Last week, as Week 1 of the regular season was beginning, my unofficial NFL collusion colleague Pablo Torre dropped a turd in the NBA’s punchbowl.
Pablo reported that Clippers star Kawhi Leonard had a “no-show” job with Aspiration, a failed start-up into which Clippers owner Steve Ballmer had invested $50 million. The company also had a $300 million endorsement deal with the Clippers.
Leonard, per Pablo, was promised $7 million per year for four years.
On Wednesday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver addressed the situation for the first time.
“The burden is on the league if we’re going to discipline a team, an owner, a player, or any of our constituent members of the league,” Silver said, via Alex Schiffer of FrontOfficeSports.com. “The burden should be on the party that is in essence bringing those charges.”
The first question, then, is whether the NBA will even try to bring those charges against the Clippers. That hinges on the outcome of the investigation.
Pablo’s reporting hinges on a trail of circumstantial evidence. Although that type of evidence is often demeaned (usually by those against whom it is used), Silver acknowledged that circumstantial evidence can be highly persuasive evidence.
“I was only quasi-joking with someone earlier, when people talk about a smoking gun, that’s obviously circumstantial,” Silver said. “It means the gun is still smoking. It must have been recently fired. I’d say in the case of the league we have our investigators look at the totality of the evidence. I would be reluctant to act if there was a mere appearance of impropriety.”
It’s relevant to the NFL because it’s not foreign to football. The Denver Broncos were once caught with their hand in the salary-cap cookie jar as a result of the construction of their 1998 Super Bowl-winning roster. Although that case was more about cash flow and less about circumventing the cap, the Broncos lost a third-round pick, a fourth-round pick, and $980,000.
And that’s the one situation about which we know. Other actual end runs around the salary cap were never explored, or punished. At least one team, for example, used (we’re told) an in-house production company to pay players who weren’t on the roster but whom the team hoped to stash for later employment. Giving them money made them less inclined to look for a roster spot elsewhere, until the team decided to make them officially employees of the organization.
That happened years ago. And the practice was abandoned years ago. Other teams may have had similar devices for getting off-the-books cash to players.
Then there’s the connection between the Patriots and TB12, which many have suspected was a vehicle for getting more cash to quarterback Tom Brady. However, consider the extreme zeal with which the league pursued any/all potential violations of the rules by the Patriots. Common sense suggests that the league office fully vetted the relationship to ensure that fair value was being paid in plain sight by the Patriots to Brady’s separate company.
Regardless, the NBA has a problem. Thanks to Pablo. Who continues to engage in the only real journalism that happens in sports media — finding out the stuff they don’t want us to know, not the five-minute heads-up on a transaction that is about to be announced anyway.
