MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
No, he's terrible.
Shouldn't. We're still at 14 contracts once the Kawhi trade happens assuming it's a straight 2 contracts (Ingram, Gravy) for 1
OT: The Official Toronto Raptors Thread
- Thread starter hockeylover
- Start date
No, he's terrible.
Shouldn't. We're still at 14 contracts once the Kawhi trade happens assuming it's a straight 2 contracts (Ingram, Gravy) for 1
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Just think of how much of a sad fuck organization the Clippers are when they had to cheat this fucking hard to make 1 conference finals in the Kawhi era.
LeafOfFaith
Well-known member
Not sure how he’s going to avoid a suspension here.
MyNameIsJonas
Well-known member
He was never going to realistically
LeafGm
Well-known member
It does bring me genuine joy just how badly this all blew up in Ballmer’s face.
As much as he fucked the Raptors and Raptors fans over, we’ve got a chip and he’s got absolutely nothing to show for it.
Preston
MBow30 alt account
Tldr: buy the dip on the betting markets tilting towards Kawhi not being a raptor? Asking for degenerates like @Deckie007
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Yeah, I would. If they're reacting to the publicly available stuff on the Daktronics story from yesterday. Do I think that Ballmer used these arrangements as cap circumvention? 100%. Do I think that's as easy to prove as I'm hearing discussed? No, not remotely.
- No show contracts are way more common than people think (I would imagine that LoF would know better than any of us their prevalence in hollywood). People are scoffing that Kawhi doesn't have the profile to warrant them, but all you can really do with that is prove that the company made a financial mistake, unless if there is a legit smoking gun in the emails or testimony. We can all "know" that Aspiration threw a bag at Kawhi of equal size to the bag that Ballmer threw at them. But unless the NBA wants to be tied up in lawsuits for the next decade with Ballmer and Kawhi, that's the suggestion of wrong doing, not actual proof. That stuff can help support theories that are held up by real evidence, but it's not real evidence by itself.
- What "everyone in the office knows and jokes about" isn't actual evidence of wrong doing. Neither is Kawhi being the only athlete Daktronics sponsored. They definitely suggest that evidence of wrong doing exists somewhere, but without the actual evidence, there's nothing there. Again, clearly there is fuckery here. Clearly. But knowing that there's fuckery and proving that there's fuckery is two different things. Now, the NBA isn't held to the same kind of standards that a Judge is in determining facts, but this definitely goes to court with Ballmer and Kawhi if there's no smoking gun and the NBA acts on it anyway.
MyNameIsJonas
Well-known member
I certainly buy this thing dragging into 2027 as a very strong possibility, and in that case, Raps could just bail
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
This is the main reason I think it all goes away. Side deals are normal and these small b billionaires aren't going to watch the capital B Billionaire get flayed for it when they know they're way less powerful, and probably next when Pablo Torre runs out of Kawhi Intel and starts sniffing for new shit.
Preston
MBow30 alt account
PlayerToBeNamedLater
Well-known member
Didn't Pablo say that the NBA already knew about the scoreboard issue and it was part of their investigation? Him reporting it makes it public, but nothing has really changed.
LeafOfFaith
Well-known member
If there's ONE thing that absolutely should never be permitted is for the Clippers to retain his services, not to mention escape any punishment. What is this circus? Embarrassment for the league.
PlayerToBeNamedLater
Well-known member
Unless Kawhi's contract is completely voided (very unlikely), the trade will go through in some form imo, whether it's reduced picks if Kawhi is heavily suspended, or no changes at all because Kawhi is just fined or there's some minor suspension.
Interesting that Pablo doesn't even think Ballmer will be heavily penalized. If he isn't heavily penalized, I can't see them putting all the blame on Kawhi without a heavy response from the PA.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
The other thing I'm seeing, even with someone like Pablo Torre when they talk is they seem to act like Adam Silver is in control here. He is, kinda, but his job is to run the league on behalf of the team owners. He's not doing a good job when the fans and media think he's doing a good job. He's doing a good job when his bosses think he is.
So with that in mind, all of these investigations are going to be presented to the NBA Board of Governors and they will have huge, huge influence on where this goes regarding punishment.
This is a photo of the current chair of that board
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Kawhi will be a Raptor. There will be punishments. The punishments will be largely symbolic.
So with that in mind, all of these investigations are going to be presented to the NBA Board of Governors and they will have huge, huge influence on where this goes regarding punishment.
This is a photo of the current chair of that board
Kawhi will be a Raptor. There will be punishments. The punishments will be largely symbolic.
