The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The Big Suey: Happy Thanksgiling Pt. 2! (feat. Pablo Torre)
27 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Chapter 2: How did Kawhi Leonard's contract raise concerns about salary cap circumvention?
And the only analogous case in terms of documentation
And salary caps for a convention was the Minnesota Timberwolves, Joe Smith, which I don't know if anybody in the container even remembers, but Joe Smith and Glenn Taylor, the owner of the T-Wolves, had worked out a side deal, and it was written on paper because they were afraid Glenn Taylor was going to die before the completion of that contract. It's a total side fascinating story.
But this has the potential to be the biggest salary cap crime that we've seen.
Yes. Yes. $28 million. And by the way, for the T-wolves in that era, in the nineties, five first round picks suspensions for the owner of the team for Glenn Taylor, as well as other punishments down the line.
But this this as tied into, again, an ongoing SEC DOJ investigation into fraud by this green bank, this climate change friendly company whose biggest investor, at least the most important, influential Notable investor was Steve Ballmer who put in $50 million of his own money. I mean, this is not merely a story about caps or convention.
This is now a question that the seven sources I spoke to are asking. What else did Steve Ballmer know about? How does one guy have influence over this company in this way and yet total ignorance about everything else? It's just a question being okay.
That Joe Smith thing happened over 20 years ago and Glenn Taylor's still around, which is also interesting.
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Chapter 3: What evidence supports the allegations against the Clippers?
I doubt that there has been a story with this level of documentation and depth in terms of how they tried to do it. That was only caught again because the company collapsed into bankruptcy. But... I think it's interesting, right?
If you think about the room where they have to debate this stuff, the foremost voice when it comes to complaints to the league office about how small market teams have basically been crushed by rich guys now, these new billionaires, the new owners, the richest guys in sports history like Steve Ballmer, that team has been the Oklahoma City Thunder historically. They always raise this stuff.
They can tell the difference between what they can do and what they can't. That Ballmer, for instance, could. That team happens to be the team that won the trade for Kawhi Leonard that won the title using the guy that they got. And Shea Gildas Alexander, who won the MVP in the finals, then in the regular season, and won a title this year. And so it's just interesting.
I just wonder, like, what does that team have to say, given that their trade partner happens to be maybe the entity that they should be philosophically opposed to, but in this personal context, you know, maybe that's a different calculus.
It's... I should clarify some of the word choices I had earlier when I called it the biggest salary cap crime that there is. This isn't an actual crime. It's just within the context of basketball. I don't think that we've had anything around the salary cap that has a player of this magnitude or dollar amount of this magnitude.
The language there is important and also speaks to the whole thing of like in the NBA, there is a justice system. There are laws that the federal government ostensibly cares nothing about.
The difference here in what we report in the story and very carefully report using, again, seven sources to work for the company is that the very thing that is getting the Clippers into hot water today because of this reporting is the thing that has caused those seven sources to actively wonder
about what else Steve Ballmer might have been aware of, which is directly relevant to what the SEC and the DOJ are curious about. We are not alleging anything. We are simply saying this is a sports story that has actual resonance. Even if the one thing is not a crime, the question is what else in the world of legality might actually be connected.
Pablo, rather than the league possibly voiding Kawhi Leonard's contract, would the better punishment be that the Clippers have to keep Kawhi?
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Chapter 4: How do the reported endorsement deals impact the NBA's integrity?
Pablo Torre finds out. Go check it out. It's already exploded. The original tweet this morning about the Pablo episode is over 3 million views because he's the only one who has this information. He's going to be the only one for a while. He'll be ahead of this story. 3.30 live on YouTube. He will give you more information. We're going to get out of that now because we've got football to get to.
Good to see you, Pablo. Thank you for the reporting. Thank you for the work from the Harvard Club. Having seen the episode... I will tell you guys that this part made me laugh because if you don't know what the story is about, Amin, David and Pablo talk for 15 minutes, a full 15 minutes at the top of the episode without telling you exactly what the story is about.
And it reminded me of a mistake I made many years ago. My reporting on the Dallas Cowboys White House many years ago where Michael Irvin had a home where the players away from their wives partied. I put that in a column about 20 paragraphs in, in a story about Eric Rett going to a nightclub and Super Bowl partying. So 20 paragraphs into a story.
I didn't actually put in that the Bucks had one of these, too, that they called the Batcave. What? That is correct. And the thing that the Dallas Cowboys did that I was reporting, I thought... wasn't as important as what it is that you're reporting. I don't understand why it is you guys talked for a full 12 minutes before telling us what the hell the story was.
Hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold on, Dan, did you watch The Sixth Sense and be like, they waited till the end to tell me that he saw dead people? Come on! What are you mad at?
Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!
Also, there's a bat cave? What?
Why are you even holding out on me? Good talking to you. See you later. Thank you. Send a tip. Good work. Send a tip into the Pablo Torre Finds Out tip line. Bat cave? You didn't even answer how the reporting on this started. Maybe we'll find out at 3.30 when he sits down with David Sampson and Amin Alhassan.
So you guys are in agreement because you guys are all, you're all saying, oh, this happens all the time, but we don't have very much proof of this happening all the time. I don't think it happens all the time. I don't think so. I think eventually, look how sloppy this was now that we're getting this information and we're just finding out about it now.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications for Steve Ballmer and the Clippers?
And then at the end of it, I was 40 minutes past my expiration date. The guy looks at me and says, can you call your father and ask him to come in? And I look at Stugatz and Stugatz's response was, yeah, you just keep asking until they say no.
Were you blinking? Like what was going on? Why would you take so many photos?
New pose, different spots in the studio. What happened? You can be an awkward photo taker.
About 70% of the times, the eyes are closed. I don't blame a player for wanting more and more money in this situation. I don't think that this is going to do anything to Kawhi Leonard's legacy that he wanted more money. He blinked, obviously.
Yeah, definitely.
No one would just take 45 for fun.
I remember a lunch we had where a kid came and we took a couple pictures with the kids and that got really, that got dicey because the kid sat in Dan's seat and it was a whole thing. Gary was talking to us about Nazis. It was a crazy meeting.
What? What's on me?
That's on you for, you know, agreeing to pose for 45 minutes worth of photos. That's ridiculous. I mean, come on. You know, and the other thing is, we're still trying to wrap our head around you burying the lead on that story where you got the Irvin White House in the 20th paragraph. Where's your news judgment on something like that?
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