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

(upbeat music) - Okay, I think we need to start, David Samson, Amine Elhasson, 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. And I guess imminent was one year shy of the first show that we all did together on September 3rd. The Pulitzer Prize winning Edward Murrow 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, over well, but at the same time, kind of, yeah, that's what I expected. - I go back to the very first episode that we did, but as David mentioned, the Edward R. Murrow award winning Pulitzer Prize winning episode were read from Article 13 of the Collective Bargain Agreement. And it said, the words cannot rationally be explained. It was that and 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 they're like, oh, all that matters is those two lines. - Yeah. - If you can't explain it, if you can't explain to me why Drake Lee in order to Captain Robert Downey Jr. make more than quite Leonard does rationally, then I feel like there it is. That's the whole case right there. - So David, before we get into any of this, I want to now acknowledge we've been letting people sort of trickle in. We'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. - Pablo, can we pause right there? Just, I think that might have been the thing that took me back the most. Well, what I 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 of 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 delightful as a journalist to see what was known, what wasn't. And we're going to get to the 35-page report by Wauktail Lipton, David, which dropped 90 minutes ago. We've been reading, forgive this sort of 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. 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 by the clippers for criminal expenses. We could do a show just on those four lines. Exactly. I want to ask the 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 capped 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, Kwai Leonard received tons of extra goodies, shall we say, from the clippers and 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 Kwai 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 wax for 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 gosh, that's literally like the last thing that the NBA's investigation found. I should sort of frame. That was the cry thing, though, Pablo. Yeah, you know, no, no, I know David, we're 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 picks. 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 fines 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, who's the guy in the big trade for the heat? The guy got five first round picks for a play in the next. He plays for the next game. Think about how many five first round picks? 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, because that's typically how this show has worked for a year. But this is the largest punishment in the history of the NBA. And so the Clippers get fine $30 million. 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 components 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 owners 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, etc. This is a full one year's suspension. Yes. Clippers president of business operations, Gillian Zucker is suspended without pay for one year. Clippers president of basketball operations, Lawrence Frank is suspended without pay for six months. 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, Gillian Zucker, and the right-hand person in charge of basketball, Lawrence Frank, 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 Wachta Lipton says that she's suspended without pay for one year for being primarily and directly culpable for impermissible endorsement arrangements and for providing false and misleading statements to investigators. They made it a point. They even contrasted 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, he 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? Everybody knows the rules. They know the rules. We know 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 also 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 April trail. 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, right? 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. I think given the Wachtell report that the punishment is light and we can talk about that later. No, no, I mean let's frame it a 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 what's the way 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 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 after 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 Shellburn day two that was all a lie he doubles down on it doubles down on it and all the evidence collected by walk tell 200,000 pages all the 70 people they interviewed it all points to the fact that Balmer led the salary cap circumvention campaign I think that's the big the big reveal right is that there was a moment where people would push back so it's a possible that this all occurred while Steve was waving his hands and cheering there was a whole new cycle with the SPN reporting it for the rest happened like I know 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 Jordan and Capsaer convention that they should not be doing and that was another point bade by walk tell 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 here as Mr. Leonard is required to pay the league 700,000 dollars Mr. Robertson is banned for a period of five years all of 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 issued this report without any no this yeah 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 issued 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 that the clippers did not communicate with co-I Leonard the first thing I do when I get this report is I am saying hey what are we doing here because co-I went the other way the complete other way oh David the question of what is the union going to do and co-I Leonard going to do this was mentioned foreshadowed 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 and I want to point out that the clippers released the an earlier statement in which they said we vehemently reject the NBA's findings which the result of a heavily biased investigation so you can justify a free determinative rather than facts and evidence and then we go on to say for the past year we cooperated fully in 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 and impartial arbitration process. And I wanna raise the question of, wait a minute. How are they going to arbitration 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. - That's the big piece here. Is that, I mean, the union in Kauai said, are bad. And now the Clippers are trying to activate an option that according to our understanding at this point, at 6.27 PM Eastern, they actually need the union to activate to get to the system arbitrator. - Well, to get, well, no, 'cause sorry Pablo, but see this is live, but no. The 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 MBA because of their findings. - But this is the thing that I'm kind of circling here, as we've sussed this out live, is that arbitration was contingent on the union. And the union is saying, we're actually settling. And so the only available option, the saber being rattled is