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Absolutely deflating news for the rest of the WNBA regular season and postseason: Caitlin Clark is out for the year with the groin injury that has already cost her 28 of the Indiana Fever’s 41 games. Official statement from The Bounce: This sucks!
Big Deals
Did Clippers circumvent salary cap for Kawhi?
Pablo Torre of the mega-podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out” (PTFO for short), recently licensed by The Athletic, dropped a potential juggernaut of a story on the NBA and sports world earlier this week with an episode about a bankrupt and fraudulent company called Aspiration. It was an environmental company that was working to reduce carbon footprints, and it thought paying celebrities like Robert Downey Jr. and Leonardo DiCaprio would help execute that plan. Whatever the plan was. That’s not the important part.
The important part of Torre’s report is the assertion that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer invested in that company as a way to circumvent the salary cap in signing Kawhi Leonard. Allegations that Kawhi and his camp, headed by his uncle, known widely as Uncle Dennis, requested things outside of what can be offered (per the collective bargaining agreement) aren’t new when it comes to how the Clippers ended up signing the star back in 2019 free agency.
This is different, though. PTFO connected dots to posit this Aspiration company was funneling money to Leonard as a “no-show job”-type of sponsorship deal — to the tune of $28 million, after he signed a three-year, $103 million contract with LA in 2019 and a four-year, $176 million deal in 2021.
That would be a pretty massive violation. Before we get into potential ramifications, let’s look at the beats of this report:
The bankrupt company’s list of creditors includes a company called KL2 Aspire for $7 million and the Clippers for $30 million. The listed manager of KL2 Aspire is Kawhi himself.
The Clippers agreed to a $300 million sponsorship deal with Aspiration, and the plan seemed to include a jersey patch. The Clippers terminated the deal after two seasons when things with the company went south.
Ballmer invested $50 million in Aspiration at one point.
According to the PTFO episode, Kawhi had the option to get out of any obligations to actually promote the company. There is no known evidence that he did any promotion.
A former Aspiration worker/witness/source, whose voice was disguised by modulation in the episode, said they weren’t allowed to ask questions about the Kawhi deal, and the purpose was cap circumvention.
The Clippers fully denied any wrongdoing in a statement and called out Aspiration founder Joseph Sanberg, who has pleaded guilty to a $243 million fraud. Ballmer reiterated similar points during an ESPN interview last night.
The Aspiration deal with Kawhi reportedly says the company no longer has to pay him if he leaves/is no longer being paid by the Clippers.
This is a massive allegation and one the NBA takes very seriously. The league issued a statement saying it was aware of the report by PTFO and was launching an investigation into the matter. Former majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks Mark Cuban spoke out against the report on Wednesday on social media:
I’m on Team Ballmer.
As much as I wish they circumvented the salary cap, First Steve isn’t that dumb. If he did try to feed KL money, knowing what was at stake for him personally, and his team, do you think he would let the company go bankrupt ? Knowing all creditors would… https://t.co/AxvMoLmPv7
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) September 3, 2025
This led us to Cuban joining PTFO for an episode posted this morning (listen here). Instead of blaming Ballmer as a mastermind, Cuban suggested maybe Uncle Dennis was the one making the deal with Aspiration.
Now let’s tackle the next big question. What if it’s proved they did, in fact, circumvent the cap?
Let’s go back to 1998 through 2000. Do you remember this Timberwolves scandal? Joe Smith, the 1995 No. 1 pick, signed with Minnesota on three consecutive one-year deals during those three offseasons. Those deals netted him a total of $6.15 million. Not pebbles back then, but not big money for the capped-out Wolves.
Then in 2000, we found out the Wolves had evaded the salary cap with these deals, promising a four-year contract worth around $86 million once Minnesota had Smith’s Bird rights following those three years. Having those rights would allow them to go over the salary cap to re-sign him. The problem: Smith’s agents were worried about this deal not coming to fruition, based on the age/health of Wolves owner Glen Taylor (59 at the time), so they essentially/stupidly put it in writing that this cap circumvention would result in the big deal after three years.
When Andy Miller, one of Smith’s reps, left his agency, a lawsuit brought everything to light. The NBA, then commissioned by David Stern, dropped the hammer on the Wolves:
First-round picks stripped in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. (Stern returned the 2003 and 2005 picks, but the Wolves used them on Ndudi Ebi and Rashad McCants, so they basically still lost them.)
Smith’s contract was voided by the league.
Taylor was suspended from team activities and games for one year.
GM Kevin McHale was suspended for roughly eight months.
That kind of punishment is at play for the Clippers if the league finds they circumvented the cap. For all of their picks and pick swaps owed to OKC and Philadelphia, the Clippers have first-round picks in 2030, 2031, 2032 and 2033 that could be taken away. The NBA could fine the Clippers a large amount of money (up to $7.5 million), which I’m not sure Ballmer would even notice if it dropped out of his wallet. The league could suspend Ballmer and team executives. Potentially, the NBA could even void the final $100 million owed to Kawhi this season and next season.
