The Rules of Kawhi Engagement: A Visit to Los Angeles, with Clippers Super-Fan Paul Scheer

The comedian has been living rent-free in Pablo's head for a year — and now he's got folders of his own, while asking questions on behalf of Clipper Nation: Who knew the truth on the inside? Could Steve Ballmer have vaporized this scandal from the jump? How did Kawhi Leonard get off with a slap on the wrist? Has he really excommunicated Uncle Dennis? Why is Bill Simmons so upset? And have fans become collateral damage in the NBA's message to Shakespearean billionaires? • Subscribe to "How Did This Get Made?" https://pod.link/409287913 and "Unspooled" https://pod.link/1381507437 with Paul Scheer • Previously on PTFO: Steve Ballmer's Sword, the DOJ's Probe and a "Road to Jail Time" https://pod.link/1685093486/episode/NmFhYTlmMTVlZTI4NzY5NzBlMWJjNDhi (Pablo Torre Finds Out is independently produced by Meadowlark Media and distributed by The Athletic. The views, research and reporting expressed in this episode are solely those of Pablo Torre Finds Out and do not reflect the work or editorial input of The Athletic or its journalists.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

  Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today, we're gonna find out what this sound is.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Does Bomber do what Kobe does? Black Mamba? Do we have, like, you know, Kobe goes from nice guy to this other version of Kobe. Does Bomber, you know, does he become the heel?

• 0:18Pablo Torre?

  Right after this.

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• 1:16Pablo Torre?

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• 1:59Pablo Torre?

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• 2:23Pablo Torre?

  I have noticed there's a folder in front of you, Paul Scheer.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  I wanted to come prepared. I wanted to come correct because I'm sitting with a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. All right? And I wanted to make sure.

• 2:37Pablo Torre?

  I feel like I'm being, I've wandered into a trap.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  You, I know, I am nervous. I want to let you know that people out there may think that we have animosity towards each other.

• 2:46Pablo Torre?

  Well, we should establish something about the animosity. Because the reason I'm here, and thank you for having me, in your home.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh, I thank you for being here.

• 2:55Pablo Torre?

  In Los Angeles.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:57Pablo Torre?

  A place that I was not sure I could walk around freely.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  You know, it's a Clipper story, not a Laker story. So.

• 3:04Pablo Torre?

  But this informs, this informs the dynamic immediately and the animosity that is the subtext of what hopefully will be text here.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  I hope so.

• 3:14Pablo Torre?

  Perhaps in the folder. I was looking into just how to introduce you properly. And maybe people have seen you on, I don't know.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  I've done some.

• 3:22Pablo Torre?

  Human Giant, The League, you're, how did this get made? The spectrum of comedy. But the tag, actually, that I want to highlight for people who may not know you and only know you perhaps because they've turned on this video and they're thinking, another [bleep] Clippers episode, Pablo, really?

• 3:39Speaker 01

  The best one yet, guys.

• 3:40Pablo Torre?

  Well, I've come around, I've talked to Adam Silver.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:43Pablo Torre?

  I've talked to NBA owners in the aftermath of this. But I haven't talked to you. And you are known as somebody who practices comedic altruism. You're familiar with this phrase.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  I am familiar with this phrase, all right.

• 3:58Pablo Torre?

  You're one of the nicest, kindest people in comedy. This is a thing that our mutual, we have mutual friends.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Yes, we have mutual friends.

• 4:04Pablo Torre?

  Like Alan Yang, who helped broker this summit.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  100%, yeah, and it was a very easy broker. I was, it was actually lovely to even know because I would like, there's a part of me that's like, I would like to talk to Pablo at one point.

• 4:14Pablo Torre?

  And I would like to talk to Paul at one point.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Great.

• 4:17Pablo Torre?

  Because Paul was tweeting things such as, on August 17, 2026, at 4:20 PM, quote, "The funniest thing about this ESPN/Clipper story is that all the people who have been applauding great sports journalism, when faced with great sports journalism by four of the most credible sources in the league, choose not to believe it. Now they are questioning sources? Question mark?

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:39Pablo Torre?

  Exclamation point, GTFO." And I should say that August 17, 2026, was the 11th month of you tweeting about the saga.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  100%, and I want it to be known to people who may not know, I think at every single point, whenever I would tweet about the Clippers, people would assume that I was [bleep] on you. And I, and I made, and you can look up my receipts. I always like, I like Pablo. I like, I have no problem, I'm just saying.

• 5:09Pablo Torre?

  You are the Clipper fan who has lived in my brain that I've made room for, for a year. You have rented space in my head, Paul Scheer. You know how much I read, this is a sad admission that I don't necessarily want to make with this clarity. I do read my mentions. And I am not looking for sympathy. I am merely setting up the context of you have been covering this story as a fan.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  As a fan.

• 5:34Pablo Torre?

  From that point of view, and I really want not to, as much as it seems like I'm doing the opposite, not to shame and ridicule and make fun of you, but to acknowledge that you and Clipper fans were never the thing I was hoping to disrupt.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Well, and I really appreciate that. And I want you to know also that, you know, for me, I never added you.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  People would very much respond to me and say, apologize, Pablo.

• 6:05Pablo Torre?

  And I apologize for whoever was also, by the way, being a maniacal person, a fan perhaps, on my behalf.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  By the way, they should be a fan, but I wanted, I did want to draw that distinction. Like, my belief in whatever, let me say this. You were right, right? Like, there it is. And like you say on the show a lot, you're an adult, you're a man, you step up to, like, 100% now, just want to say one thing.

• 6:28Pablo Torre?

  Please.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Okay. I didn't know this was gonna happen, that we were gonna sit down. This happened in the last week.

• 6:34Pablo Torre?

  Truly, like, I texted Alan, like, would Paul come on the show? And then I realized it going out to LA. And then you offered, will you show up here? And I said, let me get my advance team to sweep this place for Anthrax.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Well, I was excited, and there was something that I was planning on doing that would have been like a shout out to you because I didn't know you, right? So.

• 7:00Pablo Torre?

  I had never met until I walked into this building.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  So on the opening night at the Clippers, you know, this year, the opening night this year, this is what I was gonna wear. I want to show this to you, it's the first time ever.

• 7:12Pablo Torre?

  Oh, my God.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  It is a Kawhi jersey with your name on it. So I feel like, at this point.

• 7:20Pablo Torre?

  You are holding the jersey. For those not watching on YouTube, this is the.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  It's a Kawhi jersey, but it says Pablo on the back. If I can give any me a culpa, it is simply that, there you go. Like, this is what I was gonna wear on opening night.

• 7:34Pablo Torre?

  That's so funny. That is also something that, if I were to ever wear that, I should be hurt. Someone should hurt me.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  No, you should.

• 7:44Pablo Torre?

