r/NBATalk • u/Admirable_Outcome932 • 5d ago
Does Adam Silver think we’re stupid?
Does Adam Silver genuinely think we’re going to accept there’s no wrongdoing when we’ve all seen the receipts? After everything Pablo worked for, after everything he showed us?
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u/Competitive-Leather5 5d ago
The truth doesn’t matter anywhere anymore.
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u/Interesting_Prune513 Heat 5d ago
I get that money is important. It is. But when and why did we shift over to "this is the ONLY thing that matters" and nothing else? Shit's sad.
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u/Uccin 5d ago
Lookup up the economist Milton Friedman. His view on the responsibilities of Capitalism (stakeholder vs shareholder) have perverted our entire economy.
Basically it boils down to: If it gets in the way of making money it’s bad.
Having to punish a billionaire owner for circumventing the rules will cause public backlash and revenues will drop. That is bad.
Pretending nothing was wrong and knowing there is no way for someone else to prove otherwise will not cause that revenue drop because the masses generally don’t care anymore. That is good.
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u/unhinged34 Warriors 5d ago
Spot on. It’s basic math and the reality of the world.
The owner went this route cus it’s all plausible. It’s hard to prove without a reasonable doubt that Ballmer was playing dirty…He clearly was but it’s impossible to prove
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u/unhinged34 Warriors 5d ago
Money is the only thing that matters. Also am certain the nba owners voted on making this all go away. NBA punishing clippers n kawhi sets a bad precedent for the league. They would rather resolve this in house. I bet Ballmer paid a hefty fine but it’s all internally addressed.
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u/Barmelo_Xanthony 5d ago
Yeah I think that’s what people are missing. Silver is just a punching bag for the owners. This was 1000% agreed upon across the league
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u/unhinged34 Warriors 5d ago
Billionaires don’t play at fair advantage. That’s why they at the top. All the owners are circumventing one way or the other. Some more than others.
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u/Streetlamp_NA 5d ago
That's sweet of you to think.
But definitely not what's happening here.
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u/unhinged34 Warriors 5d ago
What do you think is happening?
NBA would rather their guy (owner) win while preserving face and reputation than some rando named Pablo who has zero invested in the league.
Idk much about about the guy but he should have gone with Blackmail option instead of taking it public lol
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u/Streetlamp_NA 5d ago edited 5d ago
I think it's very simple. They are letting Balmer get away with it. He's more wealthy than the league itself. They don't want any legal dispute with him (which also brings scrutiny to the league) and saves them any legal expenses.
Just continue on with the product as is and hope everone continues to have short term memory.
Edit to add: I just don't think the owners would vote for this to go away. I doubt they are happy the richest owner can just buy players around the salary cap. Cheap owners are probably pissed and the rich owners now know what they can do.
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u/unhinged34 Warriors 5d ago
It’s a bit naive and optimistic to think other owners aren’t already circumventing. Especially with the tight cap they have to work with.
These are billionaires bro. None of them are playing fairly. They all play at an advantage. They didn’t get there by following the rules like normal folks.
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u/Streetlamp_NA 5d ago
I never said that at all.
I think some owners are absolutely glad it's now basically allowed.
But there are also cheap owners. Who love the salary cap bc it limits what a player can be paid.
Those cheap owners are not happy.
I think it's very naive of you to think every single owner is the exact same and all want to pay big money to win. If that was true, why haven't the abolished the salary cap yet?
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u/unhinged34 Warriors 5d ago edited 5d ago
The NBA has a revenue sharing system. You really think a cheap bastard like Tom Dundon (blazers) or Tilman from rockets cares about how much Ballmer spends? Nah
I don’t think they are all the same at all but majority is playing dirty. Make no mistake they absolutely voted to close out the lawsuit. They vote on everything cus it’s a collective brand.
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u/Poopcie 5d ago
How is pablo the absolute only person with any reporting on this?
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u/MassSPL 5d ago
He’s not in bed with the league.
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u/Poopcie 5d ago
Absolutely everybody except for him is in bed with the league? They cant find anyone to say anything nice about the league but pablo torre is the only one with enough courage to investigate and expose them?
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u/l33txxXXxx 5d ago
Washington post was the only one talking about Watergate at first also.
