Did Steve Balmer pay Kawhi Leonard under the table?

Remember the Blazers had an accusation of salary cap violation when signing Chris Dudley. Dudley signed for only 700k one offseason then had a huge $12 million raise the following summer which was accused of being a Joe Smith type of violation. TWolves had it in writing which the NBA got a hold of. The NBA was never able to get enough evidence to prove the Blazers violation so there was no penalty.

 

I just assume this is like pre-NIL days, where just about every team has some sort of shady deal going on with at least one of their players. The NBA has to levy some sort of punishment on the Clippers, just to keep a strong hand or this will turn into a very slippery slope.

 

These penalties are nothing

 

I don't think this is the case. Owners are super competitive and would love to penalize another team for violating it. If a deal went south or player-team relationship broke down the player/agent/group would leak it or blackmail the team or such.

Not to say it hasn't happened but I don't think this is common at all. NBA players are paid so high it would have to be massive dollars which is much harder than some college deal moving 50-100k.

Think its important for everyone to realize none of this is illegal (preNIL or Kawhi rumored deal or such). Perfectly legal and contracts would be enforceable. Its yes a violation of NBA rules or NCAA rules but those have nothing to do with criminal laws.

 

I don't think anyone saying illegal is implying there should be criminal charges. I believe illegal is more in the illegal in the CBA.

As for pre-NIL, I imagine a lot of that money spent was done illegally, in relation to taxes.

 

Portland took advantage of a CBA loophole. NBA went to court over the use of the loophole and lost:




just reviewing that I went in assuming that was all Whitsitt in his slippery glory. But that was before Whitsitt. That Dudley maneuver came when Geoff Petrie was GM

 

Maybe ... maybe not ... I think anyone willing to spend millions of their own money is very competitive, whether at pro or college level and would love to turn in another team/group but they don't because of the 'honor amongst thieves' mantra ... or maybe I'm a little too cynical for my own good.

 

When my book comes out, there will be a chapter solely about Mike Rice. He told me some shit that they did when he was the coach at Duquesne back in the day that will have you cracking up!

 

Mannnnnn Plenty of people get paid under the table. Let bro get his bread!

 

Zach Lowe with a good podcast on this.

Kawhi had an LLC named KLM LLC or something that all the money went to. This story only became public now because Aspiration went bankrupt and the court case listed KLM LLC as a creditor so people started researching.

Also NBA rules don't require proof for Silver to enforce penalties. Silver has broad powers in NBA constitution and CBA. He can do penalties purely on circumstantial evidence. Many believe there's enough of that circumstantial evidence right now for penalties.

 

Some guy getting paid to dig ditches and Kawhi earning $450 million in his career might be just a tad different.

 

Also interesting that Kawhi is paid the max. It isn't like he signed with the Clippers for the vet minimum or took a discount.

I always thought the Andre Kirilenko contract the Nets signed was super fishy and assumed he got some benefit back in Russia.

 

I'm clearly joking...

 

Easier breakdown for @THE HCP et all:

 

There is a difference between taking advantage of loophole and doing something flat out illegal.

 

Kawhi was quizzical, studied agricultural science in the home…

 

owners lining up team sponsors or friends of the program to sponsor a player specifically sounds like the gray area that needs to be investigated and regulated at this point.

do teams do this stuff? yea. do big markets do it more often? hell yeah. is it per se cap circumvention if there are actual services rendered?

???

silver seems like the type to dodge and wiggle his way out of weighing in on it.

 

It gets worse.

 

The problem in this case is that allegedly Kawhi did absolutely nothing, and there was a clause in the contract that pretty much said he didn't need to to anything if he didn't want to.

 

also from the same video



It appears Kawhi Leonard did nothing for the $28 million. Fair market value would seem to be Zero dollars.

In January 2024, Leonard signed a team-friendly three-year, $153 million contract extension, which was considered to be "less money" than he could have earned on a max deal. (Maybe not substantially?)