  Wearing a Clipper jersey at this point with my name on the back is something that I would, I would want someone to hurt me if I was, if I was seen wearing that.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Let me tell you this, being a Clipper fan is hard, right? I will thank you, though, because due to your reporting, your very fine reporting, that I believe will continue.

• 8:03Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  You have made the Clippers organization disaster-proof. There is no lower place for us to go, right? There used to be this sense like, maybe we can push this behind us. Whatever this was, the racist owner, the failed attempts, the loss in the bubble, all these things, not even signing Larry Bird in 1978. Like, we have a long list of things that have made us be like, you know what? Next chapter will be better. We can't fall lower. As an organization, I think this is it. So I want to thank you for that. Like, you've said, like, you've pushed us in a, in a way to be like, well, whatever else is gonna come, it won't be this bad. It can't be this bad.

• 8:47Pablo Torre?

  It is an honor to visit the earth's core with you.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  What's really hard for me, and I'm watching your reporting and I, and I, like I said, before you started doing these stories, I was watching, like, you're interviewing, like, art critics and you have, like, you know, talking about the rehearsal. I'm, I'm, I'm all in, right?

• 9:23Pablo Torre?

  So we did pivot to this series in a way that surprised even us, I should say.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Well, by the way, it works and it's great. And, uh, you know, look, and there's many times I've seen Joe Mandi on your show and I'm like, oh, I would like to be reading out of a folder, which is why I brought my own folder.

• 9:39Pablo Torre?

  And I noticed that like Chekov's gun, it remains just sitting there, ready.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  There is nothing in this folder about you. What I was really nervous about was when I'm here talking to you, like, I will forget dates or things that I wanted to put in here. Not about your reporting, but just in the general sense, like, I have quotes from Adam Silver in here.

• 9:59Pablo Torre?

  Oh, I, I, I, I want to be very clear. I want you to also, if this is of interest, ask-

• 10:06Speaker 01

  I have questions for you.

• 10:07Pablo Torre?

  Whatever you want. This is also what I want to do.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so I know you want to talk about Clipper fandom and, but I, so I have 18 pages that I just, if I needed to go to it, if I needed to know how many teams have never been in an NBA Finals, I have that information in here, 10. Uh, you know, if I wanted to list, you know, the 10 biggest mistakes the Clippers have made, I got that in here.

• 10:29Pablo Torre?

  You have Oliva Condi spelled out-

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:32Pablo Torre?

  -in big font so that you can actually get that precise.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  I have a bomber's statement in here. I have Adam Silver's press conference in here because I just wanted to make sure that I brought my A-game. And I feel like that's the one thing that beyond all of this, you have brought your A-game. Like, you brought your A-game, and this is going to be the thing I, I want to throw to you. I don't think that you ever experienced much backlash on this story because in many respects, you've hit the perfect jackpot, right? It's like, it's a billionaire, right? We're not fans of billionaires. We can be mad at billionaires, 100%. You got the Clippers, which by all intents and purposes, it's like a hack joke in a stand-up bag, right? It's like, it doesn't matter that the Clippers have won for 15 seasons. They are perennially

• 11:19Speaker 01

  the worst. People hate them. They make fun of them. And then finally, you have Kawhi, a star that I've never seen anger more journalists or fans. People hate Kawhi.

• 11:30Pablo Torre?

  Man.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Isn't it interesting, those three things all together? It is like the perfect storm. Like Gary Trent Jr., no one cares about Gary Trent Jr.'s salary. I mean, ultimately, if you weren't gonna get, you could never get 14 episodes out of Gary Trent.

• 11:42Pablo Torre?

  Paul, I concede that point.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  And then, and, but I'm, I'm not saying that this is-

• 11:48Pablo Torre?

  Gary Trent signing a suspicious contract that was so inflated relative to his performance with Milwaukee-

• 11:55Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 11:56Pablo Torre?

  -that seemed to indicate that maybe there was a pre-arranged deal with his representatives over at Clutch. My mentions also, I'm like running a detective agency for Capsur Convention at this point-

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Which is not fun, right?

• 12:05Pablo Torre?

  I get a lot of incoming and Gary Trent showed up and I was like, eh.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  But that's what I'm saying. It's, but this, you're capturing three very unique things in sports because here's what I'll say. I never thought you were not vindicated. People have been on your side from the beginning. You won the Pulitzer and that moment, I think, what was it? A week and a half where the ESPN article until it was-

• 12:28Pablo Torre?

  It was about August 17, 2026.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  But like, that was probably like the only week where it felt like it was rocky. And at the end of this, what we've been seeing for the last two weeks, you know, since the report has come out, has been everyone dining out on the Clippers. Bill Simmons picks up a pen again and writes for the first time.

• 12:46Pablo Torre?

  Did you, did you hear his table read of the letter he wrote to the Clippers?

• 12:51Speaker 01

  First of all, let me just say this. Bill Simmons is not a Clippers fan. So him giving up Clipper fandom is such bullsh** to me. I love Bill Simmons. I'm glad he wrote because he, he felt lied to, right, by the Clippers organization?

• 13:03Pablo Torre?

  So I will say, the part that, that made me laugh-

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:09Pablo Torre?

  -was the part where he says, "Last season, our connections within the organization kept assuring us that Pablo's reporting was bullsh** and nothing bad would happen to the Clippers. Sure. Now we're looking at three more years of a non-playoff team with the weakest future in the NBA. Not just that, but a six-row midcourt view of the single dumbest franchise in the history of the league." The part about that that I was laughing at was not the, man, the Clippers are the dumbest franchise in the history of the league stuff, which, as you put it-

• 13:38Speaker 01

  It's, this is, yeah.

• 13:39Pablo Torre?

  -that is, that is, um, you know, Borscht Belt-

• 13:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:43Pablo Torre?

  -ancient, right? Like, I totally agree. The thing that was interesting, and that speaks to your point about what was it like to report this and what was the backlash like? In public, the biggest backlash was the ESPN article, which we-

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:57Pablo Torre?

  -just spoke about. The behind-the-scenes stuff is where it got interesting.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Interesting, okay.

• 14:03Pablo Torre?

  Because the Clippers, to Bill's point, they were telling every media person Pablo's reporting is bullsh** and even more, Ballmer's gonna sue his ass.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:16Pablo Torre?

  It kind of explains and sets the stage for why at 11:59 PM, so to speak-

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:21Pablo Torre?

  -the ESPN article comes out and it's like, told you, here it is.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:25Pablo Torre?

  So I say that just to say, from my inside the rabbit hole, I was feeling those footsteps.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  And I can imagine the pressure of one of the richest men in the world potentially suing you, even, I know that you feel good about your reporting and obviously vindicated, right? It's all there.

• 14:45Pablo Torre?

  We felt solid about it the whole time. It's just when you have 170 some odd billion dollars.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  It's scary.

• 14:51Pablo Torre?