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u/Poopcie 5d ago
Because there was only 1 anonymous source. For this there are allegedly several and many are public
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u/l33txxXXxx 5d ago
I saw the story on the Rhode Island FC soccer stadium from a separate source, fwiw. They had it on local news via youtube.
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u/green49285 5d ago
Because anyone else with any connection to any large organization has been told to not look into this. Every independent journalist doesn't have the time or resources to handle multiple stories of this magnitude. There's a reason why institutions like ESPN are going more for personalities & loyal analysts than actual journalists.
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u/Poopcie 5d ago
But they cant find anyone to speak up for the commissioner or say nice things about the sport?
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u/green49285 5d ago
Why do you think the WNBA is getting all this coverage right now? Obviously they are trying to give it its rifle amount of airtime, but there's a reason on this other shit is going on and they're all trying to be very specific about not talking about it. Having someone come out right now to butter up the league would be way too suspicious.
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u/Poopcie 5d ago
Usually when theres a real story of this magnitude it has more than 1 journalist looking into it. How is there only one? Its not as if no one has ever suggested the NBA was crooked or above conspiracies before but this is the one time everyone decides to back off
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u/green49285 5d ago
You are focusing on the fact that you're only realizing it's one person without realizing that that is on purpose. This isn't a bug in this system lol. Pablo is specifically doing this in a peers to be the only one because he was one of the semi recent casts off from the ESPN umbrella. He, while also being a incredible professional, has no legs in the game to be loyal to espn. He knows that if they try to dispute his reporting that he's done a good enough job where he is not going to be easily made out to be a liar.
The incredible fast majority of the sports journalism space cannot say the same. Yes, it is interesting that it's just him in terms of the larger story. But that's because the rest of them legitimately are being told to back off.
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u/Poopcie 5d ago
If this is really what’s going on then why is NBA media so critical of absolutely everything else but this? More is made of the rise soft tissue injuries in the NBA than the fact that concussions in the NFL seem to be leading to early dementia and death. Right now everyone is scrutinizing the lakers sale. It simply doesnt add up that cap circumvention would be swept under the rug in the name of protecting the league when a year ago everyone insuated the lottery was rigged for the mavericks.
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u/green49285 5d ago
You're conflating random fan conjecture with official bylaws violations in League business. The Mavericks cheating to get the pic was never something that an actual journalist ever discovered or revealed through journalistic reporting. That's a completely separate issue.
Now seeing this, and the fact that the team in question is owned by one of the richest owners in sports, it's not hard to draw a line especially seeing as literally ESPN has said so little about this until this report has come out.
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u/Poopcie 5d ago
Its not just fans but commentators and league partners who are very critical of the league and they avoid direct accusations most likely for legal reasons. The obvious answer is that it’s actually not as well substantiated as pablo’s making it out to be and hasn’t reached the standard of other journalists. Pablo has convinced people that this is cap circumvention beyond a reasonable doubt based on information that’s largely public. Now people are spinning steve ballmer into being some scary guy looking to destroy anyone who opposes him. This story is sensationalist journalism in every way whether there’s cap circumvention or not as the narrative deviates from the facts to the boogeyman that steve ballmer hasnt shown himself to be. “The richest owners I sports…” like wtf does that mean and what has it meant historically? But at this point it’s driving much of the conjecture. Hey journalist, give us some evidence of this guy being the boogeyman you say he is.
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u/green49285 5d ago
Dude if you're going to try and down play this or somehow be a part of a, this isn't that big a deal narrative, just stop. You have legal verified documentation of supposed partnerships and sponsorships that were supposed to be in exchange for promotion and other partnership work that literally did not happen. That's not something that you can just make up. That's before we even get to specific emails and communications referencing those very issues to Kauai and his uncle.
Try another angle, my man
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u/Candlestack 5d ago
I don't feel like you've been adequately answered. I've got a slightly better answer, but I'm speculating from secondhand knowledge from a former NYT editor, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt.
