Chennyjohn

Looks like we spoke it into existence

Nico should have been fired just for that. Taking my example, it’s like saying “Yeah, not into French Painters these days. Next door guy will take it from me this afternoon. He said he will treat me to coffee afterwards.”

Yup! Even if he goes to an all you can eat buffet for the rest of the season and gets up to 400 pounds, the Mavs traded him for pennies for the NBA Monet painting.

Hey! No more LAC? 😤

If you read or consume any non-sports related coverage on Aspiration where the Clippers are not the focus, it reads like a straight up fraudulent company that got caught. It’s well covered in financial and legal press.

Articles that covered the Aspiration situation without centering it around the Clippers situation reads like straight fraud. Just notable that actual financial press is covering it. If this was an elaborate cap circumvention plan, none of the financial press would cover it.

Aspiration Partners’ collapse leaves trail of losses from Hollywood to Wall Street Fintech lured investors with progressive causes but now faces scrutiny over payments to basketball star

Slow thought drip on my end. Anyone else reading about Aspiration outside of the sports sites and pages? www.ft.com/content/ec3e...

Pablo is a great sports reporter, but there are issues (and some naivety) in the story that is really all about white collar crime business. Almost all the other elements fit in as fraud.

The reporting is solid but it keeps missing the forrest for the trees. It’s like doing in depth reporting on how the basement is flooded (accurate and detailed) while ignoring the hurricane outside.

Fewer people in the know, Leonard has real ties to the business, hard to get a full inventory of the services rendered, low key enough not to raise too much suspicion. That’s how I would do it and I am not even Bond villain clever.

If I am the hypothetical Ballmer and I do want to circumvent the cap, I would just ghost fund a shell company to invest into a car wash, Leonard’s family business. Limit the people in the know to a minimum. Car washes are a service industry and a “classic” front to launder money.

Who in their right mind will pay a 400% premium to *just* circumvent the cap knowing that private HNW (high net wealth) people and NBA players are all a chatty bunch?

Completing that thought: if Ballmer is paying Leonard on the side, why the hell is he doing it in a complex and inefficient way? A lot of other investors, a lot of people in the failing company, the guy convicted of fraud of $200 M+ (vs another possible $48 M for Leonard?)

Final comment: If this side Aspiration deal was really to give Leonard cap circumventing money, why does he 1) not get all the “outside promised money” 2) re-sign with the Clippers after Aspiration went belly up? If I got less than promised money, the last thing I do is re-sign with the team.

Just mention FTX to any of the Miami Heat owners and you will see many parallels to the Clippers and Aspiration. Only difference is the key player is also involved.

One doesn’t have to look that far into NBA history. Miami Heat’s arena was named FTX Arena not to long ago before Sam Bankman-Fried got into deep trouble, now in jail for fraud.

It is probably why many other NBA governors are not as enthusiastic as their NBA front office guys on this investigation. Simply put “I have been in that situation too where I put more money into a failing and sketchy business.”

This is why Cuban is defending Ballmer. Cuban has been on that side of the talk of “we just need one more round to get us through”. I have been on that side too (for much smaller amounts). Usually the pitch is to all the other investors.

The fact that other investors did similar things proves the point that Ballmer is making: We all got defrauded. Oaktree is not some naive investor either. If Ballmer was the ONLY investor (or only along with Wong for that matter), that is more of a smoking gun of cap circumvention.

About time to charge someone with regicide! 😤

At least they moved on from the Obama and Hillary blame game. 🤷🏽‍♂️

At the start of the 2nd round, I thought OKC was going to steamroll to the Western Finals. Shows you what I know.

Keep up the great work. Always a blast when you are Podcast guest. Too bad Clippers in 5 didn’t follow your predictions. Probably out of the forecast business from here on out.

There were three coin flip games in the series (1, 2, and 4) and the Clippers only won 1 of them. That was how close it was.

There were three coin flip games (Games 1, 2, 4) in the series and the Clippers lost two out of three. That’s how close it was.

The big picture is that even the best preseason predictions had them in 6th. Being a 50 win team, 5th seat was beyond most people’s expectations.

First two would never happen of Mark Cuban was still owning that team.

Aren’t they known for slip-on sneakers?

420 club!

Congrats to Duke for winning the ACC tournament. Still have the big dance, Louisville!