EMERGENCY POD: NBA Announces Clippers’ Punishments After Kawhi Probe Reaction

- Hello, welcome to Effective Podcast. We talk about the NBA,

“which we are doing on Wednesday evening.”

Joining me from Dallas, Texas. Why is it supposed to be all here today? The song last night is Ban McMan. - How do you partner? So it was a pleasure to see you, Wendy.

A special sense, I do have to give you credit. You picked up the dinner check. I was gay at ramen, and you came through. - Yeah. I made, I made a request that when a button

beyond the constraints of my contract, and you didn't have to go through any loops to deliver. - Well, we have a serious topic on the podcast, but I'll just tell you that in a fascinating thing, Jackson McMan ordered a dish at this restaurant,

and then the waiter was like, "You don't want that dish, you want this dish." And McMan was like, "Okay." And I think he was a strange pee. I would not have had the guts as a waiter

to tell this man his business, but he listens to the waiter like that,

and he never listens to me like that.

- That's some sand. He never met this man before. The guy had made his weight 30 minutes to order, practically, and then he comes over and he's like, "No, you don't want that."

- I don't want that. - I don't want that for years. - He never listens. He suggested the sand, and then as you know, Wendy, that's usually where I go anyways.

- Yeah, well, speaking of waiting a long time to get the results. How about that? That's the best I could do. - Both.

- To move into the news of the day, week, month. Maybe even longer the MBA possibly. - Yeah. - The MBA comes down with its ruling against the clippers today. I'm sure you know it by now, it's crushing.

It's a crushing penalty. - It's as close to the SMU death penalty as you get in the MBA. - I don't know if it's a death penalty, but-- - It's as close. It's as close.

- Yeah. I mean, they didn't give them a postseason ban, but everything, but that. - So there's multiple layers here.

“I think I'm gonna try to do it in three,”

who knows if we can keep this organization. But there's the details of the report itself, which this report for being a legal document. This whoever wrote it has some writing background. Like it was, I mean, it's not gonna rival

the right Thompson or Ernest Hemingway, but from a legal standpoint, this is a narrative-- - He's not easy reading. - He's unless you're a clippers fan.

- Right, well if you're a clippers fan, I don't even know you get through it. So the details in here are pretty crushing. There's the actual fight that is now gonna happen between the clippers and MBA.

As much as the clippers can fight, I don't know if they're gonna be able to. And then there's three what's gonna be in the future for the clippers, I think. So I don't know where you wanna start, like a man,

but the details are pretty savage. - The initial big scoop by a Pobotore was, hey, there's this really shady deal that's a pretty easily traceable to the clippers thing with a quiet getting

28 million from aspiration, and then there was like,

oh, plus it was 20 million in equity, which I obviously didn't have been worth listening. And then months later it came out, oh, by the way, there was another deal of electronics. - So the electronics thing, not to cut you off.

As soon as the electronics thing, that I think I said it on the pod, like that felt like a straight kick back. - And oh, by the way, the league says halfway there, there were two more. - That's right.

- That's right. - That's right. - That's right. - That's right. - And what locked, and I think it is, - A locked insurance company. - And those deals, they had a bunch of documentation, they had a bunch of,

I mean, the president of business operations here, is all over this thing, and like she is. - Well, yeah, I think if you wanna say a headline on this,

I hate to $18 million and kick back deals,

plus the aspiration deals would've added. - I'm already in the endary, but I would say the headline is, Steve Balmer was not accused of much direct wrongdoing. He was accused, or maybe even, I guess you could say convicted, basically of lack of institutional control.

“They basically said, you should have known,”

and we think you kinda did know, they don't really accuse him. - Well, the exact language of the NBA's press release is Balmer's a spinning from all league and team activities for one year for knowingly

seeking to help Mr. Leonard obtain, off-court income opportunities. For approving a business deal that he knew was a precondition for aspiration, to enter into an endorsement agreement with Mr. Leonard,

and for his failure to create conditions

circumvention rules.

“- Yeah, so the third one, yeah, the third one”

is the all-in-compassing. Well, and listen, the simple fact of the matter is,

this ain't the first time Steve Balmer's

pulls him a shady stuff. That did not help his case. They gave him a little slap on the wrist for the Andre Jordan stuff in 2015. $250,000 fine, there was, oh, whoops, we didn't know.

And then, there's the investigation out for the quiet signing because, guess what? It's not like Uncle Dennis only asked the clippers for a whole bunch of under the table stuff. He was asking everybody for under the table stuff.

Oh, geez, we were asked, but we didn't get anything, and now this. So they're in a way, there are three time losers. - That's true. Jillian Zucker, they call her essentially a liar

and obfuscator, a rulebreaker. They implicate indirectly her husband.

“- She was suspended without pay for a year”

for being primarily and directly culpable for the impermissible endorsement of arrangements and for providing false and misleading statements to investigators. - Yeah, she, and if you read the report,

they destroy her. - Oh, well, I guess she's a star of the report. - Yeah, they basically indicate that she directed it, that she basically asked for these, I mean, you know, that were the reports.