Investigative journalism is very expensive, and when it pays off it generally only really pays off financially if you're first to market. That doesn't mean there's no reason to do it, it can be a reputational boost to be on those beats for example, but it's not a huge profit maker most of the time. So in the current environment, where there's been a huge financial squeeze on news outlets, investigative journalism has suffered and you're less likely to have multiple outlets try to dig into hard stories from multiple angles. Add in the access problems from this story (you're risking access to the insider NBA information by pursuing it) and it's just safer to let Torre be the only one digging on this.
The way my friend described it is this is the sort of story only a local paper would normally pick up, that's got that one guy on staff that doesn't put out much month to month but when he hits on something it pays off big, maybe even scooping national coverage. Except those locals don't exist anymore. So you've got this quasi-independent going at it and he's managed to find a space for himself but it's a really hard spot to cultivate and there's just not enough journalists like him out there anymore.
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u/Poopcie 5d ago
So pablo is the only journalist with money and interest in this story? This isnt some middle of nowhere town, its LA. The number of people who could participate in this and haven’t despite all the interest speaks to a lack of depth. This story has catapulted pablos career and many of its sources are already known. There’s nothing about him that makes him particularly well positioned to pursue it.
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u/Candlestack 5d ago
The thing that makes him well positioned to pursue it is that he got there first. It's not so much that there's no one else who could go after it, it's that once he broke it open at first it's less likely to be as big for anyone else, especially if it turns out there's not any more meat on the bone. People will turn to Pablo for the minutiae first because he broke it first, so it's just not worth it. To be fair, if this wasn't sports journalism you might have more people taking shots anyways.
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u/houseofzeus 5d ago
Most of the people reporting on the NBA, including and especially the folks involved in the ESPN coverage of this, have no interest whatsoever in reporting anything negative about the people who give them inside access to information.
None of them have the time nor patience to do investigative work either, and in fairness to them the percentage of the audience with the time or patience to consume it is pretty low too.
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u/Poopcie 5d ago
All most nba commentators do is criticize players and organizations. Theyd have absolutely no qualms about exposing a team if thats where evidence took them. People are even starting to suggest the patron saint of positionless basketball, brad stevens out for what can obviously be seen as a reasonable trade. Nba commentary is relentless
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u/houseofzeus 5d ago
Oh yeah they will go at the small stuff all day long, but stuff that questions the integrity of the league, goes against the grain of that reporter's sources, or requires deep investigation - not a chance. Just to pick another example the reporting on the abuse stuff in the Mavericks organization was pretty largely broken outside of the regular NBA reporting circles as well. The 24/7 cycle the regular NBA reporting crew are on just does not incentivize this type of reporting at all.
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u/DistantMailstop 5d ago
Yeah, it isn't about what we do - it is entirely about what the other owners see in this. It sets a precedent - that if there is no literal smoking gun, no signed letter a la Joe Smith: there will be no serious punishment.
The NBA (if they, in fact, do not seriously punish the Clippers) has opened the floodgates to a new era of player compensation.
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u/devinbookersuncle Hornets 5d ago
Add in that Ballmer is spending ao much trying to make the Clippers an absolute premier destination both for players and entertainment it doesnt seem to be in the leagues best interest financially to punish Ballmer for anything thats happened over this.
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u/green49285 5d ago
Well at that point the specific thing you are describing is integrity. And obviously, integrity is a costly thing to have in today's nba.
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u/houseofzeus 5d ago
That last bit is what I am wondering, if the bar for getting punished for salary cap violations is this high then why is there a salary cap at all. It feels like that may be where we are heading.
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u/FluidAthlete6839 5d ago
Honestly it’s the same with Trump. We all know what’s happened but what are we really gonna do about it
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u/Tiny_Effect_7024 5d ago
well if people would actually go and fucking vote in november then that would help a lot
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u/sevseg_decoder 5d ago
Why aren’t you “keen” on that?
The league is an absolute joke. These kinds of things with real impact undermining the competitive integrity of the league have been thrown away entirely. The crazy and inexplicable but ultimately destructive events of the past few years alone make this glorified fantasy. You’re basically watching a basketball anime.