literally suing Adam Silver or walked to Lipton, it's suing the MBA itself and we, as David likes to say, I mean, wait to see if they're gonna 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 'cause players, labor and management. - That's why that's collectively bargained. - Yes, that's what this collective bargaining agreement is between labor and management. And so this is management, swing, other management, I just, I'm not, I'm not quite understanding and David, like David said, you know, this is where you probably wanna 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." So we've presumed, by the way, 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 guys, we're over there without graphics and $30 million. - Well, there's something else though 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 sign a new deal, let him play healthy and play well and get a new deal when he gets it from wherever he 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 see one. - I see one. - Grady Dick. - How many picks? - Leibus, two first round picks and 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 Clippers 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 15, 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, like September 3rd is a meaningful day, and I want to just stop here to acknowledge why that is. Thank you. 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 anymore 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 that 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 oblast dome. 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 it so generously has raised over $700,000, and 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 Flund, every dollar matters, and we're going to keep going, because during the past year, it's been very obviously difficult for me, and I'm the least of it, for Kira the most, for our entire family. And it's gone exactly in lockstep. - Literally, which is a year, 365 days. Look, there is some symmetry to all of this, and by that I mean, what we're not sharing as we report this story in 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 3rd, 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 Balmer, 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, Kwile Leonard. Part 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 Wachtell, Lipton Rosen, and Katz, parentheses, Wachtell, Lipton, to investigate the alleged wrongdoing. In the intervening months, the investigation scope expanded to cover additional endorsement agreements and other potential in proprieties. - And I just want to say, David, this is a story built on journalism. That's what this says. We are looking all the time. - First 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 what 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 a 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. One, affirmatively initiating off-quart income opportunities between Mr. Leonard and four different companies doing business with the team. Aspiration, boingo wireless, dectronics and locked in insurance. And 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. So here's the 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 rosiered. 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. And then we did the dectronics episodes. They 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. The number of things. Anyway, I don't want to this is not about 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 this is what this is what the report says to foreshadow, quote, according to this witness, we'll get to the witness. Nobody 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 late in the investigation and additional steps are ongoing to corroborate it. There is more and 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 corroborated and what tell 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. So I mean, could you actually take over and read the next bullet point, bullet point to as we get to the executive summary here facilitating the consummation of endorsement agreements between each of these companies and Mr Leonard, including in some cases by participating in the walk to lift and rosin and cat September second 2026 development and communication of deal terms. Do you see part point 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 I have to see. Yeah, go ahead. Do you see what they they're saying in the report that what we said about dectronics 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. Dectronics there are deals all the time where companies give money back to a team in by buying tickets by buying a suite. And those deals are done all the time and that's acknowledged in the walk tell report what what tell is saying is that it was different. It was we will do business with you if you do business with quiet and that's what we had been talking about it here in the report. It was the only logical explanation for what dectronics did. There was no reason to have him as a quiet Leonard as an endorser of dectronics go back and listen to that episode. Pablo that we did about dectronics it is we were 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 when 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 company to begin with you have to explain what the tree credit carbon credit thing and like people like what this was easy like hey you get to build our video board. In exchange will write into the contract where this extra money goes and you just go ahead and 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 quiet Leonard that the walk to Lipton 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 isn't where as walked the lips and no here it is it's what the question that walk tile answer and it's really impressive work when 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 participation from the egg 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 at the time, right so at the time, 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 the video boards do I want to play defense on behalf of the clippers and then maybe perhaps ex communicate myself from this entirely or do I just play ball. There's we got a foreshadow that one of the things that we under waited 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 in 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 that. Because they were in the news today where there is an SEC investigation underway. And so the SEC has to be interested in this because that's where it's also not podcast cork 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 caps or convention one bit. People have been asking me like why do you this story why do you care about 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 and laying it all out it's because there's consequences. There was a set of consequences that the dactonic CFO said when he said quote we have received requests for information from the NBA additionally the Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking information from us concerning the company and Mr. Leonard we take these requests seriously in our cooperating at this point out of respect for the respective processes we will not be providing further comment can't float their lawyers will not there is not one scenario under which the corporate lawyers for dactronics a public company will allow