They directed it and then very clumsily attempted to cover up for an emails back to like, oh, we're just connecting, after all the connecting behind the scenes, so they uncovered it. - What the, the clippers put out a statement

and basically what it looks like is that, the clippers are not denying that these endorsement deals happened. They're not denying that, "Why got this money?"

They're not denying that these are companies, I mean, Boingo Wireless does advertise,

but they don't advertise if they've never advertised

with NBA endorsers that I'm aware of. There's also the little thing of typically when you sign a guy to a multi-million dollar endorsement deal, he actually adorces something. - Well, that's, well, there's some astrophysicism there

that he did do a thing or two, but they can wiggle out of that, like they can wiggle out of that circumstance, but obviously, if you were on a jury, you would convict. There's a preponderance of evidence.

If you were on a jury, you would convict. And so, what the clippers vehemently reject the NBA's findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation debaute. - Well, they're throwing, they're throwing mud at each other.

That statement that the clippers put out, even though it was written with more control, gave me flashbacks to Dan Gilbert's letter when the Brown left. - Yeah, and there's bad statement,

there's the letter that the lawyer sent to the commissioner and the clippers all over the place here, but we're all over the place. Just, let's move backwards. Move backwards.

- Okay, move backwards. - So I'm sorry, it's both of our faults. - No, it's both your faults. - It's your faults. - It's your faults.

- This is the argument that is the basis of the disagreement. The clippers are saying that, yeah, these companies did business with Kawai. But we are allowed to introduce companies if the companies want to meet them,

or if Kawai wants to meet them.

- And the NBA saying, here's the million

in six ways that you violated the rule. - Exactly, so there's the legal argument, and I don't want to get into this, but I'm just gonna say what it is, the legal argument is an affirmative versus responsive.

But basically, if Kawai were to say to the clippers, I would really like to meet the people from Dactronics, I think I could do great work for them endorsing their product. The clippers would say, oh, well, let's get you together

for a Zoom call with their president. Or if Dactronics said, hey, we think that Kawai is a dynamic guy, we love the way looks on our scoreboards. Can you get us in touch with him and we can do a deal?

“The clippers are saying that that's what they did,”

that they acted as the middle man and they operated within the rules. And the league is saying, not only did you not do that, you tried to cover it up, and you flagrantly didn't do that.

- And all kinds of stuff from like clippers employees, based saying this stuff's got red flags all over it. They've got the order of operations in terms of, you know, the Zucker lady setting everything up and then sending emails acting like that was the introductory email.

who you're gonna believe me or your lion eyes and ears. - Right. - And so I mean, like a big factor that was going, it's like we got a good comming reference. It's like the part-time podcast guest

who represents comming on the side. - I don't want to talk about that on the show. - Let everybody else talk about that. - At a certain point, when you screw up royally, you should shut up.

That's the advice I would give Aaron Turner and the LA clippers. - All right, I would agree with that.

“I think the clippers should accept this penalty”

and I think they got off relatively easy and I'll explain that in a minute. - More who'd collect it podcast after this? (upbeat music) - The clippers have a tad of tool in this.

And the tool was that they were building the Serena, okay? So because they were building the Serena and they were doing business with a whole bunch of extra companies, extra vendors, it had all these different pathways

that they could look essentially potentially for partnerships, you know? And so, you know, dectronics,

you're not buying a hundred million dollars worth

of dectronics stuff every year. But when you're building your arena, you are, and dectronics, and you know, this is one thing that Pablo's, you know, I thought the most, and all honesty,

and you can go back to listen to the podcast we idea afterwards. I felt the most compelling thing, but Pablo breaking the story was amazing.

“Why did he's already one a Pulitzer in a Morrow award?”

Like he's, you know, it's gone great for him, but the dectronics thing to me really was a huge thing from my perspective because that was just a great day kickback. And so, because they were building that arena

and here's the other thing, dectronics very, very clearly. Like the investigators don't quote the people, you know, you're trusting, walked out, lived into a certain degree, but considering you're putting this against a man

with over a hundred billion dollars,

I find their credibility reasonable, I would find them reasonable. But dectronics does business with virtually every NBA team. They intend to do business, I assume with many NBA teams into the future.

They were highly, highly incentivized to do two things. One, they were highly incentivized to do this deal with the clippers because as Pablo did in his reporting and Hunter Brook Media, they were in partnership there. They pointed out that that tronics had hit a rough patch

and really kind of needed the deal. I mean, anybody could use a hundred million dollar order, but that in that particular point, their finances were struggling, so they needed to do it. And it's, I mean, the details in this report

make it clear that dectronics basically opened up and said what happened. - Yeah, well, which is going to be tough because I don't know if dectronics is going to be able to put in the massive TV that bomb was going to need

in his house next season, watch Clippers game. - I would say not. And so, and this insurance company locked in insurance,

“I believe they, you know, did the insurance”

for the construction of the building. And obviously a lot of wireless is needed in new building. So that, you know, and who doesn't need some trees outside? - Well, and that's another thing that's just really tough in there.

So I really kind of want to, and even in the opening paragraphs of the report,

walked to Lipton Lawyer's basically say,

we know that this Joe Sandberg guy who was running aspiration and is now in a federal penitentiary, we know he's not credible. And so we were very cautious.