  I never, it's hard to look up at that and feel like you're not peeing your pants a little bit.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  100, and I can, and not only do I understand that, like, and so, yeah, that's an interesting point of view, too, that have that. And I guess it brings me to the other question, which is, I also felt within my Clipper fandom and the people that I talked to, that was the thing. There was nothing here. It's a nothing burger. It's like, and I wonder on some level, especially as we've seen the response, and, and we can argue whether or not, like, why there's no admission of guilt, but there's still very much, like, nothing happened. We see things happen, right? We've seen the report. There, things have happened, right?

• 15:33Pablo Torre?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  I wonder if no one had this story or who was lying to who, too. Like, I am an optimist and, you know, without an optimist, a pessimist wouldn't know how happy he wasn't. Uh, right?

• 15:46Pablo Torre?

  Right. No.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  You know, so I'm like-

• 15:48Pablo Torre?

  Point well taken.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  I want to believe that those people were not lying to Bill and they were not lying to everybody that they spoke to because that makes it seem so duplicitous. And I have a big belief that people can't keep a secret. Like, when people go like, the moon landing was fake. I'm like, I don't think, I think someone would leak it at a certain point.

• 16:07Pablo Torre?

  So, so your calibration of optimism is the thing that, on some level, as a human, I am not surprised by and in fact, try to be open-minded about. Because I'm also trying to check myself and I'm like, I'm hearing through people that there are people inside the Clippers saying, I would, this is a paraphrase-

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 16:31Pablo Torre?

  -I would bet my kid's college tuition-

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Same.

• 16:34Pablo Torre?

  -that there is nothing here.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Same.

• 16:36Pablo Torre?

  And the strident and the conviction behind that, the question becomes, as you just put it, is that a truly bald-faced lie?

• 16:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:47Pablo Torre?

  Because it is so over the top that you're trying to effectively trick people who are like vulnerable, like fans, like people who are like, please tell us this isn't what it looks like. And they're saying, don't worry about this, 100 million percent it's not. Or is this, as you're now, I think, sort of inferring, is this sort of a Russian nesting doll of information in which some people in the very center are aware of all the other things that contain, but other people are not aware of the depth that is inside of this thing?

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Right. And I think you get to any organization, and any big organization, where maybe everybody doesn't know everything that's going on. And I'm not, I'm not sitting back and saying that nothing happened. I'm just saying, but I don't believe that that many people were lying. I think they believed what they thought. And I think that that is, I think that that's an important distinction. Like, they not, they didn't know the truth and they were lying. I think they believed what they believed.

• 17:48Pablo Torre?

  I think there are some executives with the Clippers who completely knew what was happening and-

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 17:55Pablo Torre?

  -they are, as mentioned in the report, most notably, Steve Ballmer, Gillian Zucker, and Lawrence Frank. There are others who are in that inner rung of the C-suite who I find it impossible to believe that they would not know enough to avoid saying some of the-

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:19Pablo Torre?

  -this is bullsh**-

• 18:20Speaker 01

  It's a, it's a-

• 18:21Pablo Torre?

  -kind of stuff.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  And that's, and I think that was the, for me as a fan, like I said, like, being a Clippers fan is a tricky place to be. You're in Los Angeles, you're in a world where you are treated like-

• 18:36Speaker 01

  People want to rip on you for everything. And I think there's a part of this story that connects back to the tissue of just saying that the only way the Clippers could have signed Kawhi was by doing this, right? Because he would have signed with the Lakers. I don't think that that's true either. I actually think that the Clippers didn't know how much they had Kawhi, in a way. Like, because I feel like, I don't think LeBron and Kawhi wanted to play together. I don't think that that was on the table in that way.

• 19:04Pablo Torre?

  Well, we have these texts from the late, truly late, great Jerry West.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:08Pablo Torre?

  Saying, you know, if you're gonna join the Lakers, it'll be LeBron's caddy.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:12Pablo Torre?

  And I think if you're Kawhi and you're trying to leave the Spurs and the Raptors because you're trying to be the guy.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:19Pablo Torre?

  In your own way, I find that pitch, to me at least, can't speak for Kawhi, I see that as persuasive on its own merits.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. And so I feel like there's a part of it where I think there's an anger, like, well, he should have gone on the Lakers, you know? And it's, and I feel like now we know why he didn't go to the Lakers, because they gave him all this money, right? And it's like, well, I think two things can be true as we talk about on the show a lot. Like, yes, there is cap circumvention, but also, he could have wanted just to go to the Clippers. Like, it wasn't like, we are gonna give you a deal, so come over here. I just think that was always part of the deal with Uncle Dennis, because I also have Uncle Dennis's, uh.

• 19:58Pablo Torre?

  Oh, my god.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  It's called The Rules of Engagement. It's written by Uncle Dennis's wife.

• 20:01Pablo Torre?

  Cheryl Walker Roberts.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Yes, and he wrote the foreword of this.

• 20:04Pablo Torre?

  You ordered this.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  Oh, I ordered it.

• 20:06Pablo Torre?

  This is something that I'm mad now, that I didn't order. You've highlighted it?

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Oh, I highlighted just from his foreword. It's not very long, you know?

• 20:13Pablo Torre?

  Wait, please, for people who aren't watching, can you explain the sort of?

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Yes, the book is called The Rules of Engagement: How to Win at Dining with Clients and Other Important People. It's a very unique book. It's only about eating with rich people.

• 20:27Pablo Torre?

  It's almost like church, we both went to Catholic schools in the New York area. It's almost like church missallette size.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  The four images on the cover are like a generic picture of a menu.

• 20:40Pablo Torre?

  It says menu.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  Menu, some glassware.

• 20:43Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  People in a party setting and like a little napkin.

• 20:47Pablo Torre?

  It looks like they took a screenshot of the top four squares when you Google, like, fancy dinner party.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Yes, this is a Getty Images all the way. It's not a book that is put out by a major publisher either. This is like, this is a self-published book.

• 21:00Pablo Torre?

  And it's the revised edition.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this is updated. And I will tell you, you know, there's a lot of good stuff in here, like, present your credit card to the waiter or maitre d' before guests arrive to ensure the bill does not come to the table, like.

• 21:12Pablo Torre?

  Honestly, that's pretty good.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  Pretty good deal.

• 21:14Pablo Torre?

  That's game.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  A lot of, and that, this is Cheryl talking, so I don't, you know, I like.

• 21:17Pablo Torre?

  Well, she's an etiquette expert.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. But there was something interesting in here, and I think this is where I want to go too, which is, the entire time you were doing your reporting, I was like, I want to hear more about Uncle Dennis.

• 21:29Pablo Torre?

  Man.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Because Uncle Dennis, to me, is the big, giant question mark. And, you know, as he writes in his foreword, again, I was looking for more of a smoking gum, but I'm gonna draw as much as I can here. In all forms of relationships, how you communicate verbally and non-verbally determine how you are perceived. And the one thing we can say from Uncle Dennis is, he determines how he's received. I mean, he lays down what he wants, at least in the text that we saw in the Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen report, right?

