Through his philanthropic arm, the Ballmer Group, Clippers owner Steve Ballmer donated $1.875MM to the Golden State Opportunity Foundation, a charity whose founder is disgraced former Aspiration co-founder Joe Sanberg, Pablo Torre reported Monday on his Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast (YouTube link).
Ballmer’s donation came in December 2024, more than a year-and-a-half after the Clippers ended their contract with Aspiration, and nearly a year after it was publicly reported that the now-bankrupt “green bank” company was under federal investigation, Torre observes. It also came a couple months after Sanberg’s co-conspirator was arrested.
It’s the latest update in an ongoing investigation from Torre, other members of the media, and the NBA, which hired a law firm to determine whether the Clippers and Kawhi Leonard circumvented the salary cap through their deals with Aspiration.
In a public statement on Monday, president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank reiterated the Clippers “welcome” the league’s investigation and denied the accusations (Twitter video link via Joey Linn of SI.com).
“We feel confident we are on the right side of this,” Frank said in part.
For his part, Kawhi Leonard denied any wrongdoing and said the investigation wouldn’t be a distraction during the season (Twitter links via Law Murray of The Athletic). Leonard mentioned “conspiracies” multiple times, according to Murray.
“This is old… we already knew this was going to happen,” Leonard said.
Here’s more from the Clippers’ media day:
- Bradley Beal had arthroscopic surgery sometime after the season ended, tweets Murray. Beal said he was playing through right knee inflammation last season with Phoenix and had the knee scoped, which helped, as he’s feeling “good” and “ready to go” now. However, the team said he would be a limited training camp participant, according to Murray, who adds (via Twitter) that Bogdan Bogdanovic (torn hamstring) will also be a limited participant. Leonard is considered healthy and a full participant.
- Beal, who signed a two-year deal (second year player option) with the Clippers after being bought out by the Suns, says he loves living in Los Angeles and has talked with Frank about potentially ending his career with the team (Twitter links via Murray). The three-time All-Star knows he won’t be a primary scoring option for the Clippers and is welcoming the challenge of taking on tough defensive assignments.
- Head coach Tyronn Lue views offseason acquisition John Collins as a power forward who can play some backup center at times, per Murray (Twitter link). The Clippers landed Collins in the three-team trade that sent Norman Powell to Miami. The 28-year-old big man will earn $26.58MM this season before hitting free agency next summer.
Pablo could find a hand written note confessing to all of the accusations written by Steve Ballmer himself and I’m convinced Adam Silver will still say “we don’t have a smoking gun yet”
Ballmer and Kawhi are so dirty on this. But the playbook is: never admit, always deny, and go on attack. They haven’t gone on attack yet.
Off topic: What if Kuminga got a no show endorsement deal on top of his 2 year and team option third year? Would that convince him to take it?
This whole Ballmer-Aspiration is rather yawn inducing. He has hired 25+ employees to spend $85 billion dollars over the past 10 years to invest in projects like Aspiration. That’s 100s of projects. I guess that is 100s of smoking guns. There is no evidence that he skirted the CBA. You need some sort paper trail that shows they planned to skirt the CBA. Appearances aren’t evidence of guilt.
“Some sort of paper trail? No evidence ….really none?
If I had to guess you haven’t watched a second of any of the Pablo podcasts correct?
Honest Q ?
You are right. I haven’t watched any of it. Nothing I have heard sounds questionable. It all sounds like something he has been doing for decades. Are there any emails or texts telling them to hire kawhi and not have him do any work?
This looks very bad for Clippers/Ballmer/Kwahi:
“Ballmer’s donation came in December 2024, more than a year-and-a-half after the Clippers ended their contract with Aspiration, and nearly a year after it was publicly reported that the now-bankrupt “green bank” company was under federal investigation.”
Do yourself a favor. Look up Golden State Opportunity Fund. You can lookup the donors to the fund. Not a smoking gun. Not even a water pistol.
Will be interesting to see how Cuban attempts to spin this one lol. This one is going to take miracle work.
So, the NCAA has to investigate Stanford for improperly paying its players.
“He has hired 25+ employees to spend $85 billion dollars over the past 10 years to invest in projects like Aspiration. That’s 100s of projects.”
So despite the mountains of circumstantial evidence of wrongdoing, you don’t believe the Clippers skirted the cap. But the fact that Steve Ballmer owns a lot of stuff has you totally convinced nothing happened. It seems like you already made your mind up and even if there was a “smoking gun”, you wouldn’t believe it.