Like this report is not based on what he said, totally. But they have stuff in there from him. And, you know, there was, they basically lay out that the Clippers wanted to do a carbon credit deal. By the way, this carbon credit thing,

with all due respect for the environment, I want to help the environment just as the next step. And this carbon credit thing is a scam from day one, which is a whole other topic. - Oh, look at the guys sitting in the poker right now.

- I mean, like, the one defense that I heard from the Clippers that made sense to me because I'm all about what makes sense, was that this guy was running a Ponzi scheme, selling carbon-credits, whatever that means,

and that he needed to keep Balmers investment going, and so he paid off quite a letter to keep Balmers investment going of the Ponzi scheme. That was actually a defense that I could understand. - I just like, I thought, I honestly thought

everything that's come out of the Clippers mouth and this started has been extremely flimsy, and it keeps getting less and less believeable. - Man, I gotta tell you, man, I said this to you. I can, I keep referring to this podcast

that we did after Debtronics. I had friends swear to me that this was Bunk.

- I mean, I talked to the CEO, I talked to Steve. I mean, I get, there was one moment

“before a Clipper's game this year, where,”

but people wouldn't come up and talk to him. Like Steve would come up before a Clipper's games for years, and you could just come up and talk to him. Frankly, a lot of times I talk to him about golf. - Shocker.

- Okay. - I am stunned by that. You talking to a rich guy about golf, I can't imagine. - And I was talking to him, and we were talking about the investigation, and he said,

they can't prove, I knew, I didn't know, they can't prove it. - Nah, well. And, you know, he was, then it gets back to lack of institutional control,

and honestly not did you not know. And by the way, all these penalties we're talking about, it's at least five first-round picks.

It's at least 30 million dollars,

because one very important line here, Wachtell lived and continued to receive information relevant to the investigation, and the league will consider further action as appropriate.

“So this might just, maybe might keep stack and stuff on,”

just like all the companies started like, it went from one to two, now it's four, like, and the league's basically saying, hey, we might just begin to start it here. But, look, they had to come to,

they needed a conclusion for the simple fact that a massive trade was being held up. - Okay, well let's talk about that. So the clippers put out two statements tonight. The one was a public's facing statement,

and one was a lettered atom silver, where it was illegal in loyerly way, it was a borderline rant. - Yeah. - It wasn't exactly the dang-over thing,

which was a great a rant, but this was illegal was wow, wow, wow, you're not being fair.

- Yeah, basically it was like,

you treat us poorly in the one point, there was like something, and they were like, to what end, question mark, like, you know, that they were- - Yeah, it was- - It was totally ridiculous.

“- But in this thing, they basically say,”

we're gonna try every legal avenue we can to fight this. They basically are like, we're gonna fight. And my guess is that the fight is gonna be over the words affirmative and responsive. But let me tell you something.

Here's my unsolicited advice to the clippers organization, accept the penalty, and ask for one provision, that no more penalties are levied. - Yeah, I would say cut your losses would be why.

- And I'm gonna give you a couple of reasons why. Number one, they have not said it's impossible to still do this Kawaii trade. Kawaii put out a statement, which by the way, Kawaii's statement as an aside

has a absolute incredible line in it. I mean, I'd like to break down the Kawaii statement because I wrote a high coup that summarizes it. - Well, let's go through it first, and you can take it to the end.

This is Kawaii's statement. Integrity and respect for this game are fundamental to who I am.

That is absolutely never going to be true again.

- I mean, this is an all-time great who's career has been painted by shadiness for years. Now, go on. I accept full responsibility. Okay, now the end, now the statement's improving.

- Wait for what? - For lapses in judgment. - Okay, that's-- - He's moving a little bit away. - Okay, go on.

- I accept full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle. - Oh no, Kawaii that? - No, where's this? - We got 18 million here, there's 28 million here. Boy, where's all this coming from?

- Like the first four words are pretty good. I accept full responsibility. Then the next like seven words for lapses in judgment. - Oh, well, judgment, okay.

- Lapses is implies like only partial blame, but we're okay by people within my inner circle. And the distraction, the situation is caused the fans and my family. - What about the clippers?

- I feel I'm scared. - You've been an absolute disaster. - By the way, what about the raptors who you left because you got a shady deal with you? - Well, that's what he says.

He says a bunch of other stuff. I don't really care about any of it. They says his last sentence is, has I returned to Toronto, which is basically like, by the way, I'm going to Toronto and I'm gonna get paid.

We're gonna talk about the quiet part about this. - As I return to Toronto, I know. - I have focused on what I can control. Closing this chapter. And I'm moving forward to clean slate.

Please don't bring it up again. - Hi, seven hundred grand. Here you go, shoot, that's what I mean.

- He's gonna go up what?

- Didn't let me do the math, 45.3 million.

So my high coup, whoops, my bad, commission. It's all Uncle Dennis' fault on to Toronto. - My God, we had a poet and didn't know it. - Dude, I won a poetry contest. And I think it was third grade,

which is also the year that I got busted lying about Jim McMan being my uncle. But anyways, not that my integrity is. - He is no longer a band-bick man. He's the bard of the hoop.