them to comment at all. And of course they're going to cooperate fully because again dactronics doesn't care about salary caps or convention they care about SEC violations. It's how the salary caps or conventions 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 and what else it costs them in the process of trying to get to I think I mean part five of this list here if you want to skip ahead down to that past the expenses that we already referred to. failing to report in proper solid citations for off court 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 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, that chronics we've talked about at length, aspiration, of course. And it gets to the C suite, it gets back to who was in charge. Oh my gosh. There's something, 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 million come from? In the report, Wachtel says that the clippers claimed that there was, they wanted $7 million of carbon offset credits to aspiration. We will give you $7 million to plant trees and coincidentally $7 million per year was given by aspiration to Kawaii Leonard, Wachtel 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 a the carbon offset for the key of forum is 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, go 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 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. And in fact, he is who was sentenced to 14 years. And everybody, 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 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 included. And yet, and yet what he was doing was partnering with Steve Balmer and Gillian Zucker and Lawrence Frank in the clippers to deceive the NBA. And when you get to Dectronics and apparently, Bongo and locked in insurance, the same playbook is run. 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 like 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 sloppily 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. Not slow. No, we, it's how I want to go through 7,000 pages of documents and find sources and it's finding this, 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 Wachtell put in that 36 pages. When you, 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, by the way. 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. Wachtell 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 evidence from witnesses and documentation that everything this convicted felon said happened to be true. Well, 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 of our journalists. Well, no, beyond us from the internal documentation. I'm saying journalists get more than one source, you're going to go with something, you're going to get a source and you're going to kind of corroborating. 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 down. 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 Wachtell for telling us in detail what they found so they could show that 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 felicitation. 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 were 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 Wachtell found is the 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 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, I miss Mark Cuban. He sent 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 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 is just-- Oh, this is a dessert. This is to me. What else, if we had the powers of the NBA, what would we want to know? Today, 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. - Oh, so let's, let's wait. Let's get to, okay. - Wait, how you're supposed to do it as in following the rules or how you're supposed to do it as in scurrying the rules, David? - Both. - Okay, I wanna do that show. Not today, but we gotta 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 MBA rules in the future. So that if call to the mat, they would say, of course, this is how it happened. And of course, what 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 wanna get to, man, do 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, 'cause 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 gonna do this? Do you need help with Kauai doing that? And the reality is what Zooker did, basically, said, I know the rules, but I gotta find, I gotta do the job for Balmer here. As a team president, that's what I would've 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 you're supposed to ask. And then you could say, yeah, I'll make the introduction. So the workaround 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 wanna 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 how it happens. Dennis Robertson speaks to the Clippers to Steve Balmer, to Lawrence Frank, and says, hey, we made these demands. How are you gonna 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 Steve-- - I love that, dude. - What Steve Balmer responds here, this is a quote. Mr. Balmer responded by telling Mr. Robertson that he and Clippers personnel were all collective workers to try to help Mr. Leonard achieve his financial goals. I'm just like, how many smoking guns are we supposed to need here, like-- - Can't do that. - And Miss Sucker assured Mr. Robertson that Mr. Balmer would follow through on his promise. Like the whole idea of like, what's the threshold of like clarity here, we're so-- I mean, look, anyway, I don't wanna just continue to say, we told you so, but like, this is how the reporting came together. - Let's talk about one thing as it relates to Balmer 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 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. - 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 sail, but made him give up control as a possibility, suspended 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, thanks, 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. It could have been anyone. And then they play the tape. And he says, who believe it? Me, David Garvin stealing TVs. And it's-- we are collective workers trying to get Mr.-- what? 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 U 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 Timberwolves, which is the previous precedent, right? The reason the Timberwolves 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 a 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 introductions are requested by the player of the representative, 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 redhand to doing something that obviously was never even vaguely. OK, 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, blah, blah, 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 will begin to pronounce correctly. Thank you, David Zurgin. I was the way they treated her cooperation or lack thereof. It was so scathing, I was taking a bag, David. I don'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 quiet punishment, settles. Either does or 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 that there was a fundamental misapprehension that is baffling to me. I mean, look, we'll leave it at that for now. We'll leave it at that for now. But the clipper statement is major. The clipper saying they are going to fight. 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've got to follow. 