Clippers forward Derrick Jones Jr. didn’t provide his former agent written notice of 15 days prior to firing him before he signed a free agent contract last year. That was a key reason why an arbitrator ruled that Jones’ former agent, Aaron Turner, was entitled to his full 4% commission of $1.2MM on the three-year, $30MM contract that Jones inked, Michael McCann of Sportico reports.
Jones stated he directly negotiated with the Clippers last year. Prior to Turner’s dismissal, the Mavericks offered Jones a three-year, $27MM contract. Jones testified he was “furious” by the offer, which was much less than he expected.
On June 26, 2024, Jones sent Turner an email saying he was terminating their Standard Player Agent Contract. Two days later, Jones asked Turner to waive the 15-day notice period and Turner declined.
Here’s more on the Los Angeles teams:
- So what kind of penalties could the league hit the Clippers with regarding Kawhi Leonard‘s alleged no-show endorsement deal if it’s determined the team circumvented the salary cap illegally? John Hollinger of The Athletic notes that the league could fine the Clippers up to $7.5MM, fine Leonard up to $350K, forfeit Clippers draft picks, suspend owner Steve Ballmer or other Clipper personnel up to a year and fine them up to $1MM each; void Leonard’s contract and prohibit him from re-signing with the Clippers; and require Leonard to return the money he received from Aspiration. However, if the investigation ends during the season, voiding Leonard’s contract could lead to unintended consequences, with him becoming a free agent and signing with a contender on a minimum contract, Hollinger notes.
- Regarding the investigation, commissioner Adam Silver promised at the Front Office Sports conference that “we will get to the bottom of it,” according to Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic (Twitter link). Silver added that “I don’t know anything about Kawhi’s deal. Show, no show; we’ll certainly find out.” The league hired a law firm to investigate the matter.
- Luka Doncic admits he was shocked when the Mavericks traded him to the Lakers and wasn’t sure how to process it, he told Jason Gay of The Wall Street Journal (subscription required; hat tip to Kurt Helin of NBC Sports). “I didn’t know how to react, how to act, what to say,” Doncic said. “It was a lot of shock. I felt Dallas was my home. I had many friends there. The fans always supported me. I didn’t want to upset Dallas fans. And I didn’t want to upset Laker fans.” Doncic also described his offseason conditioning program, which included one key element. “For the first time, I stopped playing basketball for a month,” he said, replacing that with “pure training and fitness.”
“The league could fine the Clippers up to $7.5MM, fine Leonard up to $350K, forfeit Clippers draft picks, suspend owner Steve Ballmer or other Clipper personnel up to a year and fine them up to $1MM each; void Leonard’s contract and prohibit him from re-signing with the Clippers; and require Leonard to return the money he received from Aspiration.”
Nothing about forcing a sale of the team? The fines are ridiculously small. Draft picks are the only thing that are going to hurt enough to deter anyone from engaging in this behavior.
That’s right. The great American way. Guilty until proven guilty. If proven innocent, you are still guilty.
Well, in your case it’s more like if proven guilty, you are still innocent. I don’t know who’s gone to bat more for the Clippers, you or Cuban lol.
If the league investigates and finds nothing nefarious occurred I’ll gladly eat crow, though I’m sure some would embrace conspiracy theories where the league purposely let the Clippers off the hook. I just don’t see why they want to do that here, so I’m inclined to believe the outcome of the firm’s investigation even if the final punishment is soft.
If Balmer were trying to launder money, why would he do it in a public fashion? I think he could find a better way to do it. Kawhi couldn’t have done any work for Aspiration. They went out of business of few months later. If anything hinky was going on, why hasn’t Oaktree sued Balmer? They have had plenty of time.
You should learn the difference between formal legal charges in a court of law. and violating a private collectively bargained agreement. Innocent until proven guilty does not apply. I can’t remember the exact language in the CBA but Silver can act on circumstantial evidence and the honus is on the Clippers to explain the inexplicable.
Silver said it is up to the League to prove that the Clippers violated the CBA. What is inexplicable about the deal. Besides, if something hinky was going on, why hasn’t Oaktree sued Balmer?
@Giants74
You keep asking why Oaktree “hasn’t sued Ballmer”, without any evidence that they would have any standing to sue a fellow investor in Aspiration merely because of that investor potentially trying to circumvent the NBA salary cap.
You mentioned “investor fraud”, which is what the creditors are suing Aspiration for, and would not be grounds for a lawsuit by Oaktree against Ballmer.
Who initiated the “circumvention”, or money laundering, the CBA? You can’t have it with out Balmer. Oaktree invested in Aspiration for other reasons, as did all the other investors, than NBA player salaries. So, why not sue Balmer for missing using their investment?
All indications are that Kawhi initiated the “circumvention” if that’s what it turns out to be, and the Clippers would have agreed.
Even if that’s the eventual finding, that wouldn’t necessarily mean that Oaktree could prevail in a civil suit against the Ballmer, IMO.
But certainly at this point, filing that sort of a lawsuit would be a waste of time due to lack of evidence.