- Looks good. - The five, seven, five, boom, boom, boom. - I wanna glaze it on to a plate and put it behind you on your mantle there. - We can put it on a plate and present it to Cui

when he returns to the interview. - Oh, he can put it right next to the plant. Remember the guy gave him the plant in Toronto when he won the title?

“All right, here is why I think the clippers”

should seriously consider dropping whatever field they've got, which is, you know, Steve Ballmer

is worth a hundred billion dollars in angry

and you're not gonna tell him what he's gonna do. - Sure, sure. - So, good luck. I understand they're not gonna do this but I'm going to make a case my own case now.

If they're allowed to do this trade, which I checked on this and basically I was told, they can, you know, the raptors and clippers if they want can bring the trade to the league to get it done. They basically said, go through the process.

They didn't say no. - Okay. - Okay. - Now, if I were the raptors, I would consider trying to alter the terms of this trade

because the clippers are in a really tough position and we're gonna watch that going forward but the raptors are not exactly looking for it a welcoming brand. - It's not like Brandon Ingraham would talk about that.

- Yeah, but the raptors aren't tough spot either. - Or as well.

“- And so, and the best thing here for Kly for the raptors”

and frankly for the clippers is there's no tension for Kly. So you don't have to, if it's a funny game's suspension, then you're talking about Oakswell. - True. - True to the question, McMahon.

What were the timber wolves? What was their penalty in 2000 when the Joe Smith salary cap circumvention happened? - Five for Trumpix. - Originally.

- And, that's a big work. - Glentator was suspended. McCail was suspended. - No, no, hold on. - Oh, the contract was new.

- Originally. - The contract was new. - And the contract was new. They'd no longer had the player. - Right.

- And that would have been either a new can in the last year the contract, even like a lengthy suspension would have been a real problem as far as it's trade. - That's right.

So, the Kawaii is free to be, to my knowledge and, you know, Kawaii is free to be, Kawaii is free to be traded. - With a clean slate, he said.

- And they're gonna get two first round picks for him.

Assuming that the deal, and by the way, the two first round picks, those are the only two first round picks they own that don't have swap rights attached to them now. - If they protected picks in 29 and 31.

Because as we said, they've lost picks from 29 to 33.

“The 29 pick that got taken away was the Indiana pick, right?”

So, they have, all they have left in the draft call first round draft call for now is this year's pick, which is gonna be swapped to either dimber or okay C, whichever's worse, that ain't gonna be a good pick. - But still, they're gonna have a pick

in the 20, 27 draft, which they can trade. I agree, it's probably not gonna be a good pick. And then they've got a filly swap in 29. That one's at top three protected, but we'll see where filly is.

- I'm just saying, they, they, they chrono picks with the only ones that they would have. There aren't my swap rights with the team, that's right. But you're like, you're saying only like, it's not like, they're still gonna, if they accept this penalty,

and the coi trade goes through, they're still gonna have four first round picks. - Yeah. - They're still gonna have 'em, now they can't trade 'em. - Those other picks, 'cause you get into,

- Yeah, it's every other, - You get into steps, yeah. - But it's not, it's not like we're not gonna have a pick. - Unless the other thing is, the other thing is, they are extremely lucky that this investigation dragged

and wasn't, that's right for this year's draft. - That, and before they agree to the coi trade. - Yeah. - Okay, so that's, before this year's draft, and they were said, hey, that fit the overall pick.

- Yeah, exactly, my God, so okay. So you, again, assuming the coi trade happens and they're not gonna adjust the terms, they're still gonna have four first round picks that they can make in the next five years.

Now, they may not be great picks, but they're gonna have seven years, next seven years. - No, picks 29 and 31. - Their picks are 27, 29, 31 and 33.

because they're gonna have the Raptors pick in 29 and 31.

“And they're gonna have their pick in 27 and their pick in 29.”

- Oh, no, I mean, double check here, I'm pretty certain you've got the Raptor stuff. - What are they getting from the Raptors? - All right, I'm gonna while you're looking that up, I'm gonna keep going.

I can make man said the word originally to the wolves penalty. That's right, it was originally

five first round picks, but guess what?

It ended up being three, because they followed the rules, they allowed themselves to, yep. - The Raptors agree, man. Was unprotected picks in 231 and 233.

- Okay, I wanna apologize to you. - Now, there is a 27 swaps, they would be swapping the worst of Denver and OKC for whatever the Toronto's is. - Okay, but I see the second rounders.

- I see everybody saying, okay, I see everybody saying, oh my God,

“Kawai cost, you know, they're throwing the Paul George trade in”

and they're saying, Kawai cost them 10 firsts and two swaps. - 10 firsts and swaps and hold on my hand. - Hold on my hand. - I'll make sure you go to South of Zander. - Great, hold on my friends as Lee Corseal would say,

not so fast, sweetheart. - What if they get these two firsts back and they have two other firsts that they've already swapped so they're not trading them because it's, or they can't penalize these things.

