Did Steve Balmer pay Kawhi Leonard under the table?

Do you not subscribe to the numbers of how many games he missed when his payments were late?

 

I don't subscribe to any of these, theyre all a bunch of possibly true possibly false theories. Maybe Kawhi didn't know about any of it or maybe he setup the whole thing, I don't know.

Kawhi missing a bunch of games isn't some unusual event. The guy has missed massive games every season and most playoffs back to his final Spurs days.

 

lol...Kawhi never noticed being paid 28M dollars?

 

Didn't he set up an LLC to receive the payments? If so, he knew. But of course he knew, what, he thought $28 mil was manna from the sky?

 

He might have owned the LLC but that doesn't mean he set it up. People create LLC for other owners all the time.

Even if he setup the LLC or knew of it doesn't mean he knew about this contract with it either. Dennis or whoever could have had authority to enter all those agreements with the LLC.

 

Do we even know any of that money ultimately went to Kawhi personally? The entity that had an agreement with Aspiration was "KL2 Aspire LLC" of which it was reported, yes Kawhi was reported as an owner but that doesn't mean he saw or noticed the money moving around.

Ultimately I believe Kawhi is responsible for the actions of his reps including uncle Dennis. So he should be on the hot seat regardless. I'm not saying for sure Kawhi didn't know - just that it is an interesting theory and would explain some of the oddities with this situation as well as the history of violations his uncle Dennis took.

 

Ban him from the league. I'm serious. This is not better than throwing games or betting on the spread.

 

Here's the filing with CA SOS - so they did it on legal zoom

 

Looks like they got a new registered agent this year;

 

I'm curious how one sets up an LLC for another person that benefits the other person without the other person's knowledge?

 

I don't care. Seriously. I don't care. This sets such a horrible precedent that everyone involved should be buried so that nobody ever even thinks about doing this again. Otherwise what's the point? This could kill the league.

Ban Kawhi.
Decimate the Clippers.

 

The simplest legal way would be if Dennis or reps had a POA from Kawhi.

 

Then there was this filing last month.

 

doesn't seem possible does it. I suppose if we're talking about a few thousand dollars. But 28M dollars?

 

Even so, you cannot convince me that anyone, no matter how wealthy, is not kept apprised of what their money manager is doing with their money, especially when a mysterious 28 million dollars shows up out of nowhere.

 

The money had to go somewhere and there should be records of that so if I'm the league thats one of the first things I look deeply into. Follow the money.

 

Plenty of wealthy people trust their wife or family or such to manage their money. Does Kawhi have his uncle Dennis do that? I have no idea.

Kawhi has $426 million of NBA earnings - not counting this $28 million or other endorsements. So yes $28 million is a ton - but maybe its just over in a big bucket of other investments that Dennis or others closely manage and Kawhi doesn't closely follow.

 

The thing is if the money just stayed in KL2 Asppire LLC or went to other investments then Kawhi might never have seen any of it. He wouldn't have noticed it showed up.

As long as Dennis wasn't stealing the money or such technically he may not have even done anything wrong (from a legal criminal perspective). Obviously this is all an NBA cap violation.

 

This argument doesn't work in a court of law. The "I didn't know what my underlings were doing" excuse doesn't play. They need to know. That's on them. He's the boss. I also don't buy it anyway, but regardless..... I don't believe that Kawhi was in the dark here. Especially because he was asking the Raptors for the same kind of deal.

 

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, legally.