• 21:56Pablo Torre?

  He's the most famous uncle in sports history.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:59Pablo Torre?

  I'm gonna argue, based on my experience reporting on him. And by the way, to your point, leaving a lot on the bone.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:06Pablo Torre?

  This man, what I love about this story, I want to hear.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:09Pablo Torre?

  What you, what else you found interesting about that book, because I've never, it's just somehow a blind spot for me. I've never read the book, and I know.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  I don't think you need to read the book.

• 22:16Pablo Torre?

  Well, Paul, the way my brain works is I gotta [bleep] read the book now. But what I love about this story as a journalist is that there are multiple protagonists.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:27Pablo Torre?

  And any one of them could be the main character.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  The Uncle Dennis Kawhi story, you know, people who don't know, Kawhi's dad was killed.

• 22:34Pablo Torre?

  Yes, like tragically.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  Yes, in like a car wash, you know? And it was, really, and it's, and Uncle Dennis really took Kawhi under his wing and, and has been known to, we know across the board now, in many ways, how much he asks for things.

• 22:48Pablo Torre?

  The yes and of this story, as in, was Steve Ballmer doing things that flagrantly broke the rules? Yes. And was there a point at which he realized, I'm in deeper than I realized?

• 23:01Speaker 01

  I made a deal with the devil, right? And it's like, and I feel like when I look at like coercion and intent, and like, I'm not, I'm not asking for charges to be brought up, but I do think that that's a part of this that we're not talking about, and especially when you look at, like, how Kawhi got off, right? And there's something interesting about that, right? I mean.

• 23:18Pablo Torre?

  Of course.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  And I think to your.

• 23:20Pablo Torre?

  A slap on the wrist, that's what that was.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  And, and I think that, like, that to me, I'm just gonna, I'm just pulling here, like, because he's also signed an agreement. Kawhi signed this agreement, and I put, and I went into the NBA Players Guide to find this, it's like, it shall be a violation for any team or any player to attempt to enter into or solicit any agreement or transaction that would be prohibited. So saying that he merely asked, you know, it's like, and it's like, well, I can go into a bank and say, give me all your money, they're still gonna arrest me for robbing a bank. Like, whether or not they give it to me or not, I performed the action of robbing a bank.

• 23:55Pablo Torre?

  This is actually something that I have not talked about enough, and I'm glad you're bringing this up, because it has been, post ruling, really interesting to see how the NBA, and Adam Silver, who I talked to.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:05Pablo Torre?

  Last week, talks about this, and how fans, who are like, wait a minute.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:11Pablo Torre?

  One guy fled the country and is living a life that seems to be no worse for the wear.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:17Pablo Torre?

  Outside of his uncle getting a five-year ban, but by the way, that's.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  He already fired him. When that, when he fired him, that's when I started to waver. I was like, they've given him the heads up.

• 24:26Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  That something is wrong.

• 24:27Pablo Torre?

  That was around the same time that the trade with Toronto was.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:31Pablo Torre?

  Agreed to.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:32Pablo Torre?

  And when I saw that, of course, I noted it and said, this is something that I would do if I was getting out ahead of the people I'm no longer having represent me, perhaps getting in trouble.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Well, let me ask you this. In this world, because I want to go even to Adam Silver in a second as well, but in this world where Kawhi gets off with this $700,000 fine, and I know that Adam Silver, at the press conference, is very open about saying, we need to send a message, we need to make sure that other teams don't do this, but isn't he also sending a message to players? Like, yeah, bring down your team, you'll be able to walk away. Like, if, you know, if Anthony Edwards wanted to do this, like, it's like, yeah, ask for it. If they give it to you, you will be kind of fine.

• 25:16Pablo Torre?

  Well, so the two levels of this are, number one, by the CBA, the collective bargaining agreement. The union of the players has negotiated, in this specific way, protection that I think is a lot more impactful than what the owners have, when it comes to cap circumvention.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:37Pablo Torre?

  The players have legal defenses, and Amin Alhassan on the show recently said, you know, if you're a player asking, you can ask all you want. If there isn't a team that is giving, then it's not possible to circumvent the cap, by definition. So I say that as the first level.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:53Pablo Torre?

  That's, and that's what the NBA, that's their position, as they, of course, for those who are somehow unfamiliar, even though you're watching this episode, the whole thing that happened was.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  This is your entry point.

• 26:02Pablo Torre?

  This is, this is hilarious, genuinely hilarious.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  You thought we were gonna be talking about the league.

• 26:07Pablo Torre?

  Uh, but what happened was a bit of admittedly brilliant legal maneuvering, in which Adam Silver and the union settled and boxed out Steve Ballmer from arbitration, which was actually the thing that would have extended the story, made it messier, kept it going, invited further podcast episodes, and perhaps news cycles, and all of that stuff. The choice that Adam made, I think therefore, to translate it simply, was twofold. One was, I'm recognizing what my powers are via the CBA, and also, it's gonna be a lot easier to punish a guy that, through four separate companies, enabled something that is unprecedented.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  A hundred percent, and different than the Gary Trent Jr. thing, I want to acknowledge that I'm not doing.

• 26:53Pablo Torre?

  From the Timberwolves thing, even.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Yes, well, you know, let me ask you this. What do you think would have happened if this comes out, when this comes out on your episode, right? Before there's an investigation, anything is going on, Ballmer and company, they say, oh my gosh, we didn't realize that this was illegal introducing people to, you know, whatever it was, or they got out in front of it in some way. I think when I've heard on your show, like, you think that it would have been a less of a penalty, right? If they negotiated, we talked about this, right?

• 27:23Pablo Torre?

  If, let's just say even, forget about before the episode. Let's say after episode one.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:29Pablo Torre?

  Instead of going to ESPN and sitting across from Ramona Shelburne and saying, all of this is, you know, whatever, everything he said, which became testimony in the report, the Wachtel report, that was held against him, as we have reported, even before that 36-page document came out. If he did none of that, and instead said. To Ramona, same, same setting. I feel so stupid. I had an understanding of the rules in which I thought that by the letter of the law, this was okay and we were aggressive. And we cared about winning so much that we did more in retrospect than we should have.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:12Pablo Torre?

  And I'm embarrassed by this and I wanna raise my hand and say that I apologize and I look forward to resolving this with the league. I believe that we would not be looking at anything close to what this punishment would be.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  So then my question to you is, cuz I thought you might say that. Then what does that make of the seriousness of the fines? Because it's like, if it could be wiped away with an apology.

• 28:36Pablo Torre?

  So, so here's, here's what happened, though.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 28:39Pablo Torre?

  Because he didn't do that. The question was, well, now it's time to see how much is here.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 28:47Pablo Torre?

  And so when I publish episode one.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:50Pablo Torre?

  Aspiration is the entire scope. And after episode one, after that interview, days later, I first start hearing about Dectronics.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 29:01Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Wow, okay.

