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Knicks Morning News (2025.09.05)

  • New York Knicks’ Championship Odds Receive Elite Grade – Sports Illustrated

    09/05/2025 11:00:01
     
  • Knicks Star Clowns All-Star for Missing Eagles Game: ‘Fake Fan’ – Heavy Sports

    09/05/2025 07:51:57
     
  • “How he arrived at the Knicks… certainly was interesting” – Pablo Torre says he’s looking into Jalen Brunson’s $113 million pay cut next – Basketball Network

    09/05/2025 08:29:00
     
  • Carmelo Anthony Reacts to NBA Legend Opposing His Knicks Jersey Retirement – Athlon Sports

    09/05/2025 01:56:00
     
  • New York Knicks Trading For Bronny James – TWSN Sports

    09/05/2025 02:03:38
     

    • 36 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.09.05)”

    There’s a lot of potential for shady stuff with Jalen. If there’s documentation that Rick got his job as part of an agreement for him to sign as a free agent, that’s bad. A friend pointed out that the Roommates Show is an easy way to launder money. But, again, there has to be a smoking gun somewhere on the level of this Kawhi stuff.

    If this sort of thing really is common in the NBA, then I’m confident former mega-agent Leon Rose knows how to do it without getting caught.

    Pablo might do a segment on it anyway for the attention. The more I digged into his reporting on this, the more I realized it was very shady and disingenuous. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is no penalty at all for the Clippers because there are documents and other pertinent facts that would exonerate Ballmer, but he intentionally withheld them because they would blunt the impact of his story.

    I will say, while listening to Zach Lowe’s pod, I went from assuming the Clips will get off with a slap on a wrist to thinking there could be some serious punishment coming. Zach said he’d been hearing from a lot of teams, and all of them are pissed — in part because they already feel like they’re playing financial defense against Baller, who can basically outspend the rest of the league combined.

    Here’s one extremely pertinent question about the so-called “smoking gun” that Pablo intentionally avoided asking:

    How common are clauses that terminate deals based on a player leaving a specific team?

    Turns out they’re pretty common. And for obvious reasons:

    1) If a company is focusing their growth in a specific market (as Aspiration was in California), they’d look for celebrities in that market. It’s reasonable for a company to want to terminate a contract if the player becomes associated with a market they have no economic interest in.

    2) Often the value of a player’s endorsement is extremely tied to the team he’s on. Think Carmelo Anthony on the Knicks vs Carmelo Anthony on the Thunder. So companies use these clauses to give them outs in case a trade drastically changes the value of the player’s endorsement.

    So he withheld that… he purposefully rearranged words from emails to read sentences that didn’t exist… what else did he do? Probably a lot. My bullshit detector hasn’t been this high since I first heard the Jussie Smollett story.

    The more I digged into his reporting on this, the more I realized it was very shady and disingenuous. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is no penalty at all for the Clippers because there are documents and other pertinent facts that would exonerate Ballmer, but he intentionally withheld them because they would blunt the impact of his story.

    I partly agree that Torres seems like a mix of earnest and intrepid gadfly and the more tendentious strain of short seller barkers. But some of the undisputed facts in the Kawhi case seem damning and if Ballmer had powerful exculpatory evidence I would have expected him to make stronger allusions to it in his Ramona Shelbourne sit down. I haven’t found any of the “this is mostly normal” or “this is impossible because Ballmer would never let it come out if it was circumvention” arguments from people like Nate Jones and Mark Cuban at all convincing.

    The thing is that if Kawhi had actually done some promo stuff it’s probably no big deal and goes away. The allure of a big market is that you are going to get more endorsement opportunities (looking at you iHart and family) and if they come because Ballmer or Dolan makes a few phone calls that is fine. Ballmer called Aspiration, a company that he invested in to see if they wanted Kawhi to endorse them. He could have also stipulated that since Aspiration is going to be a prominent partner of the Clippers, he’d rather see the endorsement tied to Kawhli being a Clipper. End of story. The fact that it was a one sided overpay is not Ballmer’s problem. Kawhi the no-show is the unpleasant problem.

    The Knicks already got fined for tampering with Brunson, and the contract he signed at the time was considered an overpay, so why have another hidden contract. And the league investigated Daddy Rick’s promotion when Jalen signed his extension. So unless Pablo finds a whistleblower (DDV?) he’s got very little to work with.

    If there’s a Jalen issue, it’s going to be about him signing the way below market extension last summer. If he didn’t do it just for the sake of the team, but because Dolan arranged to make up the difference through similarly shady means, that’s trouble.

    1

    I haven’t seen the Shelburne sit down. Or heard the Lowe podcast. Will add both to my list.

    I think there is definitely something here because $28M for nothing is conspicuous. But I don’t think it’s a conspiracy to commit cap circumvention, in large part because if it were Kawhi just had to do something — anything! — and Ballmer would have been covered.

