Pablo Torre

You can be defrauded by the person you partnered with

to deceive the NBA.

That's why this is so cinematic.

There is pain.

There is suffering for Steve Ballmer.

There's also the most unprecedented scheme, according to my reporting, in the history of salary capture convention.

I don't think it's about, frankly, not to sound like a politician.

I think it's about the audience.

It's about the fan base.

It's about the presumption that when you watch sports, fair play as codified in the rules they call cardinal rules, that those things are being enforced.

Like Adam Silver in every statement he's given, and I've listened to all of them, talks about how he is a steward of integrity, not just brand integrity, but competitive integrity.

I think the question I would have as somebody who cares about the sport, as a caretaker of the sport, is does this undermine the legitimacy of our game from a purely what does this look like to everyone who wants to care about it, invest money in it, compete in it, buy teams in it?

And then, Zazz, you get all the other stuff.

Right.

And the other stuff involves, by the way, yes, the economics of the league.

So people may not realize this, but capture convention is really meaningful to these owners I've been speaking to, not simply because it is a rule that they are trying not to break in this way that now, according to my reporting, Steve Ballmer has broken in this fantastical over the top way.

the thing they care about is also the valuations of teams.

So the economics of an NBA team, it's really premised on how much do you spend and therefore how much should this asset be valued?

What Steve Ballmer, the richest owner in all of sports, one of the 10 richest people in the world is proving that he is, he's proving that he's spending so much more, again, $118 million in 18 months

on aspiration with the timeline corroborating the payments of this crazy Kawhi Leonard $48 million deal, that's where it becomes, wait a minute, so maybe these things aren't exactly the streamlined financial instruments that the NBA would otherwise like them to be.