• 29:02Pablo Torre?

  It takes me the next year.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 29:05Pablo Torre?

  To, to actually like have the multiple sources, the documentation, all that stuff. At some point, deeper into that year in which I'm looking at Dectronics, I hear for the first time about Boingo, which I never got to publish cuz I got scooped by Wachtel. So what happened was, once Wachtel got assigned and I was already on it, there was a two-horse race, basically, to find out what was here. And what both of us realized in parallel tracks is that there was so much [BLEEP] here. I think that if he nipped it in the bud, if Ballmer nipped it in the bud.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  They wouldn't have gone.

• 29:39Pablo Torre?

  The, the incentive and the interest

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:43Pablo Torre?

  around what else is here, it vaporizes and we have to move on.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Steve's an interesting billionaire. Like, he is one of the seventh most giving billionaires. Like, in the, like Forbes magazine said, he was like, he's like in that list of 10, he's number seven, I believe.

• 29:57Pablo Torre?

  The Ballmer Group, I, I've looked at their website, I've reported on things in that, in that

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:02Pablo Torre?

  directory. It is sprawling and massive how much money they've given.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  I mean, I, I wrote a couple of things down, which I think is interesting, just from like, like, he is given $7.4 billion in his time of being charitable. He gave $110 million to LA from 2016 to 2021. You know, and, and what I also think is, he's a guy who seems to get in front of issues, but avoid the political nature of like, he'll get in front of like, hey, Secretary of Education, like, let's not cut education research. He also did some stuff about defunding Prop 25, where he got out in front of defunding law enforcement. Like, he's taken some left-of-center stances. And all, all that to say, he seems to me, or had seemed to me, an incredibly straight shooter.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  And I, and I guess like, when I look at this, and I'll just talk about it in the general sense. When Steve Ballmer comes in, he rescues the Clippers out of this, like, glut of Donald Sterling, who is a, you know, again, I don't, for my own sake, safety, a slumlord. A slumlord who is, who is on tape saying racist rants, just a cheap owner, so many things about this guy.

• 31:15Pablo Torre?

  Showing up the locker room being creepy around the players.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  Touching players like they're like animals, like,

• 31:22Speaker 01

  he comes in, saves the day, and I think has this energy of like, I'm gonna take us out. And everything that he does.

• 31:29Pablo Torre?

  It's really important context. That's how he was introduced. It was in the Sterling context, especially.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  And it was like, he's saving this franchise from years of ridicule. Like, when Donald Sterling moved the Clippers from San Diego to LA without asking the NBA for permission, right? And I always had an issue with the way, I'm like, why are we still attacking the Clippers? This is a team that's been run by a racist. And now this guy comes in and like, nah, you guys suck. And like, we, like, aren't, aren't we a nation built on like, we love the Rocky story, the underdogs? Like, this is like, being a Clippers fan is like,

• 32:04Speaker 01

  it's like, you hate Rocky. It's like, I'm surrounded by Drago fans, like, you know?

• 32:08Pablo Torre?

  So this is why this, you, you've put it in a way that has opened my eyes to something, which is that, yes, of course, to you, you are Rocky. And when you have all of the money.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:21Pablo Torre?

  It also seems like you are Drago.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  I see both sides of that. And I, and I guess this is where I go back and I go, well, now, what are we left with? We're left with Adam Silver punishing fans. Because I know that in his press conference, he was like, well, you know, yeah, we punish them.

• 32:37Speaker 04

  I think that's, in some ways, the most difficult part of adjudicating these disputes because while there have to be competitive consequences, our view, if these rules are violated, we, we'd still wanna be a 30-team league. And we recognize that, in some ways, we're unfortunately punishing the fans of that team as well. And so that's the balance we're trying to seek. I, you know, I, I don't think in any way we've done permanent damage to this franchise, but there's no question, this is a setback for the team.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  I just feel like he is using, like, Clippers fans as like collateral damage to send a message to billionaires, in a way, right? Like, it's, we have a brand-new stadium, I would argue. It's the best stadium right now because it's the newest stadium, right?

• 33:26Pablo Torre?

  I have no qualitative criticisms of the Intuit, though.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  But you have this, this product. And so I'm like, I look at it and I go, alright, so you're hurting the fans. You're hurting this new stadium. I understand, like, there has to be penalties. And I'm not asking for there to be lesser penalties because of all these extenuating circumstances. I'm not saying, hey, yeah, sure, we cheated, but we lost. So maybe we shouldn't get those fines. I'm not saying that.

• 33:52Pablo Torre?

  Which is an argument that I'm glad we can dismiss here because that is a horrible way for any even pseudo-justice system to operate.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 33:59Pablo Torre?

  You missed the headshot.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  I also wanna say, there's such a relief to me. I, I know I said that you've brought us to the lowest point, but there's a relief to me that we didn't win anything because the null-and-void nature of what that would have been.

• 34:11Pablo Torre?

  Taking down the banner would be a lot.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Because even if we won a banner, it wouldn't have been respected. And now, if we had won a banner and we had this, it is doubly so. Like, so there are, as a Clippers fan, I'm, I'm looking for the optimistic thing, right?

• 34:26Pablo Torre?

  And I am, I am mindful that one of the things that sucks here is that the fans do suffer because of things that their team.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:36Pablo Torre?

  The owner and the player did.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  We didn't do it.

• 34:39Pablo Torre?

  And, and it was interesting. I think it was Donald Sterling, actually, who said it. It's like, who makes the game? Do you make the game?

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 34:46Pablo Torre?

  Or do we make the game? Do the players make the game? Or, and the argument is, the owners make the game.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  Unless it's some NBA refs, then they sometimes make the game, too.

• 34:54Pablo Torre?

  And, and we can, we can table that for a future investigation, which I do wanna pursue. But that's the thing, is that like, who owns this thing? Well, it's measured perhaps not even by contracts, but in who actually suffers when the team suffers.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Right, well, it's like.

• 35:09Pablo Torre?

  And it's you.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  And it's not just me. It's the players that are currently on the Clippers, who now have maybe signed a deal that they might not have signed if they understood that the next, you know, these five, you know, first-round draft picks were gone, right? It's the coaches. It's this whole support staff that now is living it, where I could argue that Steve Ballmer, he paid that money, he's fine, right? He'll be away for a year. Adam Silver did say in the press conference, he'll be accepted back in good standing. I hope to have these conversations with him. All that to say that he'll be fine. But the lasting thing is on the fans and the players. And that, to me, really like, it's very hard to,

• 35:55Speaker 01

  to just feel like, oh, wow, we are now in this hole.

• 35:58Pablo Torre?

  It sucks. I mean, and truly, like, you, you said kind things to me at the very top of this. I should say it as clearly as I can. It [BLEEP] sucks to look to the next five years or 10 years.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:11Pablo Torre?

  And feel like you're operating from

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:15Pablo Torre?

  a, a hole that kind of feels like you're in the Mariana's Ranch.

