2025-26 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

really hate the forced "situationship" framing, but the piece is just making the same point lots of us have: you can't just max out older players anymore. the downside is too dangerous.

it's interesting that the two cases discussed as upcoming are lavine and young, two guys i thought we might trade for over the past couple years. i'm glad we didn't have to go that route.

i'm not sure i put young in this category, though. at the very least, this is a young player who can carry on offense all by himself and is fun to watch. i'm guessing atlanta will just max him. the article suggests that paying others will scare them, but the bills aren't due on risacher and okongwu for a couple more years, and RFA may keep daniels' money to a reasonable number.

lavine is older (but not old) and has a lot of injury issues. though i could see a sub-max extension making sense for both teams because otherwise his PO cuts further into space they could maybe use next summer (though for sac, i'm not sure it's worth much to have space).

anyway, all that aside, i wonder if everyone's happy with the new cba's de facto hard cap. i guess if it creates more of a middle-class market (i.e., more people making above MLE but below max-ish dollars), maybe lots of folks win. i think it's definitely been successful in creating more parity in terms of cutting down on the super team stuff, though.

well, those are the contracts in question, though, right? morey's greatest trick was convincing the press he was a genius whilst being a run-of-the-mill gm. it's weird to me that he didn't take the cue from the clips that PG wasn't worth that money. like, they had him, up close, and are in the exact same boat as you. they chose the flexibility to sign a single MLE player rather than max out PG, and you thought you were getting a deal? was this some sort of favor to the agent? best i can figure, but i actually think he just totally misread the situation.

 

The blue collar, streetlights over spotlights, Clippers cheating? I'm shocked. Shocked I say.


Jokes aside, many of us suspected there was something up with that deal particularly given Kawhi’s uncle’s demands.

This will get swept under the rug and ignored pretty quickly though.

 

…. same as that information last year the ex Clipper employee claimed to have about the Snake beneath the table stuff and not a peep more was heard about it. And we all want to know how Silver and league FO pull off the ping pong balls magic tricks literally against all odds right in front of team reps’ eyes over and over when they deem it’s needed, especially to teams after they trade their superstar to the LA Lakers.

 

Millions of dollars to not do anything. What a life…

 

I don't know about this getting swept under the rug. If there are any (non-calcified) legs to this story, it's a huge deal. A blatant violation of the CBA and completely corrupt. I don't know if Balmer will lose the team over this, but he could, and frankly, should.

 

If true and looks like it’s right there with document trail it “should” be 5 more 1st round picks added to all they gave up for Playoff P so Snake would sign …. as happened to MN for precedent.

 

uh...yeah...this is insane if true and should carry some pretty serious consequences.

imagine if we'd done this. the luka trade would get basketball reason-ed 6 months after the fact, lol.

 

so kawhi's had two no show jobs most of his clips tenure?

imagine if stern was still around. he would've launched that franchise into orbit. silver's too much of a b**** to do anything and will probably apologize to ballmer for this being made public

 

clips claim this is "provably false". what does that even mean? is their contention that all of these documents are forgeries? that the sources are liars? that kawhi actually did do something for the money (which, btw, still very much violates the spirit of the cba...)?

i know nothing's going to happen here, but man...i guess i hope mark walter is taking notes?

 

the league has already investigated this before if i recall. and it's pretty damning when the money was being sent to uncle dennis lmao

silver's a b****, but he needs to come down hard on them to set a precedent and scare the rest of the owners away from doing something similar. i don't expect this level of punishment, but it should be close

 

Yes!!!
If that fool does get to keep his bum franchise, there needs to be AT LEAST 5 first rounders taken away.
I’m loving this!!!
Having Robotic Cornrows’ legacy tarnished even more is just icing on the cake!
There’s no coming back from this.

 

Torre said today on his eponymous podcast that suspicions arose in March 2025, when the Ballmer-backed Aspiration, a FinTech company with an environmental-focused mission, filed for bankruptcy.

Former Clippers coach Doc Rivers as well as several other celebrity backers — actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom, Cindy Crawford, and Robert Downey Jr., the musician Drake, the Skoll Foundation’s Jeffrey Skoll — were reported at the time to be among Aspiration's investors.
This company had Doc Rivers on books too, but he sometimes showed lol
What is Fintech company with environmental focus mission ?

 

It was reported before Clippers that company is fraudulent
Just over four years ago, climate-friendly fintech startup Aspiration was on the verge of a $2 billion public listing. Now, one of the startup’s board members has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and one of the co-founders has been arrested for allegedly conspiring to defraud investors, according to a federal criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Central District of California.

The fintech startup has been under federal scrutiny for years for questionable financial and carbon accounting practices. But the new complaint shines a light on a series of loans that were obtained using allegedly fraudulent tactics.

Aspiration co-founder Joseph Sanberg was arrested Monday for allegedly conspiring to defraud two different funds of $145 million
Aspiration co-founder and board member defrauded investors of $145M, prosecutors say

 

. Now, its co-founder will plead guilty to helping perpetuate a $248 million fraud scheme, according to U.S. attorneys.

Joseph Sanberg, who was arrested in March, has agreed to plead guilty to two counts of wire fraud, felony counts that could land him in prison for up to 20 years each.

“This so-called ‘anti-poverty’ activist has admitted to being nothing more than a self-serving fraudster, by seeking to enrich himself by defrauding lenders and investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars,” Acting United States Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement yesterday
Wow.

 

Its definitely bad and a huge deal. But I believe @432J is correct in that the league supposedly looked into this before and nothing came of it. That's the cause of my doubt.

But hey, as always, I'm just a guy on the internet literally posting during his lunch break. I'd love to be wrong on this.

 

My guess is there is basically vague enough language in the various contracts that they feel like covers them in a case like this. Or at the very least points the blame here to the failed company and not them. I have little doubt Balmer protected himself from any of this as well as humanly possible but mistakes can definitely be made. We will see.

 

keep in mind that we weren’t the only team that cried foul over this. Maybe the league will now be embarrassed enough to act but multiple teams did bring up concerns before.

 

yup. here's an article about it from last january

https://www.latimes.com/business/st...-dragged-into-u-s-probe-of-california-fintech

the only change from the league's prior investigation to now is that i think torre's investigation has revealed the entire paper trail. silver has to come down hard on the clips or it'll set a very, very dangerous precedent for the rest of the league