    Ballmer even could have covered his ass without Kawhi doing something. He could have told his marketing team to use existing footage of Kawhi’s likeness to create a 30 second ad for Aspiration that plays in the Clippers arena at every home game and — voila! — there is nothing to see here.

    So Torre is telling us Ballmer is smart enough to cover all the financial tracks necessary to defraud the NBA, but dumb enough to leave himself exposed by not having Kawhi do anything that would justify the endorsement and fully exonerate him. That’s challenging my smell test.

    I won’t go as far as to say it doesn’t pass the smell test, because I know hubris is real and maybe Ballmer thought his scheme was so bulletproof that he took a wildly unnecessary risk. But if it’s between Ballmer being that dumb and Pablo being attention-seeking and dishonest, I know where I’ll put my money.

    Also, if there is a crime here (and there probably is), you’ve got two obvious actors front and center: Joe Sandberg, the arrested CEO who defrauded investors; and Uncle Dennis, the unscrupulous stereotypical leech on a famous athlete (and whose address was used for all correspondence). There’s a million things those two could have conspired to do with that contract. The most likely being a scheme to defraud investors by sending money to KL2 Aspire that eventually made it back to Sandberg himself, for which Uncle Dennis got a cut for facilitating.

    I’d be curious to follow the money trail after it was sent to KL2 Aspire.

    Hubie, the correspondence for the contract was Uncle Dennis. The official correspondence for KL2 Aspire is Mitch Frankel, Kawhi’s agent. He’s the guy someone needs to talk to and probably will, since he is a registered NBA agent.

    Still a lot of ways to commit fraud under that scenario without Mitch Frankel or Kawhi being involved.

    It’s definitely possible both Kawhi and Ballmer were arrogant enough to make an incredibly stupid mistake (i.e. never showing up) bc they thought they’d never get caught.

    But it also seems possible the reason Kawhi did absolutely nothing is that he didn’t know about the contract.

    Ballmer even could have covered his ass without Kawhi doing something. He could have told his marketing team to use existing footage of Kawhi’s likeness to create a 30 second ad for Aspiration that plays in the Clippers arena at every home game and — voila! — there is nothing to see here.

    I don’t find this persuasive at all. The Aspiration contract was wildly off market for a non-sneaker for a player like Kawhi. If it were largely circumvention, it’s easy to imagine the Clippers choosing to keep it totally quiet and thus offering no reason for anyone to ask questions about the terms than do a perfunctory spot to paper the file. They know they are operating as much in a mix of league and public perception as in a court of law. Paying $28 million in guaranteed money and $20 million in stock compensation for an endorsement deal that you never even announce seems more suspicious than the failure to do compliance prophylaxis. Similarly damning is employee testimony that the deal was in fact for cap circumvention “lol,” although it’s fair to wonder about the credibility or cherry-picking of anonymous Aspiration employees. Ballmer’s claim that he introduced Kawhi to Aspiration, a company he personally stuck $50 million dollars in and announced a $300 million marketing partnership with, but never asked further about the ~$48 million endorsement deal Kawhi sign with them also stretches credulity.

    Anyway… my guess is there probably will be a Jalen Brunson episode. There simply has to be. Torre is a media entertainer, not an investigative journalist with ethics. If there is no case, he will make the case, because his audience wants to see it. And the numbers will be huge whether the story is credible or not.

    Similarly damning is employee testimony that the deal was in fact for cap circumvention “lol,” although it’s fair to wonder about the credibility or cherry-picking of anonymous Aspiration employees.

    I didn’t find that damning because it only takes one bitter Lakers fan in finance to refer to it as cap circumvention and next thing you know everyone’s joking about it.

    You make a better case about them wanting to keep it quiet. $7M seemed like FMV for Kawhi to me but I trust you know better, you being AI and all.

    But endorsement contracts aren’t public knowledge. Would seeing Kawhi in a commercial really require anyone to disclose how much he got paid?

    I’m on the nothing burger side of this. Silver is gonna give Balmer a wide berth to show there’s no there there. So it’s gonna have to be explicit. The employee interviews are as hearsay as it gets.

    Saw some interviews with Pablo and he is incorrigible. Smug asshole with no gravitas at all. My bet is he regrets opening these cans of worms in the long run.

    Paying $28 million in guaranteed money and $20 million in stock compensation for an endorsement deal that you never even announce seems more suspicious than the failure to do compliance prophylaxis.

    I find the extra 20 million very curious, especially if it was in stock.

    Ballmer invested 50 million and somehow 48 million wound up in Kawhi’s hands. hmnnn

    On the flip side, no one takes 20 million in stock compensation from a company they think is a scam. Unless, he had the right to sell it immediately and did so, that suggests they all thought it was a legitimate company (including Kawhi and Ballmer). Ballmer’s stake was supposedly only 3%.

