Ballmer’s Witch Hunt & Pablo’s Vindication

**John Ourand** (0:00)
There's a lot of angst within the NBA community. Is there gonna be discovery? Are other teams gonna have to open their books? Because one thing that Ballmer also said is that, what he did is what every team does, that's out there. So there's a level of anxiousness that other teams are sort of feeling right now, watching Ballmer to see how initial reactions will continue on.

**Peter Hamby** (0:23)
Welcome to The Powers That Be Daily, Puck's podcast focused on the intersection of Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley and Hollywood and the players who run it all. I'm Peter Hamby. It's Friday, September 4th. Today, I'm joined by John Ourand with a look at the Los Angeles Clippers scandal that's consuming the NBA, with a league investigation confirming journalist Pablo Torres' investigation about shady payments funneled to superstar Kawhi Leonard to get around the NBA salary cap. Days earlier, ESPN reported that Clippers owner, Steve Ballmer was in the clear, but now Ballmer, accused, is vowing to fight the NBA's extra harsh penalties against him and the Clippers. We'll discuss all that and much more on today's episode of The Powers That Be.
Happy Friday everybody and welcome to The Powers That Be. I have John Ourand on today, host of The Varsity, author of The Varsity, because there's way too much to talk about in the world of sports, business and media. We've got the NFL kicking off in Australia next week with the Niners and Rams. Tony Romo is obviously the storyline for CBS. I don't even know if we're going to have time today to talk about my LSU Tigers and their court fights. That's a fast moving story. Go Tigers. We're also going to talk about the Clippers. John, Pablo Torre was right. The Clippers just got hit with something akin to a death penalty after a law firm investigation commissioned by the NBA revealed that the Clippers and Steve Ballmer went around salary cap rules, steered endorsement deals through some shabby companies to Kawhi Leonard. They lost five draft picks. Ballmer is suspended for a year, fined $30 million.
This is terrible for the Clippers. Ballmer and the Clippers are saying this is too much. ESPN is caught up in this because they had a story a little over a week ago saying that basically the NBA had found no evidence of wrongdoing. And of course, Pablo Torre, who was criticized by many people for this blockbuster story that wasn't confirmed by anybody else. This story was hanging out there for a year. I had some gentle criticism of Pablo on Media Monday last week with John Kelly, citing Dylan Byers' reporting from Inside The New York Times and their discomfort with Pablo Torre and Diana Rossini and the Athletic generally. But I have some thoughts on Pablo, I have some thoughts on the Clippers. But first, how is this being received around the NBA? And is there anything the Clippers can do to fight this?

**John Ourand** (3:08)
I have a story that I wrote that came out on last night in The Varsity.
I was talking to different league sources, to different team sources, and nobody wanted to talk about ESPN and Pablo, and nobody wanted to talk about Kawhi and sort of what seemed to be sort of him skating through, or nobody really wanted to talk about circumventing the salary cap. What really got everybody was Steve Ballmer's reaction, or the Clippers' reaction to the penalties. And this doesn't happen a lot in sports, but generally in sports, you go back to like Deflategate, and I know that was 10 years ago, and I know it was a different league as well, but there's like a blueprint that these owners all follow when something like this happens. And Robert Kraft hated the penalties that came out of Deflategate. He was fined a million dollars. They lost a couple of draft picks.
Tom Brady was suspended for several games. But what Robert Kraft did, and it did not really endear him to the New England Patriots fans, is he privately complained to Roger Cadell, and he publicly accepted the punishment. And for the good of the game, we're going to head forward. 25 years ago, in Minnesota, there was the same sort of deal as David Stern was a commissioner then, and that was Joe Smith, the former Terp, that was sort of trying to circumvent salary cap rules. And it was the same thing, that when the penalties came out, the owner sort of took it. They didn't love it, and everything moved forward.
Well, Steve Ballmer took a radically different tact. He sent a letter to Adam Silver, that was, has to be only described as a screed, I think. And in it, still professed his innocence. He called it a witch hunt. He said that the investigators were biased. He said that the lawyers at the NBA told him things that just like 24 hours later, showed up completely differently in the report. And he threatened a potential lawsuit moving forward, which you may dismiss, but Forbes just had him as either the seventh or the ninth richest person in the world. He's the richest owner out there. So when he threatens something like that, there's a lot of angst within the NBA community where what does that look like? Is there gonna be discovery? Are other teams gonna have to open their books? Because one thing that Ballmer also said is that, what he did is what every team does that's out there. So there's a level of angst and anxiousness that other teams are sort of feeling right now watching Ballmer to see how initial reactions will continue on.