Maybe you’ve heard? Pablo Torre has been investigating allegations of the Clippers’ alleged salary cap circumvention and reporting his findings on his podcast, “Pablo Torre Finds Out.”
Just kidding. Of course you’ve heard!
The Clippers are the story in the NBA to start the 2025-26 season. Not because they’re among the frontrunners, not because they’ve got some ballyhooed young talent. Not because they’re debuting a new arena – that was last year.
No, the Clippers are at the center of a scandal, with Torre reporting that six-time All-Star Kawhi Leonard received a four-year $28 million “no-show” endorsement deal from the environmental company Aspiration, and the Boston Sports Journal reporting that he received $20 million in Aspiration company stock – deals that are alleged to have allowed the Clippers to circumvent the salary cap. By now, you know the general points; you’ve scrolled past something about it on your phone.
The Clippers dispute all those allegations, President of Basketball Operations Lawrence Frank said at Monday’s media day: “We feel very, very confident we’re on the right side of this.” Also: “I’m hurt for (team owner) Steve (Ballmer). He’s one of the best people and most honorable people I’ve ever met.”
If you’re like me, and you’ve listened to Torre’s podcasts on the matter, you understand why the NBA is investigating. And you understand why it would be a problem for a league, if it were proved true that the richest owner in the sport was skirting agreed-upon rules set up to keep competition copacetic.
Or … you don’t.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve registered that there are plenty of people who think the whole thing is overblown. I’ve also heard that it shouldn’t matter because every team must do it, right? (And I always thought “if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying” was somethings said in jest.)
Or maybe you don’t care because it isn’t as though the Clippers won a bunch of titles – or any titles – with Leonard on any payroll since 2019-20.
I’ve had people tell me it’s all so complicated – a portion of Monday’s podcast was dedicated to explaining the definition of a “put option,” which is explained as “a fixed price at which a buy is able to sell their stock in the company” – that most NBA fans are just going to tune out anyway.
And, dear Clippers fan, I know your instinct probably was to play defense, to pull the #WhatAboutTheLakers card. Because how in the heck did they land Luka Doncic in the middle of the night like that from Dallas, which then got the No. 1 overall draft pick in the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes? Huh? Huh? I hear you guys on The Wall: Make that make sense!
Or maybe you’re a general NBA fan and you’ve taken to social media to criticize Torre as a “snitch.” I’ve seen folks online call the journalist a “weasel.” And not because they don’t believe what he’s alleging in his reporting – but because they do.
Make that make sense. Woodward and Bernstein should’ve left Deep Throat on read? The Spotlight team at the Boston Globe shouldn’t have concerned themselves with the church’s business?
I guess when an audience is trained to accept social media posts timed to go out two minutes before press releases as capital-J Journalism, well, actual capital-J Journalism starts to feel, what, too real? Too uncomfortable? Too complicated?
Or maybe you just want to brush it off, as Leonard did it Monday, as just a bunch of “conspiracies” or “click-bait,” or this other thing: “journalism that’s going on.”
Here’s the thing, though: It’s important to engage with difficult, possibly consequential stories, even when they cross over into our sports playground.
We can dispute a narrative, of course, but we shouldn’t until we’ve considered all the details that are available. Dispute, I’d say, but don’t dismiss. Don’t tune out. Don’t you want to look at what’s under the hood before you drive the car off the lot? Or are we just going to take every salesman’s word for it?
That’s my question whether you’re a Clippers fan or a Lakers fan or Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks’ minority owner who seems determined to keep nudging Torre to keep investigating, this sports-“Serial” unfolding in real time without anyone knowing exactly where it’s going to end up.
Wherever it does, it’s going to take a while to get there. No resolution is expected until after the All-Star Game – which will be held this season at the Intuit Dome. By then, the Clippers could be the story of the whole season.
And that probably won’t be comfortable, and it will be complicated. But whether the Clippers are ultimately cleared or whether they’re to face major ramifications, it will matter. It’s a big story.