he had spoken to company employees who said the $28 million deal for Leonard was “a sweetener” for his Clippers contract.
Fifteen years after the Smith fiasco, the NBA still has similar parameters for disciplining teams and players found to have circumvented the salary cap. A team fine can go as high as $7.5 million, draft picks can be forfeited and a player can have his contract voided and be fined up to $350,000.
NBA investigation into Kawhi Leonard, Clippers opens old wounds for Timberwolves
Minnesota's under-the-table dealings in 1999 led to harsh penalties that set the franchise back for years.
www.nytimes.com
he better watch his back! lol
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