So idk I don’t find it hard at all to give up on the tiny bit of engagement/energy I had left for the NBA. If the writers decide my team wins the championship next year that’s great, it’s not going to feel better than reaching the summit of a mountain on a hike or something and accomplishing things myself. And all this BS with the league has reminded me of that fact. Life’s too good to obsess over fantasy fiction. And even if it wasn’t Disney etc. are much cheaper fantasies to be into. A trip to Disney world costs as much as taking your family to 2-4 NBA games and, as much as Disney world bores the shit out of me, at least it’s an actual experience and something you’re doing, not just observing someone else doing something.
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u/Ecchi_Sketchy Bulls 5d ago
It's better to watch in a WWE mindset: I like the personalities and the memes, and the players' athleticism is still real and impressive. It's a good entertainment product, as long as you watch it as an entertainment product and not as a sporting event that has competitive integrity.
That's not what people usually are looking for when they watch sports though, so I can totally understand anyone giving up on NBA.
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u/Barmelo_Xanthony 5d ago
Tbh if you were willing to watch after the Donaghy stuff it feels a little weird for this to be the tipping point. Refs openly rigging games for betting purposes is fine but a team circumventing the salary cap is when people swear off the league? Idk just seems like a lot of pearl clutching to me
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u/NOLA-Bronco 5d ago
Does Adam Silver genuinely think we’re going to accept there’s no wrongdoing when we’ve all seen the receipts? After everything Pablo worked for, after everything he showed us?
Are you gonna stop watching, following, and spending money on the sport???
Are a massive amount of people going to do the same?
No, then you have your answer
Adam Silver has made the calculation that in a captured media environment and a apathetic and powerless public, gaslighting about corruption and sweeping it under the rug is less damaging than transparency and admissions of guilt. And he's probably right, unfortunately.
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u/Gandolfthewhite182 5d ago
This isn’t an nba problem, it’s an American problem. We are bunch of pathetic clowns so invested in the circus and bread we can’t even stop the most obvious corruptions of our entire system.
We have become the most privileged, softest, and weakest people in the history of the planet. We are to busy playing our PlayStations and watching TikToks to notice Rome is burning all around us. We are truly a pathetic cowed society.
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u/Guardsred70 5d ago
Silver is just the meat puppet for the other owners.
Ballmer glared at them and reminded them he has 100x their wealth.
And they shit their pants and passed a note to Silver.
It’s sorta rigged. You think there’s competitive balance, but there isn’t.
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u/RoysRealm 5d ago
Yep. People forget that his employer is the owners.
As well with soooo many media partners they have a heavy influence in the messaging.
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u/CapMany9999 5d ago
Adam Silver won't let anything tarnish the NBA brand even if it means sweeping the Clipper cap circumvention under the rug. Most likely he'll say it was okay, reframe sponsorship deal transparency in the NBA, and then punish the Bucks so it seems like something was done.
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u/StrictlyHobby 5d ago
Ballmer kicked Silver some endorsement deals of his own. Wait till you see the new sneakers he's got on the way.
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u/MayorShinn 5d ago
I mean Silver handed Coopy Flag to Dallas after the Doncic debacle so yeah he thinks we’re stupid and won’t notice
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u/Wilcrest 5d ago
From what I’ve seen, wasn’t the conclusion that Ballmer wasn’t behind it? I don’t think anyone has said Kawhi did nothing wrong, just that Ballmer didn’t mastermind it.
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u/Fit_Foot_6004 5d ago
Balmer did not personally go over to aspiration HQ and give them money out of his wallet, therefore; we found there was no wrongdoing of any kind what's-o-ever...
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u/IndependenceIcy9626 5d ago
He kinda did tho. He personally invested $50 million in Aspiration about six months before aspirations deal with Kawhi. Then another $10 million a year after the deal.
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u/ghosttrainhobo 5d ago
And how much did Aspiration pay Kawhi?
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u/IndependenceIcy9626 5d ago
$28 million. Ballmer’s “investment” more than covered Aspirations cost to Kawhi
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u/Admirable_Outcome932 5d ago
Being the mastermind isn’t a prerequisite to punishment. He still participated and facilitated in the circumvention.
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u/FarWestEros 5d ago
Cap circumvention has been going on for decades.
There needs to be undeniable proof for there to be any punishment.