@JBS
The fines are the max allowed under the CBA.
I AM FURIOUS BY A 3 YEAR $27MM OFFER!!!!!! OUTRAGED!!! okay i will take 3 years and 30.
To be fair living in SoCal compared to Texas takes a lot of the outrage away!
3/30 in Socal is less than 3/27 in Texas
It costs more cause it’s worth it. You get what you pay for!!!
lol
This is seemingly a really botched collusion between the league office and the Clippers. If the “independent” investigation uncovers the collusion Silver should be ousted, and severe consequences for the Clippers. The owners can not allow this non sense.
How exactly is the league meant to force Kawhi to return money to Aspiration? They’re the NBA, not the Securities and Exchange Commission, or even a court of law.
Next, the NBA will be tasked with making Jontay Porter pay back his gambling debts.
You are correct. Moreover any money returned to the company would become assets in the BK proceeding and distributed to the creditors. Claw and Balmer may be creditors who will get pennies on the dollar for their shares in the company.
That being said, Claw and uncle Dennis shaking down teams for extra $$ should result in some consequences separate and apart from the punishment meted out to the Clips. Two year suspension? He can go play in Europe for a minute.
I can’t imagine the small market teams are too excited about the idea of having to come up with an extra $50M to sign big names.
Why would teams have to pay an extra $50 million? Who is Claw and Uncle Dennis? Who did they shake down?
Are you for real? They are Kawhi and his uncle. I don’t think you’ve actually tried to learn much about the facts underlying this story. Are you aware that uncle Dennis made a similar no work payment demand on the Raptors?
Aspiration went out of business after Kawhi signed the deal. I doubt he got paid anything. Oaktree could easily sue Balmer or Kawhi for the money. I’m surprised they haven’t already sued Balmer, if the allegations are true. They have grounds for a big lawsuit.
There are bank records showing he received $3.5 million from Aspiration.
What exactly would the grounds be for a lawsuit against Ballmer at this point?
Balmer is the one who initiated the payments.
Not according to Ballmer, who has claimed that he was conned (key phrase, “at this point”).
Seems like he knew exactly what he was doing. Funny how the money matches up almost exactly with payments to Kawhi.
Kawhi’s deal was worth $28 million over 4 years. Balmer invested $60 million. How is that a match?
Plus $20M in shares in the company and the cash injection when the company was going down the tubes that matched the payment uncle Dennis was demanding. Do you work for the Clips or something?
The obsession with the numbers matching never made any sense to me. Would it represent the strongest possible case? Sure. It’s neat and tidy. But there’s no rule that says there needs to be a 1:1 investment to circumvent ratio. Balmer is obscenely rich and any significant amount of cap circumvention could be worth quite a bit more than the $ invested had the Clippers gone on to win one or more championships, which was obviously the hope at the time.
Haven’t you ever seen bets with, like, 5:1 odds? It’s all relative based on probability, potential payout, etc. It’s not necessarily “I put in $1, I must get back a value of $1”.
But as NBA is OK said below, I also wouldn’t trust Balmer to begin with.
I agree – it seems highly unlikely that Ballmer is telling the truth. From the facts that have come out so far about the endorsement contract combined with the Clippers’ relationship with Aspiration (the $300 mil contract was initially going to include naming rights to the new area) it will be surprising if the investigation doesn’t eventually confirm this as the Clippers having circumvented the cap.
Conned by Sanberg who was convicted of fraud.
In all these posts to punish the Clippers, people keep ignoring a key fact. The Clippers had a $300 million dollar promotional deal with Aspiration. It was probably going to use paid celebrities. Kawhi is a celebrity. The Clippers couldn’t pay him. So, he had contract with Aspiration. Aspiration went out of business a few months later. The Clippers canceled the contract. So, Kawhi never did any work for Aspiration. So, why should there be any punishment? The whole affair has been investigated for criminality by the FBI and US Attorney. And convictions have been handed out.
Bleacher report’s Jake Fischer said on his podcast that “I’m being told from various high-level sources from around the NBA that they do not expect any resolution to this investigation until after the All-Star Game, which is being hosted by the Clippers”.
link to streamable.com
So much for a quick resolution, eh aristotle?
wow
Pablo Torre already figured it out but it will take the NBA months. The Clippers are going to get slapped on the wrist and Kawhi probably gets his deal canceled, saving Ballmer $100 million.
I still don’t see any real evidence against Clippers.
We should wait till NBA investigation is over. They aren’t going to lie to save Ballmer.
One way Wonder was so shocked. He lost weight and got in real shape. For the first time in his life. Dallas fans don’t even care lmao. They rather pudgy wudgy playin at 70 mill a year. One man team
There’s quite a bit of circumstantial evidence, most damning of which was minority owner Dennis Wong (whose daughter was an executive at Aspiration) investing $2 million at a time when Kawhi’s endorsement contract payment of $1.75 mil was late, and then Aspiration making that payment.
And we might have to wait until after the Allstar game, which is scheduled to be held at the Intuit dome.
Uncle Dennis and lavar ball need a podcast.
That would be a banger