Lakers VS Slippers Discussion

silver is a grade A coward. this is a terrible look for the league. every superstar contract will be questioned with "but how much is he getting paid under the table?"

hopefully iger/kushner have that saudi money ready to throw around because silver has made it clear that cap circumvention is legal

 

Well, let's do super teams now. We take Jokic for 5 million next year, and pay him another 80 million a year for advertising horses. Horses don't have to be advertised, but he will still be there


That’s an all-time superteam contract loophole.

Nikola Jokić: $5M basketball salary
Horse Advertising Consultant: $80M/year
Horse advertising necessity: absolutely zero
Jokić’s attendance: guaranteed, because there are horses
Team payroll: technically $85M, spiritually $5M
NBA accountant: “I have several questions.”
Jokić: “The horses are very important.”
And the best part is that he probably negotiates the horse contract himself. “I need $80 million for advertising horses.”
“Which horses?”
“All of them.”




“if the rich team can find a creative way around the rules, we’re all pretending not to see it” argument.

Kawhi + Ballmer is the perfect setup for the joke because the implication is:

“Jokić gets $5M from the team, then $80M from a completely legitimate and totally necessary horse-advertising enterprise.”

Meanwhile the league office:
The salary-cap department: ‍️
Everyone who has ever seen a horse: ‍

If we're doing Super Teams: Horse Edition, Jokić is absolutely the first signing.



Austin Reaves should get free golf courses for a NBA career
Etc...

Yes. We’re officially creating the NBA Super Team Compensation Loophole™.

Nikola Jokić: $5M salary + $80M/year “horse advertising”
Austin Reaves: $5M salary + free golf courses for life
Steph Curry: $5M + unlimited access to every three-point line manufacturer
LeBron: $5M + lifetime supply of hairline restoration services
Luka Dončić: $5M + unlimited pizza sponsorships

Giannis: $5M + ownership of every Greek yogurt company

Anthony Edwards: $5M + a lifetime supply of microphones for postgame quotes

The key is that none of these benefits are technically basketball compensation.

NBA: “Why does Reaves own 14 golf courses?”

Team: “He’s just really passionate about golf.”

Reaves: ️‍♂️

Salary-cap lawyers: “Your
Honor, the golf courses have nothing to do with basketball.”

 

This is an F'ing joke. Silver is a weak piece of horse poop. Absolutely unbelievable. If I was in charge I would fire him on the spot. It is getting to the point where I may not be able to support this league. A complete Croc and I am normally I pretty easy going, wait and see kind of sports fan. This pretty much pisses me off.

 

This will come back to haunt them.

In the meantime, let's go those hot dog stands up and running.

 

Spineless coward that is afraid of rich powerful owners. Pathetic.



So this thing still isn't over. Ballmer is just in the clear.

The "unclear of what specific rule" bit though means nothing will happen on that front either.

 

Trying damage control… lol

 

pablo made the call

holmes and shelburne are hacks of the highest order, so maybe there's still a chance something out of this. but i think it's pretty obvious now that ballmer is in the clear at least (not like there was ever a doubt)

 

Been saying for months that if you actually read the CBA, this is a lot murkier than everyone makes it out to be and really more a question about to what extent teams need to police their sponsors rather than "cap circumvention".

 

I will be offering my services to any league franchise that needs a middle man they can fail to supervise to create no work deals with players for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with circumventing the salary cap.

 

i mean, several of us have posted the exact verbiage from the cap circumvention section, and this fits EXACTLY that, but ok.

 

Clippers had already put out a statement declaring victory . Guess them and their mouthpieces at ESPN jumped the gun a bit. Still looks like Silver will let his buddy off the hook. Actually is good for us with Iger coming in. I expect the same favors

 

Right. It’s not murky at all but I suppose there is literally nothing guys won’t be contrarian about.

 

The Daktronics emails show Clippers employees asking Daktronics whether they'd spoken with Kawhi yet and if they knew when Uncle Dennis was planning to have him sign autographs. They're a corporate partner and Kawhi's employer is serving as a point of communication. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. A team can ask a sponsor for an update on what it's doing with a player, I'd like you to show me the section of the CBA where it says they can't. You're even allowed to build into a player's NBA contract that they will be compensated $X per appearance they make with a commercial sponsor if you want.

What you're not allowed to do is arrange for a sponsor to compensate a player for basketball services. That's violative of Sections 1(b) and 2 of Article XIII. But if you actually read them, its not clear that the Clippers violated either because Kawhi was on a max or near max (which is problematic for1(b)) and Aspiration and Daktronics may not constitute Team Affiliates (which is problematic for 2).

Aspiration and Daktronics are or were public companies. As a general rule, you disclose as little as you need to when you're a public company. Press releases are typically issued by public companies to cleanse material non-public information - if you've shared MNPI with a third party, you need to publicly disclose it within a certain timeframe. If you don't need to cleanse MNPI, the information in question does not trigger another SEC disclosure obligation, and you don't think it would strategically benefit your stock price, you don't disclose it. Because there is no advantage or legal obligation to doing so. I know this because I advise public companies every day.

Likewise, its not uncommon for sponsorship agreements to be structured to provide for a guaranteed base fee with options for the sponsor to require certain performance in exchange for additional compensation. What you're actually paying the base fee for is association with, and access to, the individual. If down the line you decide you don't want him to plant a tree or do a commercial, or he decides he doesn't want to do it, whatever. He just won't get more than the base fee. My understanding is that for celebrities, a guaranteed minimum fee with subsequent optionality is the market standard in sponsorship agreements. I'll note that the Kawhi/Aspiration contract isn't publicly available, Pablo just said he had it, it was for $28 million and required little to no actual promotional work. So I think it's pretty likely it was structured the way I said. A base amount is guaranteed and the total amount of the contract can go up to $28 million if Aspiration exercised its right to have Kawhi do certain things, which they probably didn't do.

Michael McCann, a prominent sports lawyer, published an article and went on Zach Lowe's show last September when this all started and basically said what I've been saying. Plenty of actual lawyers, like me, have read the CBA and think this is murky. Plenty of actual lawyers have done the same and disagree. Feel free to provide your analysis.

 

i appreciate the response. what i was referring to was that language that specifically mentions compensation out of step with other similar cases (i.e., kawhi getting more than better known celebrities for doing nothing while they did something), the fact that ballmer was in bed with the company (and another clipper owner was making timely contributions near times when kawhi's money was due), and the fact that the cba states they don't need hard evidence/paper trail to enforce their rules.

and even if sk's reading is the accurate one, the nba just declared a free for all on cap circumvention, and the league deserves what will come after it.