• 36:27Pablo Torre?

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• 38:01Pablo Torre?

  Steve Ballmer, at numerous points, could have and should have smelled that this is not a good idea. And I don't even mean that on the basis of you breaking the rule. I mean, you're partnering with people who have scammer-like behaviors. By the way, here are some of the people on that list. If you're Steve Ballmer, and you're thinking to yourself, "I was just betrayed and/or effectively had my generosity used against me." It is Kawhi Leonard and Dennis Robertson. It is Joe Sandberg, the co-founder of Aspiration. It is Lawrence Frank, the president of Basketball Ops, by the way, who got a four-year extension in December that was announced, and then provided contemporaneous notes to Wachtel Lipton,

• 38:44Pablo Torre?

  in which Ballmer was quoted.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Now, I will say this. That contemporaneous notes, that's a thing that most organizations do, right? Keep records of having all these meetings and stuff like that?

• 38:56Pablo Torre?

  That's a Lawrence Frank thing, in my understanding.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  I had heard that in corporate America. Because I know that there's a lot of like, "Oh." But I've also heard that that is a known thing. That may be a Microsoft thing that has come into the Clippers world, but I understood that to be a corporate thing.

• 39:12Pablo Torre?

  In general, I should say, I'm in favor of everyone taking contemporaneous notes, such that the truth is reflected in some sort of record.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  It's an interesting, good, interesting thing, yeah.

• 39:18Pablo Torre?

  Love that.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  And also, it shows that he knew something was going on to keep them.

• 39:21Pablo Torre?

  And I think that, and I'm not necessarily going to quote The Wire here, but like, the whole thing, you're taking notes on a [BLEEP] criminal conspiracy. The whole issue here, this is just, by the way, from Steve Ballmer's point of view, is that you were taking notes about the parts in which I am sounding like I'm super guilty, and you're giving that to Wachtel, entirely from Ballmer's point of view. So in terms of like, who did he trust that ended up sort of like backfiring on him? My point is, when it comes to you trusted someone to deceive the NBA, and they ended up deceiving you.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:51Pablo Torre?

  The Shakespearean nature of the Ballmer character is, he has so much money, everybody knows it. They're asking him for things, and he is willing to play ball to get what he wants, but does not see the ways in which he is being used in ways that he will personally regret.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I think that Steve Ballmer's statement at least acknowledged, "I take responsibility for the organization. What happened here, you don't like it."

• 40:18Pablo Torre?

  He took responsibility for the distress and distraction for reasons that have to do, I think, with the federal government. He has not admitted to a single thing related to his own personal decision-making, which I understand, given the larger framework of what we're also investigating now, which is the government's investigation.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  But he did say, "I accept responsibility as a principal owner for..." I guess, so I want to apologize. I guess you're right. It is saying for the distraction and distress.

• 40:41Pablo Torre?

  And it's lawyer. By the way, I'm not saying that Mr. Ballmer admitted to the court of public opinion that's more important than your freedom, potentially, as a citizen. I am not naive. I am just simply saying, this whole thing has been lawyered from the start. And the question that the NBA, I can report this with you, has been sort of laughing to itself about, is that in the end game, the whole thing with Kawhi, in which the league settles with Kawhi, and Ballmer again is boxed out, and he feels like, "Am I betrayed? What just happened here?" He and his lawyers, they got dunked on. And he threatened arbitration even after it. He didn't seem to get it. And so, it's the whole idea of like, you heavily lawyered this,

• 41:26Pablo Torre?

  and yet at the end, your legal team, they got embarrassed. And the reason I say that is not because I want to laugh at Steve Ballmer. I actually want to take it back to Kawhi. When I say that story in that way, I am also hoping to signal, Kawhi Leonard struck an incredible deal for himself.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 41:44Pablo Torre?

  That does not reflect his knowledge and participation in every one of these four schemes that were run in parallel. His signatures are on the documents, man.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Well, it's like, and remember, and this is where I'd have not done my research, and I should have. Like Shohei Ohtani, right? Remember, his interpreter was betting, but it's like, "Wait, was that for Shohei or not?" And there's like, there's a little...

• 42:07Pablo Torre?

  What did he know, and when did he know it?

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there are these things where it's like, "Well, if we're saying, let's all be on the level," at a certain point, you have to be like, "He knew what's going on."

• 42:18Pablo Torre?

  One of the fun questions, and this goes back to like, what did it feel like to report this story? Versus, what did it feel like for a fan to feel like the world is piling on you guys? The question that I felt that was piling on to me, not in any sort of like, "I'm a victim" way, just like, actually, the obstacle was, "What's the Smoking Gun?"

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:34Pablo Torre?

  And so, forget about that with the Clippers part. We have the evidence in the Wachtel report and all that. With Kawhi, though, signatures on documents. If we're just going to say that doesn't matter anymore, we are truly in like a lawless civilization. Like, that's kind of the... Testifying with your signature, "I am aware of this," is about as much evidence as you can get. In that way, then you also ask the follow-up question of, "Was Kawhi in meetings where he heard Dennis asking for such things?" And the answer is also, yes, he was. The follow-up question then, and I've heard this from all parties involved, Kawhi's, let's call it idiosyncrasies. His weirdness. He is not talkative.

• 43:18Pablo Torre?

  He seems to be like off in his own world and unmoved by lots of things that would move the rest of us. How much of that is an excuse for... Or, let's put it even this way. How much of that is a performance so that you don't expect him to be actually smart? Because I believe, according to my reporting, I've talked to people in the huddle with him, and they're like, "This dude is detailed. He is a leader, he is..."

• 43:43Speaker 01

  100% fucked up, hilarious.

• 43:44Pablo Torre?

  "And he won a title with the Raptors because he took charge and was incredibly effective as a guy in charge."

• 43:51Speaker 01

  And knew what he wanted. If we go back to just the base level of why we get rid of Shay, right? Because Kawhi wanted someone else, right? Like, he wanted someone else that he could... He wanted a number two.

• 44:04Pablo Torre?

  Exactly. So Shay Gildes Alexander, the future MVP and Finals MVP.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Yes, okay. Oh, God.

• 44:09Pablo Torre?

  Sorry to... I'm recapping, and I don't mean to twist the knife, but...

• 44:13Speaker 01

  I'm so numb to the knife now.

• 44:16Pablo Torre?

  But to your point, it's a really good thing to raise. Kawhi Leonard says, "That guy, out. Paul George, in."

• 44:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:24Pablo Torre?

  That is an activist approach to team building.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  Well, and there's two parts of this. And I don't know if you have the answer to this, because I don't know the answer to this. All the people in the story act incredibly innocent, right? Kawhi's in China. He's recording music. And the intro to the music is like him looking at like the reports about him.

• 44:45Pablo Torre?