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 in 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 does insane 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, 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 Hinch and a suspension of Luna, 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 Luna the next day, that 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, ah, 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, you know, 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 extension. 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 happened, 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 scandal, the Astros did with Luna and and and their manager, AJ Hinch. You got to separate yours. You're Steve bomber. If I'm the owner of a team, I want to separate myself from all of this. Well, but 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? Like 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. What I mean, how do you rationally explain what is in the documents? This is where I go back to its 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, they're not, cannot rationally be explained in the absence of conduct, violative. That's all we're talking about here, guys. Give me a rational explanation for all of this. So if I may push this nudging thing forward, Pablo, and the efforts to get to as much 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. Well, it turns out Wachtel did not pull punches 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 investigations ability to gather the facts. Thank you. I'm glad 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 trying 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 Balmer? Like is that what you're doing or are you David hangs out with different people to me? Yeah. No, you know what? I got all the time. David was like, why are you guys hitting on Kwa? I'm like, this is not a so funny. I got all bomber and you got all Kwa I got away that I got I just, I just got aren't you just prostituting yourself for clicks? Oh, listen, by the way, by the way, we're at an hour and seven minutes. There are more clicks that I want to get out of this, but listen, here's here. 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, I'll just read this in early June 2020 at the time of Miss Zooker's introductions. In the of Boingo, Dectronics and Lockton had commercial agreements with the Clippers, but all three companies were an active discussion 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 co-high Leonard. Well, 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 Boingo got nothing if they get to be David has, 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 these companies got. It's 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 company 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 late 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. There'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 believed that yelling to enter into a commercial relationship with Mr. Leonard could jeopardize its ability to win the bid for the Intuitome. Later in May 2020, in a call with a 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, $3 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 $2 million. 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 the point, the impetus to provide this additional $2 million 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, with 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 works. 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 that. 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 you 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 Gillian Zooker story here. And look, we've had emails in which Joe Sandberg is talking about how helpful Gillian 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. And 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 representatives, which is all that is permitted by the CBA circumvention 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 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 Watchtale report, and again, we just got it an hour and a half ago. And 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, Watchtale'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 Watchtale 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 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, capital, convention, 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 that is so easily corroborated. That is when, if you're Steve Balmer, 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 in yourself. It's like saying Jim Crane, I had no idea that we're banged up, but I mean, there's an email here. We love documents. October 28, 2021, could you please read? Yes, subject line, aspiration and quiet. Joe is making an offer to Kawaii to be a spokesperson for 5 million cash, plus 7 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 Kawaii? Joe doesn't really know what to ask for. Which is the definition of a fake job. It's even better because on 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. 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 Kawaii Leonard, then he doesn't need aspiration to pay Kawaii Leonard. It is right there as clear as day in the Watchtale report. Yeah, it is normal, David, when you're talking about like Dodge of Dateland or whatever, I'm like, yes, that makes sense that the local car dealer does not want to endorse an athlete who is not local to the area. But when you talk about big national brands, 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 going to pay all his 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, this, you know, term, it 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 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 this wrote the 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 koayah for 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 koayah's agent koayah claims to investigator excuse me Zooker claims to investigators that it's a quote preview and One day later November 5, 2021 Gillian Zooker sends a formal quote-unquote introduction email to mr. Robertson and mr. Sandberg Which you may recall from the interview Steve Balmer gave to Ramona Shelburn That first we give September that is the bleeping email that has been cited as Exculpatory 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 an introductory email She gets on the call with the people let them know hey this introductory email is coming which Reminds me of the Kirby enthusiasm episode where Jason Alexander Larry David have an argument about Having a meeting to set the meeting. No, we just had the meeting No, no, this is the meeting to 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 Ms. Zooker told Mr. Sandberg that she would call a business agent to help him Struction agreement with Mr. Leonard eight days after Ms. Zooker conveyed to the agent financial terms for the deal and One day after Ms. Zooker gave input on the deal's term sheet off to the races Please please please read to me the next part of this Based on this series of events and based on the record related to Boyn go that Tronix and Lockton investigators find that the November 5th Quote unquote introduction email from Ms. 