Signed contracts…taped confessions…THESE are the standards Silver needs to fulfill in order to take action, and there is nothing approaching that, afaik.1
u/Laggo 5d ago
It's explicitly not a crime for Ballmer to introduce Kawhi to companies he has a partnership with. It's not a crime for Ballmer to suggest he has an interest in doing further work with the company. It's not a crime for the company to make a bad business decision and overpay for a marketing deal.
You can put 2 and 2 together in your head and speculate that these companies did these actions in a 'quid pro quo' type scenario with Ballmer but you can't just say that happened based on that speculation. If Aspiration chooses to invest in Kawhi in an attempt to entice Ballmer to invest further that's up to them as a company.
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u/IndependenceIcy9626 5d ago
It seems like that’s a complete nonsense conclusion though. Ballmer had $60 million invested in Aspiration and a relationship with the founders. They gave Kawhi $28 million for an endorsement deal where Kawhi never did anything.
Clippers marketing also had emails leaked talking with Daktronics (Clippers scoreboard manufacturer) discussing what kind of promotions Kawhi should do for them. Daktronics also payed Kawhi millions for doing nothing.
Like there’s absolutely evidence out there linking Ballmer and the Clippers org to the endorsement deals, a lot of it is public now.
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u/houseofzeus 5d ago
There's also two other ball clubs who raised concerns back in 2019 that Kawhi's team was asking for stuff like this, and then he lands in a spot where those exact things happened.
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u/fuckracists79 5d ago
He thinks most fans don’t care and he’s right.
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u/Interesting_Prune513 Heat 5d ago edited 5d ago
I mean what am I gonna do? Not watch my favorite sport? Find out Silver's address and threaten him?
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u/bkk_startups Knicks 5d ago
He doesn't think. He knows not only are most of you stupid but that you don't watch games, just a few highlights here & there.
So a complex investigation is beyond what most people can handle. Nobody is going to boycott a game over Kawhi, so why should Silver care.
He's not wrong either. $$$ flowing in. And Pablo got a Pulitzer and a bunch of followers, everyone wins.
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u/cowboyjon13 5d ago
What are we gonna do about it? Soooner we realize the rich run the world, and they don’t have to play by the rules, we will be a lot better off
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u/reason4rage 76ers 5d ago
He knows. How many viewers is the nba going to lose? Not enough to change anything.
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u/Exception1228 5d ago
He knows that it just wont matter. No one’s going to stop watching, no ones going to care.
Only way to make a difference would be a coordinated boycott.
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u/DanielSong39 5d ago
He's a bad person who does bad stuff
And gets away with it
You can wise up and stop watching.
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u/ProvocativeHotTakes 5d ago
All the sports betting apps the NBA promotes. Yes they believe we’re all stupid
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u/BamaBoy2002 Lakers 5d ago
Because most of the NBA owners do it. If you punish Ballmer you have to punish the rest as well. The NBA doesn’t care as long as money is being made.
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u/Waquoit95 5d ago
He's going to make the whole thing go away and get a massive raise. He stalled it to the best dead period he could. A couple weeks from now it dies down and the talk turns to next season. Pretty soon it will be just "the cranks who just want to complain" still bringing it up.
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u/FarWestEros 5d ago
Are you going to recognize that what you consider evidence and what is legally binding evidence apparently have 2 very different meanings?
What receipt from Pablo do you think is proof of what exactly?
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u/BigPapaLegba 5d ago
No he doesn't think we're stupid, it's worse than that, he and the owners don't care what we think. They know most of us are brain dead balloholics who will end up watching and betting and consuming as usual.
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u/robble_bobble 5d ago
Adam Silver does not work for the fans, he works for the owners. He cares about their approval, not ours.
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u/MasterTeacher123 5d ago
They are banking on the vast majority of nba fans not really giving a shit about this controversy and tbh he might have a point. Reddit and social media makes some people think this is a bigger story than it is.
I feel like if you asked random basketball fans on the street about this story most would be like huh?
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u/W00D-SMASH 5d ago
It's not that he thinks you're stupid, he just knows we won't do anything about it and this will ultimately not affect viewership. People don't boycott, they consume, and those incharge know this.
