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Ballmer alleged to have paid Kawhi Leonard 28m under the table to avoid the salary cap


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Posted

I would love to know what this company did with the other millions of dollars they received from other investors. Who did they pay? Was it funnelling money to political PACs? Was it hiding or laundering money for other wealthy people? Seems like this is just a small slice of the pie. If they really didn't plant any trees, then you have to wonder what their actual purpose was. 

Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Dutchrudder said:

I would love to know what this company did with the other millions of dollars they received from other investors. Who did they pay? Was it funnelling money to political PACs? Was it hiding or laundering money for other wealthy people? Seems like this is just a small slice of the pie. If they really didn't plant any trees, then you have to wonder what their actual purpose was. 

Are you talking about the bankrupt company whose cofounder is facing felony fraud charges?

How do you think this Kawhi story came out lol.

Here's a pretty good, quick writeup of what they got tagged for.

https://www.bankingdive.com/news/aspiration-co-founder-wire-fraud-plead-guilty/758787/

Quote

A co-founder of the fintech Aspiration Partners faces up to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to two charges of wire fraud, the Justice Department announced last week.

Aspiration co-founder Joe Sanberg’s actions fleeced $248 million from investors and lenders, the DOJ said.

Sanberg and fellow board member Ibrahim AlHusseini promised shares of Sanberg’s stock in the fintech to two lenders to obtain $145 million in loans in 2020 and 2021, the DOJ said. The two board members falsified bank and brokerage statements to inflate AlHusseini’s assets by tens of millions of dollars to secure the loans, the department said.

 

Further, Sanberg – it appeared – recruited companies and individual investors to sign letters of intent with Aspiration in which they pledged tens of thousands of dollars per month for tree planting services, the DOJ said, citing court documents. Sanberg, however, concealed that these payments came from Sanberg rather than from the customers, the DOJ said, adding that the co-founder instructed employees not to contact the customers. 

The fintech booked revenue from Sanberg’s customers from March 2021 to November 2022, but Sanberg did not disclose that he was the source of the payments, the DOJ said.

That falsely inflated the revenue in Aspiration’s financial statements, the department asserted. Aspiration filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March.

Sanberg also misstated Aspiration’s financial condition in materials, including a fabricated letter from the fintech’s audit committee indicating the company had $250 million in available cash and equivalents when Aspiration counted less than $1 million in available cash, the DOJ said.

“This so-called ‘anti-poverty’ activist has admitted to being nothing more than a self-serving fraudster, by seeking to enrich himself by defrauding lenders and investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars,” Bill Essayli, acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement Aug. 21.

Aspiration launched in 2013 as a neobank focused on sustainable and green investing. It had aimed to go public in 2021 through a special-purpose acquisition company merger that valued the company at $2.3 billion.

 

Sanberg’s fellow co-founder, Andrei Cherny, stepped down as CEO of Aspiration in 2022. The company cut more than 180 jobs in a restructuring the following year. Aspiration spun off its consumer financial services brand into a standalone company in 2024.

“The defendant didn’t just bend the truth, he built a business on a lie to boost the company’s value and line his own pockets,” Eric Shen, inspector in charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service Criminal Investigations Group, said in Thursday’s statement.

 

Edited by ztejas
Posted
1 hour ago, ztejas said:

Are you talking about the bankrupt company whose cofounder is facing felony fraud charges?

How do you think this Kawhi story came out lol.

Here's a pretty good, quick writeup of what they got tagged for.

https://www.bankingdive.com/news/aspiration-co-founder-wire-fraud-plead-guilty/758787/

 

I know all that, there's still about $250 million unaccounted for as to where it ended up. Did it all go to the owners embezzling it from the company, or did they use it for other purposes?  It's a huge amount, and the Kawhi stuff is only a portion of it. If they did steal that much, what did they spend it on? 

There's a post on the NBA reddit that contains an investor presentation that looks like something from the show Silicon Valley. The vapid marketing slogans, calling it a movement not a business, etc etc. they were grifting the whole time, but what did they spend their money on? Yachts? Parties? Hookers and blow? Inquiring minds...

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/jApHtE64zm

 

Posted

Pablo sets traps, idiots walk into them. I will never get tired of this.  That idiotic Ballmer interview with ESPN was so incredibly stupid, he really set himself up for the kill shot. Dennis Wong may ultimately be the fall guy for the Clippers, but the Ballmer investments are hard to overlook. If he's willing to be a good soldier and relinquish his 1% ownership in the team, maybe he can take the brunt of the consequences for Ballmer. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
1 hour ago, aggie08 said:

Pablo just sitting on these documents is such a boss move.

Fucking incredible.   Let them come out with some wack response to the last receipts..........drop new receipt, rinse, repeat

Posted
2 hours ago, Message Board User said:

 

Cuban:

Did @TheAthletic get it wrong ?

"I am personally contributing stock to Kawhi to make this partnership possible,” Sanberg wrote members of his leadership team in a May 2022 email obtained by The Athletic. “Aspiration’s CEO judged the deal to be not worth doing. For avoidance of doubt, any and all benefit to Aspiration from the Kawhi deal is being subsidized by my contributing my equity to make this happen.”
 