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 Joe Sandberg is saying all of this in his texts And maybe you just discount 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 us to do this with Kawaii 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 Sandberg Co-founder of aspirations going to 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 just 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 28 million dollar budget with which to address the forum's emissions not the other way around yeah No one doesn't like that folks Nobody does it like that. You got to figure out what your emissions are and then you paid offset 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 Balmer into aspiration the amount of the investments the investment by Dennis Wong 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 at one Zillion times investing in aspiration as if it was a real company where it 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 Wong invested for the very first time the only outside investor to enter aspirations Books at that point in December of 2020 and I have an explanation for it because if you're walk tell You're investigating salary cap circumvention. You're not investigating the civil claim of fraudulent Inducing 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 with 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 Oh, 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. Well, can I can I tell you guys something interesting as I've Come to no way too much about the ownership governor structure of the Clippers Steve 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 It's 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 Who's that is it Tai Liu 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 My boy Yeah, my voice isn't that good, but I'm still doing just for you guys Steve if you need I mean I mean it has the only impression where 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 And when we I was anyway, that sounds like a terrible humble brag, but I got a call I got a call doc after this Doc sat for the as for the Wachtell investigations He's not in here either I just wanted 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. I'm 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 that 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 Wachtell wrote in the report When they said as part of the investigation Wachtell conducted see 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. And that's exactly what they said. - Well, let's get to our conclusion here for now. It's always for now with this story. Because what they say in the report 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, would you like to take over the next three? - The three individuals most responsible for the Clippers rule-breaking are, Mr. Balmer, Ms. Zooker, and Mr. Frank. - David, will you read the next? - I cannot because I was reading the report. - I got you nowhere. - I got you nowhere. Mr. Balmer knowingly sought to help Mr. Leonard obtain off court income opportunities and engage in a significant act of facilitation through the form agreement. Mr. Balmer also failed to supervise his most senior business person while she systematically violated NBA rules. Hold on, it's not letting me scroll. And more generally permitted 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. 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're reaching out to Boingo wireless. By the way, I don't even say what Boingo is. It's the, Boingo was the wireless internet provider for the Intuitum. And if you look up who was on the board of Boingo, what connections do they have to 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 Balmer, which has been hinging on the premise of what does cap circumvention mean when you trusted a tree planting startup with millions of dollars of your 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 Kauai Leonard statement. Quote, as I return to Toronto, I am focused on what I can control, closing 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 Kauai Leonard said, we're gonna settle and the Clippers perhaps realized, oh, wait a minute, our door that said it's just a arbitration on it, maybe just closed. - Well, I'll tell you what happened. You, we can start with the very beginning. What was the punishment levied to Kauai 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 the suspension? Where are you getting this from? 'Cause I'm reading this document every day. I don't see anything where you can suspend a player. Well, Kauai Leonard got find 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 NBA. - But the end game here is Kauai 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 up Grady Dick, young player. They gave up two first-round picks, a pick swap. And they're saying, "Yeah, you look like you need it more than I do." And so Kauai Leonard, if you're a Kauai fan, and this goes out to all the people, all these months, they're, "Wow, you guys hating on Kauai." "Oh, you guys trying to get him suspended?" I said, "No, it's not a Kauai Leonard story." And here is the proof is in the pudding. It's not a Kauai Leonard story. I compared it to watching the movie "American Gangster" and walking away saying, "I don't know why Russell Crowe kept messing with TI." Like, what? Did you miss a whole point of the movie? You thought TI was the center of the investigation? And 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 guy, the affiliates over here. And then lower people and street people and all that stuff. And what the Wachtell Lipton report in essence painted for us, was this bulletin board with Steve Balmer at the top. Gillian Zooker over here, Lawrence 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, "Move it 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 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, and we will now fight just as hard to demonstrate our innocence. - Yeah, go ahead, I mean. - I play this game all the time. I try to put myself in their shoes and try to figure out what would my defense be. David, 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 there I say it's most popular owner. - Yeah, so listen to what he's a legend. So I love the vehemently reject. So that's worse than just rejecting you. The vehemently 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 Wachtel. And Wachtel 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 gonna do five picks, one pick, two picks, 30 million, five million, Wachtel has nothing to do with that. - From the same release from the Clippers, quote, speaking to what they thought this was gonna be. Unfortunately, none of those promises have been kept. In the last year, Steve Balmer has spent nearly $50 million funding an investigation by Wachtel, Lippton, Rosening Katz that has stretched far beyond the bounds of what the leagues had out to investigate. Let alone the bounds of fundamental fairness. - 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 do accept in one thing except 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 walked out 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 it a very stuff and by the way as I as I continue to look into the Rhode Island football club and Dennis Wong and all 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 Sampson I mean I'll have some I love you guys there is dare I say more to come