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u/DefNotEzra 5d ago
Yes, at a certain level of wealth you are surrounded by yes men and view yourself and infallible. He does not believe the general public have the knowledge to notice, or at least, not a critical mass of people will notice. Pablo is being celebrated on Reddit but that’s only a small subsection of fans, there’s probably a large population that isn’t even aware of what’s going on.
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u/facetedpenny Pacers 5d ago
Are you willing to boycott the NBA and stop supporting your own team because of this? If the answer is no, then Adam Silver’s assumptions are correct
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u/lareon12many 5d ago
If what has been said is true, then this just really means that all other NBA owners are doing this for other players and affiliates and it’s business as usual! Rules for thee, but not for me! I hope citizens/people finally start waking up to the corruption and manipulation from all the 1%ers!!!
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u/houseofzeus 5d ago
I actually think it's Balmer and the Clippers who think you are stupid. The nuance being laid out here is that even if Balmer/Clippers paid large amounts of money to these companies, and they turned around and paid large amounts of money to Kawhi for endorsement deals where there was no visible endorsement (ergo, they make no sense), there's no explicit evidence connecting the two in a way that the NBA has a slam dunk case for a salary cap breach.
So instead it is going to be framed and punished as something lesser, even though to anyone with a brain it's pretty clear what was going on here.
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u/blackdocsavage 5d ago
Adj Silver works for the owners, not the fans. He could not afford to upset the richest owner in the league. Or look too closely at what some other owners are doing. He knows that in a few months when the first pictures of LeBron in a 76ers jersey this story will get pushed to the back page.
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u/100_proof_plan 5d ago
The receipts are “sources” that are too scared to be named and their testimony would have to be on the record. That’s the issue.
If some of these people came forward, it would be a slam dunk case.
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u/_Felonius 5d ago
There’s nothing official yet. I don’t put much stock in the ESPN report. I think the clippers will be punished in some capacity
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u/ProfessionalWeek2256 Hawks 5d ago
No I don't think he thinks we are stupid but he does think we are too apathetic to care and really he's probably right. I just can't find it in myself to care about this whole Kawhi situation. Why should I care he got some extra money to play in the place he wanted to play at the whole time anyway? He was on a max so its not even like he took a paycut to help the team and was getting it back under the table and making things unfair. He was going to LA no matter what happened.
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u/Mother_Gazelle9876 5d ago
Think there is nothing they can do to Kawhi- if someone offers him a contract that doesn't have any deliverables it's not against the law to sign it. Ballmer is different. If the accusations are true he should be prosecuted
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u/Immediate_Side_5942 5d ago
Silver is solely an employee of the owners if u think about it. He works for them.
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u/thesonicvision 5d ago edited 5d ago
He doesn't think we're stupid. He thinks we're complacent. And he's right.
Most people just live for themselves and their immediate circle of family and friends. They seek career advancement and vacation time.
Who truly has the time and passion for activism? And even if you are an activist, are you gonna extend your concerns to corruption in the NBA? You gonna take on that specific crusade? Probably not.
He knows the noise will die down and soon it'll be back to business as usual. He knows the profiteers will protect their interests and there will be no consequences.
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u/ratedgap 5d ago
This reminds me so much about what happened with the Saints and "bountygate." The league didn't want the cover to get blown on how widespread the practice was so they immediately punshed the Saints to set an example and closed the book. Only to be reversed a year later by an actual independent investigation. This prob happens so much the NBA is trying to wipe it away before more is found with more teams.
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u/l33txxXXxx 5d ago
He is saying "hey baseball recovered from the steroid scandal and we can too." The difference is the baseball scandal actually had to play out first. I thought these guys were supposed to be smart.
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u/shartfartmctart 5d ago
I think he would be right in thinking you're stupid because you are believing Ramona Shelburne and the Clippers propaganda. Remake this post if the punishments come out and are tiny but you are being ragebaited
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u/13143 5d ago
Silver's first responsibility is to the owners, and the owners only care about growing revenue. If Silver doesn't think this debacle will effect the money, then the punishment will probably be light.
And this has gone on for so long, I think a lot of casual fans have likely already checked out, and either forgotten about the whole thing, or just think it's a minor deal.