- I don't know if they could do with those. They can call Sam Preston and say, hey, will you send the shayles and do these picks? - Yeah, well, that's a different story. Now, there's another thing, as I just said,

the wolves got two of those picks back. Do you know why they got the two's two picks back? 'Cause they took their punishment and shut the hell up. - They didn't put out statements, they didn't put out open letters.

Listen, Sue, at this point.

“- The clippers just need to try not to get this worse.”

- Okay, and I can't imagine them getting anything back with damings this is. - Well, we're in a rough spot right now, but it's not too late. So, Stern made them wait for a year,

and in 2001, he gave them back one pick, and then 2003, he gave them back a second, not a second router, a second first round pick. - I'll be honest with you, man, I'm wondering if this ends up with Balmer,

just throwing a fit and saying the hell with it, I'm gonna cash in and getting whatever

would be six billion, seven billion, eight billion dollars

for a team you pay two bill for. - That's fascinating. I can't see him doing that, but we're out of the realm of normal life. - I mean, this is like emotional,

but sometimes you hire an attorney to get you the best plea bargain you can get. Now, I have to believe-- - I'm gonna phrase that-- - That's a way to go about a plea bargain

and salt the gentleman. - Well, it happens, it happens. I'm gonna phrase this carefully. I have to believe there was discussions with the clippers and the NBA about what was,

what amounted to a plea bargain? Believe before this happened. - The clippers are claiming via this letter that they were completely blindsided. - No, they were blindsided that the penalty

was coming down. - Okay, I'm, dude, go on, make your point. - And they may not have known everything that was in the report, I don't argue that, but if they could, if they could get an agreement,

if they could plead guilty, get an agreement and say we're not gonna challenge any of these penalties. And they get an agreement that there'll be no further penalties.

Basically, they'll say that these five first round picks

are all encompassing, they cover everything. It's a blanket to agreement. And they keep their nose clean. They might, and they do the Quire trade, they might be able to come out of this without four broken limbs.

They may be able to come out of this with less damage. - Well, if they don't wanna get their limbs broken, they need to stop throwing rocks at the legal. - I agree, which is why I'm saying. - Listen, here's a quote, nonetheless,

this is from the letter with less than an hour's warning and no opportunity to respond. The league is issued a report in accompanying press release, purporting to conclude the exact opposite of what it has said privately.

Like, the league puts out a thing from this law firm, detailing a long list of lies from the clippers and the clippers are sponsoring your bunch of liars. - More who collected podcast after this? - I mean, I want to talk about some of the people

okay, start with Quire. - Oh, yeah, some of that. - Okay, seven hundred thousand restitution. - By the time that was for them paying for flights and hotel rooms and stuff that they weren't supposed

to pay for outside of this contract, not for entities endorsement deals. - Right, he's keeping that money.

Like, this report says the Quire was paid $21 million

by Debtronics, the insurance company, and Boeing go wireless by 2021. Then he does the deal with aspiration. He got paid for a couple of years on that. - Yeah, so he got, he's up, dozens of millions dollars.

- Yes, and so he pays seven hundred thousand

“and here's the thing, he doesn't get suspended”

because seven hundred thousand dollars is like two games, two and a half games, okay, game checks, all right. Secondly, if the trade happens, McMahon, do you think the Raptors are still extending him? - Of course, you're not giving up two

for some picks to not extend the guy. - This dude's getting extended. - Yeah, angle and where it wants to go. - I don't know if he wants to go there, but he has to go there.

He has to get out. - So do you think he, I mean, he directed his way to Toronto, and he's fine with that. - I know, I mean, if he ranked his choices, I'm not sure that that's where, I don't want to get into that.

- What's it, this is like those movies where the guy just walks away unscathed in the world's burning behind him. - Yeah, so let me ask you this. When Kawai gets announced, it's again,

assuming the trade happens. When Kawai gets announced at opening night, are they of cheering in Toronto? - Yeah, he wanted the banners up there, right? - I mean, the banners up there, and he's back.

“- I think he's there, I think they are cheering.”

- Listen, he, he quies a rival, at least gives the Raptors reason to hope that they can be a legitimate content. They weren't going to be without getting a guy like that. - Listen, the Eastern Conference teams

do not want this trade to happen. The Raptors have come from this trade. - And maybe Kawai has heard all year and plays, you know, 20 games, but like there's at least the ceiling is significantly higher

with Kawai liter and a Raptor's uniform. - All right, let's talk about Lawrence Frank. - He got six months and not a year for, this isn't a legal term, but I'll paraphrase singing like a canary.

- Right, so in the case of Minnesota back in the day, Kevin McCail had to go out for a year, no pay. I think they call it a leave of absence, they call it suspension, but he got a year with no pay. Lawrence Frank, despite the clippers not doing that well

the last couple of years, to the point

where they basically started a blow-up this last season,

he got a contract extension. - Ooh, and I thought it was hush money, but apparently not.

“- That's what's fascinating, people from what I understand”

like when that got announced or like it leaked, the league office didn't know what was happening. And they regardless of what they knew then, like they didn't like the op-ducks. - The appearance, yeah.