    If they all thought it was legit, then the question is why wasn’t Kawhi out there doing work for the company trying to maximize the value of his 20 million of stock to make even more?

    I know I would have been.

    Did he sell the stock?

    Did he get stuck with 20 million of worthless shares?

    I think answering some of these question might help with the speculation about whether they were trying to get around the cap rules or just doing business and it went south.

    if [endorsements] come because Ballmer or Dolan makes a few phone calls that is fine. Ballmer called Aspiration, a company that he invested in to see if they wanted Kawhi to endorse them. He could have also stipulated that since Aspiration is going to be a prominent partner of the Clippers, he’d rather see the endorsement tied to Kawhli being a Clipper. End of story.

    I could be mistaken but I think all of that would be considered cap circumvention. I think the most Ballmer is allowed to do is say “Kawhi, meet Aspiration. Aspiration, meet Kawhi.”

    Jalen has become a much bigger thing since he signed that contract. He had broken out that year but not sure he was truly established as a namebrand ESPN personality type star.

    Either way, I am not worried about Jalen.

    Sorry about the seemingly political issue, today it’s on topic:

    There’s strong evidence that Qatar bribed (“purchased services”) from people working in Netanyahu’s close circle. Qatar is also the main funding country of Hamas, with some of the money moved in cash, through Israel, in black suitcases – on Netanyahu’s request / demand.

    The Israeli police (partly corrupt, partly still functioning) and other security organizations have been trying to establish a money trail to the PM for over 3 years. Nothing substantial enough so far. Good luck to the NBA in stopping these kinds of deals from owners to players.

    Can someone please post a link about the extra $20M? I haven’t seen that part of it.

    As to the question of whether Kawhi got all the money, he did not, although he may have gotten a lot of it. The reason the scandal came to light is that Leonard’s personal LLC is listed as a creditor in the bankruptcy filing of the Aspire company. This made some documents public. If he is a creditor, clearly there is money still owing from Aspire to him

    Also, I’ve got to say, Kawhi seems clueless, arrogant and/or very entitled. He actually filed as a creditor when the company went bankrupt even though he had a no show contract that was clearly intended as extra pay for him.

    We could save a lot of time by just rounding up all politicians and large contributors and jailing them for financial crimes and crimes against humanity. I could probably find a few exceptions, but it’s still a very positive risk/reward. What’s that old story about setting a church on fire? Let God sort the souls out.

    the reporting on the $20 million in stock comp that went to zero before being monetized apparently came from here. not sure about the bona fides of this source.

    That makes it look like Kawhi and Ballmer thought it was a legitimate investment but it all went south.

    The trick is to find a paper trail that indicates some kind of qui pro quo. Otherwise, I think Ballmer can claim they were independent deals.

    You still have to wonder why Kawhi supposedly wasn’t actively doing at least something for the company. Even if it was an effort to get around the NBA rules, anything he could do to enhance the value of the stock would have helped himself too.

    You still have to wonder why Kawhi supposedly wasn’t actively doing at least something for the company.

    As milo suggested, it could be because the contract was so above FMV that they would want to avoid it being known about. But I still don’t understand how anyone could have found out about the value without Aspiration filing chapter 11.

    And as I’ve suggested, it could have been hubris (we’ll never get caught)… or the contract could have been something even more nefarious than cap circumvention between Uncle Dennis and Joe Sandberg.

    I think Alan is right about the potential Jalen issue – the extension, not him coming here. Could there have been side deals to make up the difference? Seems possible. Would Rose have done a better job creating a reasonable facade protecting the Knicks and Jalen from what’s about to hit the Clips, as Hubie suggests? I’d like to think so, but… It’s a concern. 4/10.

    It’s a concern. 4/10.

    Would have put it as 1/10, rama, but including the Dolan factor (attacks Silver’s integrity, recently lost a 29-1 owners vote), sorta agree with your odds.

    I think Alan is right about the potential Jalen issue – the extension, not him coming here.

    Zero chance Jimmy Dolan wants to win sooo bad that he’s willing to conspire with strangers (players and agents) to commit financial crimes and wasting his own money at the same time. Its a lose, lose for Jimmy. He just cares about respect and making money way more than winning.

    Jalen has proven that he doesn’t like taking career risks…remember, he asked multiple times for that 4yr – $55m.

    I have 0/10 concern the Knicks circumvented the salary cap and 0/10 concern they will face any punishment.

    I have 10/10 concern Torre might run a story anyway with anecdotal and circumstantial evidence presented falsely to create the appearance of impropriety. (Spoiler alert: the man with the scrambled face and modulated voice talking about Rick Brunson will be a bitter Mark Cuban).

    Frankly I find the fact that Torre even smeared Brunson’s name in that interview to be reprehensible, and I would love to see Jalen on the next episode of Roommates say “come at me, bitch.”

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