Pablo claps back:

You’ve spent hours of my life telling me that I’ve been effectively duped by Aspiration co-founder Joe Sanberg (who pled guilty to wire fraud). And now you’re asking me whether we should trust an e-mail written by Joe Sanberg. Good talk

Posted

Holy shit Pablo Torre is landing more bombshells, THIS TIME ON SILVER!

After the 9/10 NBA owners meeting, Adam Silver said: “I’d frankly never heard of the company Aspiration before. And I’d never heard a whiff of anything around an endorsement deal with Kawhi, or anything around engagement with the Los Angeles Clippers. So it was all new to me.”

But @pablofindsout just obtained a copy of Aspiration’s $300M+ “Founding Sponsorship Agreement” — which “must be submitted prior to its execution for NBA’s approval and shall not be effective or enforceable until it is expressly approved by the NBA.”

Two immediate questions:

1) Why did Steve Ballmer’s $300M+ Aspiration partnership not reach Adam Silver's office before it was "expressly approved"?

2) Did no one inform Silver that Bloomberg reported on 1/18/24 that Aspiration was being investigated by the federal government?

Over the first two seasons of their sponsorship (21-22 + 22-23), Aspiration had to put $7.5M/yr into the Clippers.

Meanwhile: Steve Ballmer and the Clippers kept putting millions into Aspiration — which owed Kawhi Leonard $7M/yr in a secret deal nobody ever spoke publicly about.

Fraudsters running companies like Aspiration or FTX keep sportswashing for a reason: hugely visible deals with pro sports teams and leagues create the public impression of trust and credibility. As if such deals must have been vetted by the teams and leagues. But apparently not?

sourced twitter posts in spoiler so no longcat

 

Spoiler

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  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Posted
6 minutes ago, d2o said:

Shams aint a reporter.   He just jocks athletes and the athlete adjacent

Ownership mouthpiece. That’s how he gets the scoops 

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Posted

Wake up babe, new Pablo pod just dropped...

Fucking hilarity ensues. Balmer is so fucked. Cuban is still an idiot. NBA has to bring down the hammer on these idiots, it's so obvious that this was clearly done to circumvent the cap. 

 

 

  • Hook 'Em 4
Posted
34 minutes ago, Dutchrudder said:

Wake up babe, new Pablo pod just dropped...

Fucking hilarity ensues. Balmer is so fucked. Cuban is still an idiot. NBA has to bring down the hammer on these idiots, it's so obvious that this was clearly done to circumvent the cap. 

 

 

It's remarkable how badly mainstream media has been at faithfully investigating and reporting things like this. Pablo has had nothing by headwinds and weasel-word "nuh uh"s from ESPN and other "major" outlets and billionair allies. 

It's crazy how many receipts he's been able to dig up on this, and getting people on record. 

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted

Is it remarkable? Or totally expected in 2025, where mainstream “news” outlets care more about access than news. 

ESPN also doesn’t have News in its acronym. It’s entertainment 

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  • Rage+1 1
Posted
Wake up babe, new Pablo pod just dropped...
Fucking hilarity ensues. Balmer is so fucked. Cuban is still an idiot. NBA has to bring down the hammer on these idiots, it's so obvious that this was clearly done to circumvent the cap. 
 
 

Better come up with something soon with media day in the next few weeks
Posted

I hit play on ep 4 this afternoon not knowing if there was new info or if it would be a rehash of previous reports. I was not disappointed. Incredible reporting and very entertaining breaking news. "Ballmer is highly respected among his fellow owners and right up until all the new evidence started piling up we were all hoping there was nothing to this story." lulz

Posted
11 hours ago, Dutchrudder said:

Wake up babe, new Pablo pod just dropped...

Fucking hilarity ensues. Balmer is so fucked. Cuban is still an idiot. NBA has to bring down the hammer on these idiots, it's so obvious that this was clearly done to circumvent the cap. 

 

 

Curious, If the NBA doesn't do anything what happens? 

They cheated, overpaid a guy who has continually shown he doesn't give a shit, and they have lost in the first round the last three years and didn't qualify in 2021.  

Please don't talk about the integrity of the league.

Posted
1 hour ago, Chopper said:

I hit play on ep 4 this afternoon not knowing if there was new info or if it would be a rehash of previous reports. I was not disappointed. Incredible reporting and very entertaining breaking news. "Ballmer is highly respected among his fellow owners and right up until all the new evidence started piling up we were all hoping there was nothing to this story." lulz

can you do a tl dl summary? i tried at like 5 am this morning but my attention span isnt worth a shit that early. this pablo guy is making a name for himself

Posted
1 minute ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

can you do a tl dl summary? i tried at like 5 am this morning but my attention span isnt worth a shit that early. this pablo guy is making a name for himself

Pablo found more money trails.   Ballmer invested over 118M in Aspiration     Much of it after it was known that they were hemorrhaging cash.    Multiple payments to Aspiration just a couple days before payments from them went out to Kawhi.   Even Aspiration financial people were asking WTF when Ballmer was still investing money.    A whole group of them released a statement saying that the Kawhi deal was brought to them as a done deal.  No discussion needed just pay the man.   Oh and Cuban said he didnt have time to come back and talk to Pablo........then went on Richard Jefferson/Perk and others' pod to hit some softball questions.