- And this is basically right after in the support, it says that Zucker was lying through a teeth. - Right, so Zucker gets a year. - It says by contrast, Mr. Frank openly discussed with investigators his conduct from the relevant time period,

recalled details of key events, took responsibility for the actions of subordinates, and was generally consistent across his interviews. - Not only that, McMan, he turned over his notes. - I gotta tell you, I wonder what bomber was thinking

and he's got to that part of this report. - Well, that's a question, did the clippers know what Lawrence Frank had said and done? - No, that I'm reading this stuff and I'm thinking man, it's gonna be hard for

our L Frank to continue to sit in that seat when he gets back six months later. - Right, so here's why the clean, let me read from the report. The clippers, most senior executive president of basketball operations, Julian Zucker

and president of basketball operations. Looks like president of business ops, Zucker, president of basketball ops, Lawrence Frank, are primarily and directly culpable for this misconduct.

So they basically are saying those are the two guilty parties.

Zucker lies to the corner of the investigators, covers up whatever, she gets a year's pay, a year suspension, a year's pay.

- Yeah. - So six months off for good behavior. Our man, Jackson, brands him as Fredo.

You know, this isn't the first time

the Lawrence Frank notes have been used. - Hey, he could have been a hell of a journalist. Man takes good notes now.

“- Do you remember this when he was deposed”

as he, when the nets did the deals where they brought in Kevin, Garnet, and Paul Pierce, they hired Lawrence Frank to be Jason Jason Kid. Was hired as coach, so they hired his ex-coach in an interviewer.

- Jay Kid was hired as coach, like the sweat wasn't even dry from his MBA career as a player. - Well, that was great at tampering. Oh, though, it was tampering on the box when they took him.

- Oh, yeah. - By the way, we didn't mention the tampering that they did the whole year that quasi-terrano. That's also back drop here. But yeah.

- That's true.

- They put, they put El Frank in to be first-time head coach.

You get an experienced guy as his right hand man and boy, that didn't go well. - Yeah, basically Jason was done with them within weeks, and he was the highest-paid assistant coach in the league at the time.

- And then assigned him to do TPS report. - Yes. I don't know how many of our Jackson, do you know what a TPS report? Do you know that reference?

- No. - Yeah, I mean, he knew Fred, I didn't credit for no one a godfather reference. He doesn't know office-based reference. Anyway, you've seen my dad a hap to know the godfather.

- Okay, good. - That's true. - And I want to give you, I want to assign you bonus points for making a godfather reference. So the, you know, we're a far field again,

but Lawrence Frank was told to basically stay home

and file reports. And apparently he did. I don't think anybody ever read them, but he was home filing reports. So he was taking notes about, you know,

like this is taking notes about Uncle Dennis making demands. And you know, the thing about the timeline here, just in case, you know, that got distorted. In 2019, Kawai signs with the clippers. - The rapture- - The rapture-

- The rapture- - The rapture- - Right, the raptures are crying bloody murder. They're crying foul saying that Uncle Dennis was asking for the sun, the moon and the stars. - By the way, the raptures were not alone in those cries.

“I think someone would come across town too.”

- That's right. And I remember the stories came out in people like, "Yeah, they're just sour or whatever." So the NBA is like, "We better investigate this." The NBA investigates it.

And finds the clippers cop to it. They go, "Yeah, he was asking for all kinds of crazy stuff." - Now, how is Uncle Dennis allowed to do, like, why is he not immediately sanctioned by the league there? Maybe he was on some level.

We don't know about it. He was not an accredited agent, so they couldn't pull that, but like, right there, you know, that's the brainers. I've been banned from arenas. - Yes, you have multiple times.

- I just want it. - I thought you were a multiple times band. - I was, first time I was only banned from the locker in the second time was the whole ring. - Okay, good, it's a good one.

Anyway, Uncle Dennis was not banned. He was, you know, still welcome. So that's, you know, odd right there. So that is, you know, that is in the summer, fall of 2019. The 2019, 2020 season begins, infamous season,

because in the spring, you know, or in March, this season shuts down because of COVID. During COVID, Uncle Dennis, according to this report, calls up the clippers and says, y'all promised me that you would get coi some money,

you some endorse some money, you brought me some BS deals. - Uh-huh. - Because remember there was, you know, the previous Jersey ad, the previous Jersey sponsor before aspiration, coi did have a deal, and he did like perform commercials

for them, and it was for some pitants of money. (laughs) You know, I want, I want real bogus deals. Don't give me fake bogus deals. - I want BS deals, but real money.

- Right, exactly, exactly, right. So that call takes place. Lawrence Frank takes notes on the call and saves them. All right, you know, he's being a very, you know,

“I think it's good business for a general manager”

to save notes, you can refer to things. I've talked over the years, I've talked to many agents and executives who refer back to, you know, like, well, you told me two weeks ago about this, and I was like, damn, they're taking notes on what I'm telling them.

So that's not unheard of in the NBA, but Lawrence Frank takes that. And then, well, while the world is shut down,

in the pandemic?

- Yeah, do you think lies like marketability

was peaking while the world and NBA is shut down?

“- Were they gonna do some great commercials with him?”