  It was the ESPN story, and then the NBA statement on Twitter.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  And he's been in press conferences where he's like, "There's nothing there." Right, so he's gotten in front of people. Ballmer obviously goes on ESPN. And this is where I am... I want to admit, like, I am surely naive. And what I always said about your reporting was, "Show me the documents, and I'm going to be like..." Like, not the documents of the Smoking Gun, but it's like, you are presenting a case. Now, if somebody could just... Like, I just wanted to see both sides. And when I saw both sides, I was like, "Got it. I'm there." Totally fine, I'm a jury member that's just waiting to see both sides. But I do find it interesting that both of these guys are so, throughout this process, just seemingly acting like innocent people, which I think is an... I'll just focus on Kawhi.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  That's bizarre to me.

• 45:35Pablo Torre?

  One of the things about China, which I was watching, right? So he goes, and by the way, I'm Filipino-American. I'm one of the few Asian-Americans in sports media who's been at this long. The idea that Kawhi Leonard has started some sort of like label, and he's signing Asian rappers.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  I mean, let's go.

• 45:51Pablo Torre?

  Like, I am creaking under the weight of the content that directly appeals to me at this point. I want to acknowledge, I was watching this [BLEEP], and I was like, "This is amazing."

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Sure, I'm in.

• 46:01Pablo Torre?

  And also, in the background is Dennis Robertson. The whole idea of Kawhi has excommunicate... Look, let's play it out, right?

• 46:07Speaker 01

  No, no way, yes.

• 46:07Pablo Torre?

  Let's take Kawhi's argument at face value. Kawhi, "I regret the lapses by the members of my inner circle," one of the great quotes of all time.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  This felt like, again, like the way that his contract is signed, that document never touched his hands in any way.

• 46:22Pablo Torre?

  As always, like, who's writing this? Well, in this case, what we know is that Kawhi says, "By the power of logic, if this wasn't you, some dude, your uncle, was signing your name and taking money under your name from your employer and four different companies that are now embroiled in a federal investigation." What happens? Kawhi Leonard says, "You're not representing me anymore as my unlicensed agent." But you are welcome to hang with me in China in the photos we take. Because by the way, as you put it, you are the father figure who replaced my actual father, who tragically died, and I love you, and you are the person who wrote this book that you, Paul Scheer, has bought.

• 47:06Pablo Torre?

  Like, the whole idea that this was a thing that Kawhi would have cut ties with Dennis Robertson about.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:12Pablo Torre?

  Of course not!

• 47:13Speaker 01

  He would have sued him, or he would have gotten that. Like, there would have been a bigger break on all of this stuff.

• 47:18Pablo Torre?

  I'm just saying that they remain family.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:22Pablo Torre?

  And I don't think it's in spite of an operation Dennis ran without Kawhi's knowledge. I think it's in the course of how they were... What's the title of that book?

• 47:33Speaker 01

  The Rules of Engagement.

• 47:34Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  And by the way, there's another quote that I will read you from the top, which I think ties right into what you're about to say. Uh, it goes, "To win, you need a strategy that advances a competitive advantage."

• 47:45Pablo Torre?

  And they got leverage over one of the 10 richest people in the world, and used it in a way that no player and his unlicensed representative uncle have ever done.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, and this, and I will go, and then I go back one step further, and some of the things, and I can say this because this is not about Clippers, that you read in that Wachtel report. This is about executives, this is about different things, organizational things.

• 48:10Pablo Torre?

  Dylan Zucker, the president of business, is also a potential main character for this whole thing.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Fascinating main character, fascinating. You have this thing where, why wouldn't they just start a social media account for him? Like, why? Like, the easiest thing that you could do.

• 48:25Pablo Torre?

  Paul Scheer would have run this pro bono.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  Right, I mean, like, there are things in this that are shockingly dumb, right? And that, to me, is, I'll focus on that, because that's base level, the dumbest. And why not even do the ties of just, like, you could have buttoned this up with a couple of the tiniest little things. And that's also like, well, so, we want to believe that they are smart, but they're also acting very dumb.

• 48:55Pablo Torre?

  And I think the thing that is consistent through both being smart and being dumb is feeling like you are smarter than others.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  Right. You're invincible, you're gonna get through this, and...

• 49:06Pablo Torre?

  No one's gonna figure it out. And in that ability to be smart enough to know better but not act on such a concern, you have a familiar downfall. And I think in this way, when it comes to like, well, you posed the question of like, the sliding doors moment of like, what if Steve had apologized after part one? The other one, of course, is what if Kawhi had done a single thing for any of these companies?

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Honestly, just have a social media handle, which he only started this year. This year!

• 49:36Pablo Torre?

  The extremes of him, of Kawhi, of being like, "One of my rules of engagement is, I'm not engaging."

• 49:43Speaker 01

  Right, right, right, yeah, yeah.

• 49:45Pablo Torre?

  An incredible rule to construct that [BLEEP] you in the case of this whole engagement being actually illicit by the rules you're supposed to respect.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  So there's so many elements to this, and I do just to circle and just say, I feel like the one thing that I really missed as a fan was, "Well, what are you doing for us?" You know, if it's me, I say to the Clippers, "Fill this arena. Make it dollar seats, get everybody there. I think the team is going to be goo-" I mean, I like this team, I like the coaches of this team.

• 50:15Pablo Torre?

  The team this season is exactly the team that it was gonna be before you lost five first round.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Exactly, 100%. So, this is gonna be good, but I'm like, what are you doing for the fans? Where's the outreach for the fans? And that statement wasn't to fans. That didn't feel like to fans.

• 50:29Pablo Torre?

  Correct.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  And I was upset about that, because what I want to see is, own it. And here's my, here's my bad pitch, and I, and this is where my fandom will take over, you can make fun of me all you'd like. I think, does Bomber do what Kobe does? Black Mamba, do we, do we have, like, you know, Kobe goes from nice guy to this other version of Kobe. Does Bomber, you know, does he become the heel? Does he start dressing all in black, put an eye patch on him, get him out there, and make him a villain? Because it's like, what, like, we need some, we need something to grab on to, you know? And I like, I want them to have a banner, it's like, "We circumvented the cap, you circumnavigate the snacks. All snacks free this year." Like, we can afford it? Like, you know, like, like, give us something.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  You know, discount some of this merch for us, like, you know?

• 51:19Pablo Torre?

  One of the things that we are facing is a story that has been, and I, and I am responsible and, and a participant in this, that has become, because sports matter so much.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:31Pablo Torre?

  So traumatic for the fans of this team and for the people who work in that organization.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:37Pablo Torre?

  That's real [BLEEP]. The question of, can you, as a team, ever begin to actually judo-move the jokes being made against you?

• 51:48Speaker 01

  This puts you in the basement. So embrace the basement.

• 52:00Speaker 06

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• 53:49Speaker 05

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• 54:27Pablo Torre?