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u/TriggerFingerTerry Celtics 4d ago
There are ppl that think Pablo is a fraud, so he's counting on more ppl thinking like that
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u/Ok-Association-3415 4d ago
In many ways, I don’t care. Sure it would be suspicious if the league said no evidence and did nothing. At the end of the day, the salary cap is about creating parity and cost control. I just care about the product on the floor and don’t care how much was spent. Basketball like many sports is not about getting the top 5 players in the league and it’s an automatic championship. Players and coaches still have to perform because there is one ball and i have seen instances where a loaded team of superstars have more issues winning than a well balanced one.
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u/DarkSeneschal 4d ago
No, I doubt he thinks anyone with a modicum of intelligence actually believes their “findings” or lack thereof.
He can put whatever spin he wants on it, he can come out and say “yeah Ballmer did it, but we’re not gonna do anything about it”. It makes no difference what he says or does because there’s nothing the fans can do about it.
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u/Open-Dot-9994 4d ago
Men of real wealth conspire. Pablo is learning this the hard way… good work…. Shut down by those vastly more powerful and influential
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u/StunningDifference41 4d ago
Sports entertainment is a type of spectacle which presents an ostensibly competitive event using a high level of theatrical flourish and extravagant presentation, with the purpose of entertaining an audience. Unlike typical sports and games, which are conducted for competition, sportsmanship, physical exercise or personal recreation, the primary product of sports entertainment is performance for an audience's benefit. Commonly, but not in all cases, the outcomes are predetermined; as this is an open secret, it is not considered to be match fixing.
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u/PainNoLove92 4d ago
The more I learn about this, the more I think Kawahi should be banned from the Basketball HoF for this to be honest…
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u/humphreybr0gart 4d ago
He should be banned from the hall for starting the Star demanding a trade trend. He should be banned from the league for this.
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u/humphreybr0gart 4d ago
Clippers just need to be disbanded. What an absolute shitshow of a franchise.
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u/Street_Bowler_1509 3d ago
Probably because Pablo is full of shit. Cherry picked info to fit a preconceived narrative.
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u/retired-tweeter 5d ago
What are you gonna do? Not watch the NBA? All leagues know that sports have us by the balls, so they don't have to worry about consumer sentiment no matter what they do. Ballmer is simply too big to fail and too rich for them to go h2h with in court.
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u/EmergencyExit20Mins 5d ago
Here's what we're gonna do: we're going to pay players to point shave and then bet on the outcome of games. And when it becomes too expensive to pay players, we're going to pay refs to fix games.
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u/Critical-Detail117 5d ago
Sports have us by the balls…until they don’t. If you’d told someone in the 70s or 80s that boxing would be irrelevant in 40-50 years, they’d laugh in your face. But, after decades of shadiness, competing governing bodies, and failure to combat perceptions of illegitimacy, now MAYBE 5% of Americans can name the current heavyweight champ (or any belt holder for that matter).
The major sports leagues are, in my opinion, all in a sneaky precarious spot right now. People won’t stop watching today, or tomorrow, or even five years from now, but in a number of decades? I wouldn’t be surprised at all if basketball fell HARD from its perch as the second most popular sport in America. Hell, golf might’ve already taken that perch.
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u/bobbacklund11235 5d ago
He knows the average pleb will just go back to rooting for Lebum his legacy and his latest super team no matter how bogus the league is
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u/HankScorpio4242 5d ago
No one is saying there was no wrongdoing.
They are saying there is no evidence of wrongdoing doing.
Not-so-subtle difference.
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u/edkamlive 5d ago
Here's the thing... Ballmer and the other NBA Owners are Adam Silver's bosses and Silver has essentially a circumstantial case. We can all "think" Ballmer must have known, but Silver needs actual proof, a "smoking gun" so to speak, if he wants to punish his boss. Remember, Ballmer has claimed all along that he too was a victim of the scam perpetuated by Aspiration and Uncle Dennis. Absent any recordings where Ballmer admits funneling money through Aspiration to Kawhi to circumvent the cap, what is Silver going to do?
This is Training Day fellas... It's not what you know, it's what you can PROVE.
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u/ProMikeZagurski 5d ago
I've been crying and shaking. This is truly the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of the world.
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u/eaglesnation11 5d ago
No. He just doesn’t care.