LeafOfFaith
Well-known member
So, a similar thing would be what tv/film productions do with acting deals. The issue is that when you hire a SAG actor, in addition to paying the negotiated fee for the acting services, you have to also make pension and health contributions to SAG, which are not insubstantial. The fuckery that's been going on for years is that productions will bifurcate the deal - one acting agreement that pays as little a portion of the fee as reasonably plausible, and one side letter/consulting deal/executive producing deal/marketing deal, you name it, where they dump the vast majority of the fee and, if ever called to defend it, will say it was for other services that the actor provided which are not acting and not subject to the SAG payments.
These happen all the time on smaller productions, and the net effect is that SAG, which has pension and health payment obligations to thousands of past and current actors, is getting screwed out of a ton of money which they need to make those payments. So, here and there, where they see a couple of big name actors on a production and see their acting deal filed with them (which needs to happen per the union rules to prove the minimum fee was paid), and the amount is silly, like $75k for someone they know makes at least $2M for such a production, they'll audit the rest of the deal and ask to see the other contracts. When they see the EP deal or the marketing deal and it has $1M - $2M loaded on it, they make a stink and claim against the production for the unpaid health and pension amounts, and then either they fight or settle it out.
That's the closest sort of arrangement to a no show situation that you'll see in film and tv. The goal is to avoid the union payments, not to actually not perform services - because they still are performing the acting services for the full value in the end through the combined contracts, and if they're not, they'll get fired off the production because nobody wants to pay money for nothing. Not too different than trying to avoid a salary cap with an arrangement like Kawhi's.
But the key difference seems to be, Kawhi did zero endorsing under the endorsement deal. Between all the clients and all the deals I've seen and done, I've never seen anyone get paid - and a massive amount, no less - to do nothing. The notion of a player endorsing a jumbotron manufacturer is on its face ridiculous - how would Kawhi get them any more business? Definitely and obviously not through ads, so through private wine and dine meetings with stadium owners? It's just so dumb. But shit, if they were going to do this, then why not actually produce a couple of stupid commercials and put them out there? They were so insanely lazy about the whole thing.
You have to get something for what you pay for. I'm just recalling the closest situation that I ever had to this. One of my clients was in a successful film where they were lead of a main cast of four and making the most by far. The studio set up a sequel, and what those snakes did is that they went to the other three actors first and gave them the same amount that they paid my client on the first one (a 4x raise for each of them), and gave them all MFN rights (nobody could earn more). They then came to us and offered the exact same amount that they paid on the first film, and said sorry, we can't pay more because then we'd have to match the other three and pay them the same and that would blow up the budget. Just the stupidest, lowest, most ungrateful and shady thing to do to the lead, who was the whole reason the film did well and earned a sequel. And if they didn't make a deal we liked, there would be no sequel because we could just decline. Anyway, after a month of my telling them to buzz off and go figure it out because we weren't doing the sequel for the same money as the first one, they escalated it by bringing in one of the top guys to talk to me, who I'm friends with and done other deals with, and we always just play the game of running through the motions of negotiation with the lesser execs and then he comes in and agrees to give me mostly what I want and makes himself a hero for his team. So, what was agreed was that we were going to agree to the same number on our main deal, but then we were going to have a separate agreement which would pay the client a bunch of money to keep them "available" for the period leading up to the sequel for consultation and other nonsense (i.e., a total sham) - and that's how we got our raise and the other three actors weren't matched (nor did they ever find out about it).
But the point of the story is, if it came out, it would still make sense because the studio got something for the side deal - they paid more to get the actor to agree to the sequel. What the heck did the scoreboard manufacturer get? The smoking gun would have to be how Ballmer put the money in their hands to pay Kawhi. Overpay for a scoreboard/jumbotron? They certainly didn't pay him with their own money for nothing.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Yeah, this was amazingly lazy, no arguments there. I do think that you're missing the likeness rights bit though in your explainer. To piggyback on your hollywood example (which was about the relationship between studio, actor and SAG...so similar to the relationship between team, league, player and union). Imagine Brad Pitt signs onto a new movie, knows it's getting a big marketing push, and he piggybacks on that to sign a number of personal endorsement deals where he allows brands to use his likeness, but he doesn't actually want to do anything new (photoshoots, etc) for them. But he allows them to use images of his likeness that he owns or they otherwise license for use. That is a completely viable business deal and if one of them is a fucking photo copier manufacturer, no one cares that it's a weird business to use Brad Pitt's likeness.
The defence for Kawhi here is basically that. No show or limited involvement likeness licensing deals aren't novel, and this was that. Without a clear paper trail to Ballmer/Clippers paying for it all, it's kind of unprovable.
To use Kawhi's likeness.
Agreed entirely, and that's kind of the crux here. Without that, everything else is just conjecture. Us porting over our assumptions about their business onto them. Businesses make bad business decisions all of the time. Now, I'm not supporting that at all. These fucking guys clearly did this shit. But what you know and what you can prove are not the same thing. Without a clear and direct financial line from Baller to Daktronics and then on to Kawhi, I don't see how they prove anything to the point that severe punishment is a reasonable outcome.