  What's so bizarre about this story, like, the nesting dolls of this story? It's like, let's go to the real world now. And even there, the question of, is this a crime? Is this worthy of investigation? What is a conspiracy perhaps to commit securities fraud, as we talked about in the last episode? What does that look like? And who would want to prosecute that? And what does it mean that Donald [BLEEP] Trump is the president?

• 54:48Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm, right.

• 54:49Pablo Torre?

  And, and goddamn Todd Blanch is the Attorney General, and Cash Patel's the FBI Director. We are talking about, as I was trying to assess with the NBA stuff, perhaps not a real justice system.

• 55:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:04Pablo Torre?

  And, and so, we're trying to find information, we're trying to find evidence, trying to tell the story, that's my job. But the question of like, what is your season gonna be like? What are your next two to three years gonna be like as the federal government is investigating the Clippers?

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Right, and you will never get out from under that!

• 55:21Pablo Torre?

  I, dude, I, I, I do not have that answer.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  In my mind, I have friends within the organization, not, I'm not talking C-tier suite, you know, but I have people, I have, have had...

• 55:35Pablo Torre?

  I would hope so, because you are doing a better job of speaking the perspective of people who care about the Clippers than anybody who works for the Clippers.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Well, I will say this. I love this team, I love the passion that this organization has, and it always felt to me like, we're all in this together. We understand that we're trying to get out, uh, from under this shadow. I don't think that's possible. Like, the Lakers and the Celtics are, just like, when you think of basketball, you think of that, right? It's like, you can't escape the Lakers and the Celtics. They are the, the models of it. I don't think Oklahoma City, even though they've won these things, I don't think, you know, I grew up a Knicks fan. I know the pain.

• 56:12Pablo Torre?

  What a strange year for you.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  Oh, it was, so, I came out to LA, and the reason why I've gravitated to the Clippers is like, I don't want to be a guy who only goes to like, two basketball games a year when the Knicks come to town. I want to like, bring my kids to games, and I want to root for a team. And this is like the Lob City era, and it was great, and it was like, this is fun. Blake Griffin's so funny, and he's on Funny or Die as an intern, and whatever it is. And I fell in love with the team and, and the underdog spirit. Like, I'm, I am in comedy, and that's appealing to me. It's like, I don't want to side with, and I'm not saying the Lakers are bullies, but you don't want to side with the...

• 56:45Pablo Torre?

  Totally.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  You know, you don't want to, yeah, right? And so, and I, but I came from years of the Knicks, who, in many respects, not this year, but were, have similarities to the Clippers, as far as like, they got close, and they went down, and Michael Jordan and all. So, I'm watching the Knicks, and I have such a place in my heart for the Knicks, it was my whole childhood. And I'm watching them go up, and I'm just like, watching this other thing go here, and I'm just hoping, I'm hoping, like, and I, and I felt like, honestly, what was so hard about this was, if they got off with nothing happening, it would have been like, well, something actually did happen. And if they got off with this, like, we knew it, they suck. And so, there's no winning, there's no, and, and knowing that there's no winning, I kind of now feel a relief.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  It's like, I'm here, let's go. Let's, like, you can't hurt me anymore. We're here, and I do believe that there's such a giant contingent of fans that love this team and love this org. And that, that doesn't mean loves all the moves that the front office makes, that doesn't mean that we, you know, and I think if you can, the lightest way you can say it, is that our owner, in an, in an attempt to, to get ahead, to move the team out of this place, did some things to benefit the team. Was that the right move? I, no, right? But it's like, but at least was done in... And the want to lift the team.

• 58:10Pablo Torre?

  I think that sports fandom is this incredibly precious, special thing. Because what you have said is something that no person would say about pretty much any other product.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  Right, right, yeah.

• 58:23Pablo Torre?

  You have attempted and made a heartfelt case for why you still care about this. Despite everything, you've been generous to the people that you've trusted your money to, even though I could argue very easily that they abused that trust.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 58:39Pablo Torre?

  Because this totally backfired and it set you guys back to that, that, that sub-surface of the earth.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  We were in the basement and now we're in the sub-basement.

• 58:49Pablo Torre?

  You have discovered new basements.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Yes, we're in the back rooms now, we are.

• 58:55Pablo Torre?

  The architecture of your mind is an increasingly terrifying place because you continue to care about this team.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  But here's the thing, this is what kind of got me about Bill Simmons. I think a lot of people are like, I'm throwing away my Clipper fandom, I'm, I'm revolting against this ownership. I don't know, I will be here and I'll be talking to you about a second round pick that I think is good. I think we got it, I think we got something.

• 59:19Pablo Torre?

  You're texting me Keaton Wogler takes, long after the federal government may be done with this story.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  And I'm gonna be like, you know what, we did it for like Norm Powell, Zubok, these guys, we got them up, we'll get them up. You know, and it's, and it's the underdog story.

• 59:33Pablo Torre?

  I ain't hear no bell.

• 59:36Pablo Torre?

  Paul Scheer has not heard the bell.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  I, I, look, I don't want to walk away that easy too. Like, it's like, what, I don't feel joy in that. And I feel like everyone who's like just throwing up their fandom, it kind of bums me out because it's, it was already tough to be a fan. So if you're surprised by this, or you're disheartened by this, then, then you weren't a fan.

• 59:55Pablo Torre?

  You're now Bane.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:58Pablo Torre?

  You were born in the darkness, raised by it, molded by it.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  That's why we need, we need the Black Mamba version of.

• 1:00:03Pablo Torre?

  Oh my god, Steve Ballmer wearing the fucking Bane mask?

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  It's, let's get it. Now, I know that we're probably reaching our time to the end. I wanted to, you've been amazing, I appreciate you talking to me. But I, I wanted to talk to you about a tip that I might have for you. So if you reach under your seat, there is, there is a folder underneath your seat. All right, so, all right, there is a folder, I just, hopefully keep it closed as much as you can. All right, so I wanted to, you know, look, you've done amazing journalism.

• 1:00:35Pablo Torre?

  I've been seated upon a petard.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  And I want you to see a piece of, I have some, I think some breaking news in here for you.

• 1:00:42Pablo Torre?

  Can I, can I open?

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  You can open it, tell people what you're seeing.

• 1:00:50Pablo Torre?

  This is a photo of another person we've been investigating on the show, whose, whose name is Jeffrey Epstein, on his private jet, it looks like, and his foot is being massaged.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:01:01Pablo Torre?

  By Chuck. Chuck the Condor.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  So I just want to show you that, I, look, I want you to continue your investigations. I think that there is a connection here between Chuck the Condor and Jeffrey Epstein. I think he's been to the island, I need to, we gotta bring down Chuck, we need a better mascot.

• 1:01:20Pablo Torre?

  This is a horrifying image that I don't think I'll be able to forget for a very long time. Your mastery of Photoshop is far greater than that displayed on the cover of Rules of Engagement.

• 1:01:43Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production.

• 1:01:49Pablo Torre?

  And I'll talk to you next time.

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