I guess you haven’t heard of reasonable doubt? Ballmer has been investing and donating to businesses and projects just like Aspiration and the GSO fund for the past 10 years. Are you saying that all that investing and donating is corrupt? That means the NCAA needs to investigate the Stanford University basketball team.
Reasonable doubt is the evidentiary standard in CRIMINAL prosecutions. This investigation and potential finding would be subject to a much lower standard. The real question is why are you already in the bag for the Clips. Are you one of Ballmer’s minions?
Why wouldn’t using Aspiration funds to Kawhi’s NBA salary be a criminal act? It is definitely not what investors had in mind when they invested. So, at the very least, it is misappropriation of funds. I don’t know what the standard for investor fraud is, but we are probably pretty close. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could throw in money laundering for good measure. Better to overcharge then under charge. So yeah, reasonable doubt does apply.
But the reason we are discussing this on a basketball rumor site is that the payments to Kawhi were allegedly intended to circumvent the salary cap. That’s the reason this is an issue for purposes of our discussion. Either you choose not to understand that or you are intentionally obfuscating. You are correct that this may be a criminal matter, but for our purposes this is all about the Clippers paying Kawhi money off the books to come to the Clippers instead of going to another team and not having that money count against the NBA salary cap.
What exactly was Kawhi paid Pablo? Think you’ll find Kawhi like everyone else got scammed. Why not mention this? Why can’t you do similar reporting on other star players, ball clubs and owners. What would you find? This is a complete non story where punishment, if any, will be sweet F all. Attacking the Clippers is a bit gutless. Try the lakers or warriors and see the reaction. I mean the backlash from all the Clippers fans around the world must be huge, lols. Torre wants back on a real network or streaming service…this podcast stuff isn’t as profitable for him. Only telling parts of the truth for self gain.
Torre is attacking the Clippers because they’re the ones who did all this shady s**t, not because they’re your favorite team. He’s done it to others too. I’m sure you’ll enjoy what he finds out about Brunson’s team-friendly deal.
Clippers aren’t my favourite team. I’ve never met a clippers fan in my life. Think you’ll find Kawhi stopped getting paid and the stocks he received would be absolutely useless. Point me in the direction of Torres’ deep dive into others. That should be an interesting read.
Kawhi didn’t receive any stocks from Aspiration.
> Point me in the direction of Torres’ deep dive into
> others. That should be an interesting read.
nrg82, corruption is much harder to catch when all the participants are sophisticated. The unique element here was Kahwi’s corrupt and STUPID uncle, Dennis Robinson, who continually made bad decisions and left breadcrumbs. It’s called a “comedy of errors”.
If you’re an NBA superstar, don’t hire your felon uncle as your agent.
What Ballmer done that is shady?
You are apparently immune to facts
At this point nothing provable….he has merely been convicted in the court of personal opinion and social media, nothing more, nothing less. I have my speculations and doubts but that’s not substantial enough to warrant penalties and or fines being levied just yet. The mass public just wants to convict regardless of truth.
I totally agree with you. It does look suspect. But, most of what people are calling “smoking guns” are things that Ballmer has been doing. Kawhi involvement probably should have been run the league office with Ballmer having such a close tie to Aspiration.
Ask Kevin Garnett how he feels about Glen Taylor…
Part of the answer will involve Joe Smith and cap circumvention…
This is meaningful to 29 teams…
Meaningful for 28 teams who wish this goes away without having their off court cap circumnavigating never coming to light. My only surprise here is how clueless other fanbases are to what goes on behind the scenes.
Nah rich people being shady should be expected…
Who they select for you to vote for is enough evidence…
What is sad is the acceptance of this as normal…
I’m a Beal fan, but I’ve heard these same preseason comments (and knee maintenance) with the Suns. Expecting something different from him would be like asking him to play more like Jrue Holiday.
where’s the new kawhi & new balance ads at? keep seeing the old ones still lol.
Gonna see Ballmer reading “If I did it” court side at the first home game.
it’s a wild ghost-written read, the pdf is worth your time
They will get a slap on the wrist, that is what happens for rich people. Silver won’t let the league get another stain or his first scandal as commish.
The only scandals he is okay with is ousting to weird owners, who still end up getting huge sums of money.
Probably because he’s in on it?
Silver’s first scandal was the 2014 Clippers.
He forced ownership to sell within 21 days of first news of the offense.
But that is a positive image scandal and like I said besides ousting owners where the league can still look good, he has not been apart of any. He looked good bouncing Sterling and Suns owner, nobody wants those racist weirdos around.