 

I'm sure I missed plenty

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted (edited)
12 hours ago, d2o said:

Pablo found more money trails.   Ballmer invested over 118M in Aspiration     Much of it after it was known that they were hemorrhaging cash.    Multiple payments to Aspiration just a couple days before payments from them went out to Kawhi.   Even Aspiration financial people were asking WTF when Ballmer was still investing money.    A whole group of them released a statement saying that the Kawhi deal was brought to them as a done deal.  No discussion needed just pay the man.   Oh and Cuban said he didnt have time to come back and talk to Pablo........then went on Richard Jefferson/Perk and others' pod to hit some softball questions.

 

I'm sure I missed plenty

All of that. One of the funniest was the discussion about Cuban's comment that Ballmer would have been an idiot if he didn't throw additional money at Aspiration to try to keep them afloat in order to keep his cheating on the NBA salary cap and financial fraud from becoming public. Followed by a former Aspiration employee and leaked financial records obtained by Torre stating Ballmer did exactly that. Also on the other podcast Cuban took the time to go on while saying he was too busy to speak with Torre again so he didn't have to face someone who actually knows what they're talking about, Cuban questioned all of Torre's reporting by imagining that there were plenty of other investors putting money into Aspiration. But nope, only Ballmer and his Clippers partner were putting in money (and enabling Kawhi to get paid) right up until a Federal agency showed up at their HQ for an investigation and ended the shell game. Torre also unveiled an incriminating letter from the Clippers CFO. Also there was discussion about Cuban saying to Torre that you only have the side of partner A, who's now a convicted criminal so your reporting is questionable, and that Partner B is the supposed key and will have a different story, Cuban imagined, because partner B was not indicted. But Torre obtained texts/emails, and copies from partner B's deposition that were all highly incriminating of both partner B and Ballmer in just an extremely stupid and hilarious manner.

Ballmer is running around claiming he was defrauded but he put in something like $118m into Aspiration -- and between Kawhi getting paid and the Clippers getting paid for a "sponsorship" from a company that seemed to be fraudulent right from the start, his net was pretty close to 0, from what I can recall.

Edited by Chopper
clarity and noting also all of this is alleged
  • Like 1
Posted (edited)

--the text from Uncle Joe to the Aspiration CEO expressing concern that the Aspiration CFO was holding up Kawhi's endorsement contract and wasn't on-board with the scheme

--the Aspiration marketing VP not knowing who Kawhi is and everyone at Aspiration figuring out it was shady because they were paying him so much and he was so boring, only later finding out it was purposely a no-show job

--huge staff turnover at Aspiration soon after their founding and Ballmer putting in ~50 mil$$ including not having a CFO or comptroller because all the finance execs could see there was ongoing fraud and they bailed.

--even if the two Clippers "investors" didn't take time to do financial due diligence the huge money losses at the company were public including with exposes in Forbes, and no other investors would touch it

 

Edited by Chopper
  • Like 1
Posted
1 hour ago, Chopper said:

All of that. One of the funniest was the discussion about Cuban's comment that Ballmer would have been an idiot if he didn't throw additional money at Aspiration to try to keep them afloat in order to keep his cheating on the NBA salary cap and financial fraud from becoming public. Followed by a former Aspiration employee and records that Torre obtained stating Ballmer did exactly that. Also on the other podcast Cuban took time to go on while ducking speaking to Torre, Cuban questioned all of Torre's reporting by imagining that that there were plenty of other investors putting money into Aspiration. But nope, only Ballmer and his Clippers partner were putting in money (and enabling Kawhi to get paid) right up until a Federal agency showed up at their HQ for an investigation and shut it all down. Torre unveiled an incriminating letter from the Clippers CFO. Also there was discussion about Cuban saying to Torre that you only have the side of partner A, who's now a convicted criminal so your reporting is questionable, and that Partner B is the supposed key and will have a different story, Cuban imagined, because partner B was not indicted. But Torre obtained texts/emails, and copies from partner B's deposition that were all highly incriminating of both partner B and Ballmer in just an extremely stupid and hilarious manner.

Ballmer is running around claiming he was defrauded but he put in something like $118m into Aspiration -- and between Kawhi getting paid and the Clippers getting paid for a "sponsorship" from a company that seemed to be fraudulent right from the start, his net was pretty close to 0, from what I can recall.

Fuck Mark Cuban in his fat ass for this

Seriously.  He should consider just shutting the fuck up about it.  Because every time he opens his mouth, he looks like a fucking idiot. 

Posted

Cuban's rebuttal trying to run cover for Ballmer. Amazing to me that he thinks they can run with the "only Joel Sandberg knows why he did this deal, you have to ask him!" as the argument against it being blatant cap circumvention. 

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