If any of this happens, it could also lead to a demand that instances of any given player “taking less” to join a team get increased scrutiny.
Full disclosure: Pablo is a friend of mine, and I once showed him my Wolves underwear on PTFO.
The Last 24
⭐ New format. The NBA is giving us a USA versus World component for the All-Star Game. But it’s still a little odd.
🏀 Hall of Famer. A lot of criticism has been directed toward Carmelo Anthony to discount his career. I think the critics are wrong.
🏀 Redeemed. Team USA went through an absolute disaster at the 2004 Olympics. This is how they rebuilt.
💰 Betting on himself. Cam Thomas is no longer playing the restricted free agency game. He’s signing the one-year qualifying offer.
💰 Got paid. The Mavs agreed to an extension with PJ Washington. Four years and $89 million.
Scotty Doesn’t Know
Eurotrip: Şengün has Turkey in driver’s seat
Have you been as locked into EuroBasket 2025 as I have? If your answer to that is yes, then you know how fun this beginning stage was for the group play. If your answer is no, fear not: We’re going to prepare you for the start of the elimination stages beginning Saturday and Sunday! Reminder that winning EuroBasket does not give the team a leg up for any Olympic or FIBA World Cup tournaments — it’s just for country pride and bragging rights.
These are the results of the four groups of six countries each. Four teams from each group advance to a single-elimination tournament bracket. Two teams head back home.
Group A: Turkey (5-0), Serbia (4-1), Latvia (3-2) and Portugal (2-3) advance. Estonia (1-4) and Czech Republic (0-5) eliminated.
Group B: Germany (5-0), Lithuania (4-1), Finland (3-2) and Sweden (1-4) advance. Montenegro (1-4) and Great Britain (1-4) eliminated.
Group C: Greece (4-1), Italy (4-1), Bosnia and Herzegovina (3-2) and Georgia (2-3) advance. Spain (2-3) and Cyprus (0-5) eliminated.
Group D: France (4-1), Poland (3-2), Slovenia (3-2) and Israel (3-2) advance. Belgium (2-3) and Iceland (0-5) eliminated.
Which teams really failed here? Spain! The team won EuroBasket in 2023 and didn’t even make it out of the group stage this time. They needed to beat Greece in their final game of group play, but lost. Also, Montenegro had an embarrassing loss to Great Britain (which hadn’t won a EuroBasket game since 2013) in their final game. And the Czech Republic not even winning a single game is pretty bad.
Who has been really impressive? Turkey and Germany are your undefeated teams so far, and they’ve both been awesome. Turkey did it in a much tougher group, including Alperen Şengün outdueling Nikola Jokić to win Group A. Luka Dončić has been awesome for Slovenia (what else is new?) and led them to three straight wins after losing their first two games.
Greece and Italy capitalizing on Spain’s failures and being the two best teams in Group C was a bit of a surprise. Poland being 3-2 has also been a great look for them.
What are the single-elimination matchups for Saturday and Sunday? You’ve got four games on Saturday and four games on Sunday to tip off the round of 16. I sorted them into categories:
Should take care of business: Turkey should beat down Sweden on Saturday. Germany should handle Portugal on Saturday.
Saturday battles: Lithuania (Jonas Valančiūnas) against Latvia (Kristaps Porziņģis). Serbia (Jokić) should beat Finland, but you’ve got Lauri Markkanen trying to pull off the upset.
Sunday battles: Greece (Giannis Antetokounmpo) against Israel (Deni Avdija). Poland (Jordan Loyd) against Bosnia and Herzegovina (Jusuf Nurkić). Italy (Danilo Gallinari) against Slovenia (Luka). France (Bilal Coulibaly) against Georgia (Goga Bitadze).
We’ll update you ahead of the quarterfinals on Tuesday!
Vote Here!
Here’s how you feel about ESPN’s Burke demotion
Last week, we discussed ESPN’s decision to demote Doris Burke from the NBA Finals broadcast team and promote Tim Legler to take her spot. He joins Mike Breen and Richard Jefferson on the A-team broadcast. Burke will join Dave Pasch for the second broadcast in command. We polled you, The Bouncers, to hear how you feel about the decision, and you were nearly split 50-50 on whether this was the correct decision by ESPN.
I’m shocked! Legitimately. I figured more people would be on the side of this not being a good decision. I don’t know if this says more about your opinion of Doris or your opinion of Legler as a potential NBA Finals broadcaster. Regardless, I appreciate your participation.
And since we didn’t have a write-in option, you polling sickos didn’t have a chance to keep the tradition of trolling me with Thanasis Antetokounmpo mentions. So I’ll satiate that for you: Thanasis announced he’s back with the Bucks, agreeing to a one-year deal.
(Photo: Ron Chenoy / Imagn Images)