Were they gonna, you know, no. So during the pandemic, he gets these three deals. And not only that, again, according to the report. - During a six day span in early June, 2020, after Uncle Dennis had given them a three to six month timeline.

- Yeah, he said three to six months. I don't care if the world shut down, get Kawaii as money. As soon as the endorsement deals happen, the clippers enter into consulting agreements

with these companies. Were they give them money for consulting? Do you think electronics, I'm a guest at Transca Consult on Scoreboard, you think Boingo Wireless is,

I mean, I mean, I guess they could consult. - They're not the only short. - On the day that Zucker sends these introductory emails, Kawaii files this LLC.

“- It must have been a great introductory meeting.”

- You will, I tell you what. - So like I said, if you were on a jury, like if you were on a jury and you didn't care, you didn't care about basketball, and you heard all this, you'd be like guilty.

Like we don't need a long debate here. - No, and the clippers look. They've cut bait from that era, they're trading collide, they've traded Paul George, like all the picks and stuff are out the door.

Shaze, winning MVP's and wanna championship with the Thunder, his co-star, Jada Williams, was part of this deal, too, as it has a draft pick. The damage is done. You've just got to dig yourself out of the rubble

of one of the most disastrous deals in sports history. I mean, this thing ended up being, like it's up there with a virtual walker trade. - Who is it, a virtual walker trade? - Well, when you start stacking up picks and stuff,

guys, like Emmett Smith and Darren Woodson and like, it was like a whole bunch of dudes, but Emmett Smith and Shay, you know, just start there, and that deal was all the picks, and this deal you gave up an MVP, plus all the picks.

- By the way, the clippers, to get two playoff series wins. Two, stuff, and another team's about to extend them. By the way, the clippers have Roeach and Mura on an expiring deal. They got a team option. They got Broke Lopez on an expiring deal.

They got Max Drew on an expiring deal. Grady Dick, who they're trading for, is a, you know, assuming that deal happens, is on an expiring deal. Brand didn't even have a player option.

They might be able to redo that contract depending how it works out with him. The clippers are gonna have cap space, McMahon. This is a devastating blow, but this is not a death blow. - It's not, but it's pretty devastating.

- It's bad, I'm telling you, not impossible for them to come out of it with a respectable team. Again, they also just drafted a guy, fifth overall, and if Keaton Wagner ends up being a real deal player, that obviously is a big, big deal.

- Could they trade Darious Garland?

He's got two years and 86 million left.

Could they trade Darious Garland right now for a first round pick? - I'm uncertain of that.

“I mean, honestly, given his injury issues,”

I'm very uncertain of that. I think now next year, as an expiring contract, would he have value? - You sure, but I don't know, man. A small guard, who's had those kind of injury issues,

I'm not sure that there's a huge market for him. - All right, well, I'm just saying like, it's bad, but I want to be clear. I'm not saying that they're going easy on him. I'm just saying, this is not a good have been worse.

- Yes, they don't, if they want to just have a knockdown. - What if they've avoided the contract? What if they've avoided the contract? - It can still get worse for the clippers. - Yes, it's not saying.

- Well, the league is basically saying,

hey, we think there's still some skeletons that we can uncover. And if we do, we can come back and add to this. - Yeah. - I mean, it's honestly the clippers,

the clippers sold their soul to Uncle Dennis and Kauai, and they got a bunch of crap sprayed all over them

- Yeah, the last year is, and for the most part,

“for last scandal, and-- - Right, for the most part,”

the last seven years have been a disaster. - They've had-- - And they poured the foundation of a potential dynasty in Oklahoma City. And we, that's the punishment. Plus all these takes now of the door as well.

- Yeah. - And look, here's a deal, just in terms of the trade, like forget all the under the table stuff, and on that, in terms of that trade to get Paul George, who I'll remind people at the time,

he was come off a season in the middle of his prime,

when he was third in MVP voting.

- Listen, I thought their team was gonna be awesome. - To get Kauai, who's come off Finals in VP and Paul George, who's the first team all in VA player in his prime, every team in the league would have done now to open up a potential championship window.

Now, Murphy's Law or Karma, however you wanna put it, has completely blown up in their face, since then. And, you know, then like to give up Shay, you know, that was tough, like people knew, hey, you know,

that guy's gonna be good, he's second team all rookie, like he's got a chance to be a player. Nobody thought he was gonna be a perennial one, I was from the last time. - And the Thunder.

- The Thunder admit that. - No, I mean, the headline of the trade was all the picks.

- Jackson wonders if it's not a good idea for the league

to say they wanna stop digging,

“because why is that Jackson, why are you saying that?”

