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How Will Adam Silver Punish the Sixers for the Clippers Allegedly Circumventing the Salary Cap?
By Kyle Pagan
Published:
Pablo Torre found out on Pablo Torre Finds Out that the Clippers might’ve circumvented the cap to land Kawhi Leonard through a fake endorsement deal:
If this is true the last team to circumvent the cap was the Minnesota Timberwolves when they signed Joe Smith. They were punished with losing five first round picks and fined $3.5 million. This one might be even more of a bloodbath because we know Silver likes to make an example out of teams in free agency. Any signs of tampering and the NBA is sending in a forensic team to sweep the entire place and take people’s cell phones and laptops. This one would be totally more insane. Making up a fake tree company so you can pay Leonard $28 million is some next-level covert ops. And I’m sure it happens in every league. Tom Brady and Robert Kraft, I’m looking at you. There are backdoor deals with donations to a player’s charity or owners investing in the “start up” of a highly-coveted free agent. Just stuff regular fans like us can’t comprehend, who shout on social media when our GMs lose out on a star. Unfortunately, Dave Dombrowski must have the conscience of a choir boy since he’s gotten to Philly apparently. That’s how you end up with Jordan Romano, Joe Ross, and Whit Merrifield over the last two offseasons. Shohei Ohtani’s situation is Circumventing the Cap 101 if baseball had one.
I wonder how Adam Silver is going to punish the Sixers for this one. Probably take a second round pick or something since the tree company was incorporated in Delaware and it’s close enough to the City of Brotherly Love. Something insane like that. The Sixers do have the Clippers’ 2028 pick and the right to swap picks in 2029, but I’m sure you’re not allowed to confiscate a pick from a team if they don’t have it. The Clips don’t have their own pick until 2030 so if there were repercussions like the one the Timberwolves experienced I don’t think they could even start until 2030. Unless…
My favorite part of that Pablo Torre clip was the person being like, “There were lots of lol when things were shared.” That’s coming from a person who was apparently a financial adviser at a fake tree company. Think about that. The company was set up, went through all the tax stuff, LLC mumbo jumbo, and HIRED EMPLOYEES just to keep the Kawhi Leonard contract off the books. Allegedly. Imagine if you were some kid out of USC with a finance degree ready to take on the world and make a name for yourself and you’re just working at some fake tree company for a couple years until it goes belly up. That’s insane. Imagine your next job you apply for asks for references. No one has ever been more right about something than Tim Dillon. Start a fake business:
Kyle writes blog posts and does Man on the Street-style videos all around Philadelphia. He graduated from Temple University (a basketball school) in 2015. contact: k.pagan@sportradar.com