- I'm more so just saying, we said for the clippers, it's a good idea for them to accept the Thunderfin, I was actually saying, it's like good for the league, too. If you say no more punishments to come,

let's accept this, let's sweep this under the rug, so then there's not another Pablo story coming out, or people keep, if they dig for more and they come out with more, hey, we can't punish them anymore, we already have the max one, like people will,

it encourages people to just... - Yeah, once the next court dates for the gambling game. - And then, yeah, then the NBA can focus on, hey, opening night, we got LeBron, you know, going to the nicks, like let's get that started

and talk about it. - Right. - And honestly, yeah, I do think Adam's so runaway is a winner of this, because straight up, he had been soft on crime as the commissioner, since ironically, he booted the previous clippers owner,

which is a different circumstance. - Right before we, right, just, I wanna get something on the record right here. Just before we recorded this, I taped an interview with Scott VanPel,

and I said those exact words. So I don't want you to, I don't want anybody to think I stole from you. I said he had this reputation, he was soft on crime. - I might have stolen that from you.

Although I guess that an aired yet. - Yeah, not as you haven't seen him. But she had my studio room tapped. And I wiped it out. Scott's that.

- But yeah, like, Adam's over, the Sheriff, baby. I wouldn't familiar with a game. - Well, I will say this, like, Adam said, at the, at his last press conference in Las Vegas, I was there lounging on a couch, if you remember.

- Oh yeah. - The heat was getting, or the league at least was getting regular updates on the investigation. - Mm-hmm. - So, if that was the case, and they were aware

of these documents that, you know, and these interviews that implicated them. And they still let them have the number five pick and the Kawai thing, like, and I guess that, you know, you got to do due process.

- Yeah.

“- Again, I think about this, the more I think,”

the clippers should just shut up, shut up. - Because every page of this document that I read, I was like, whoa, oh, so just like dude. Nobody would, any shred of common sense, buys any of the BS you're trying to pump.

Like, come on, dude, you're busted. Just shut up, take your punishment, and try to rebuild your team. - Yeah. I also just don't know what pathway the clippers have to fight.

They reference arbitration. I mean, bomb, which is not a thing. Bombers got a, obviously, unlimited resources and bunch of lawyers, and he's gonna have his lawyers go on the attack, clearly, which is like, okay, dude, cool.

- Again, Bomber is making a complete hash of them. - So, according to the clippers, I don't have any way of proven this yet, but the clippers say that they had already paid

$15 million for the legal fees for this,

and there were six law firms involved. - Okay, well, my advice is, don't do extraordinarily shady stuff that requires a--

- I'm just saying, they say they paid $15 million.

I mean, whatever, I can't challenge that. - That's about what Kawai got under the table. - The fine, the fine that they were given was 30 million.

“And I believe the way they calculated that is,”

the max fine for circumventure to $7.5 million. I don't know where that-- - Oh, okay, so $7.5 times four. - Right, they're saying they did. - I thought it was a million bucks per playoff game

that Kawai played in Clippers Uniform, but he actually played 35, so I knew my math is off. - But did he finish 35? Am I the only finish to be 30? - Yeah, so...

- All right, well.

- Actually, it might be a million bucks per fan,

who's at their season open or next year. - Man, I like going to Clipper Games. - Yeah, no traffic. - Well, our new studio in LA is right down the street. - This is true, we'll be in a lot of them.

- Yeah.

“All right, well, I wish this closed the book,”

but I feel like it's not gonna. And what I would say going forward is, watch this space for what happens with this Kawai Toronto train, because it's kind of like Tony Romo the other day

to cross over to your, or he makes his statement after he pleads no contest.

And it's like, I look forward to coming back to CBS.

- And CBS is like... - CBS did not, was not on the, and I look forward to being in Toronto. - Well, but I'll say this, in that case, the Raptors look forward to having them,

and it's clearly in the Clippers Best-inch. Like, could you imagine if the Clippers brought Kawai back next year, my God? - No, they cannot. - All right, and so for the Clippers to,

“- Okay, yeah, that's why I thought I'm Toronto.”

I might... - You might say a pick and deal with it. - Right. - Yeah, that would be a fun thing. - I mean, it's not the same.

- It's the uncomfortable to have Brandon and Grim back, but, you know... - Not as uncomfortable as it'd be for the Clippers. - All right, I'm just saying, like, I'm gonna watch that space,

'cause how many times did they're in this podcast? Did I reference that? It's a big swing piece. - What? And again, just in terms of the Clippers being able

to salvage things anytime in the near future, those would be the only two picks that they have that don't have swap rights attached to them. - The only two. - I'm protected.

- Yeah, over the next seven years, the only two. - All right, thank you so much, Jackson, Tucker, and Mark and rest of our producers. - Thank you to McMahon for not hitting me harder last night. He couldn't, he didn't order dessert

and he didn't order an appetizer. It's very disciplined. (laughs) He said in advanced age, he's got to watch his diet. - Wow, that's, Jackson cut that out.

I did not know Jackson, but it's inappropriate. - And I'm gonna reference this the next time, 'cause what's happened, by the way, there is an arbitration on podcast bits and what's happened now is because you are,

this is Brian Winters and the who-collective. - Yeah. - So the fact that I'm owed two dinners off of this podcast is your responsibility now. (both laughing)

That's, I mean, I've discussed things really well. - You've talked enough to me. - Yeah, so we came to you. - All right, I'm gonna go to arbitration on that for sure. Thank you to McMahon, thank you for watching

and listening to who-collective. - I hope no more emergency podcasts. We'll talk to you next week. - How do you explain those? (upbeat music)