Pablo’s Paradox and the Prosecution of Steve Ballmer
How a Contested Endorsement Deal Exposes the Tension Between Accusation and Proof in Modern Media
Independent journalist Pablo Torre has built what might at first seem like an airtight indictment of LA Clippers owner Steve Ballmer for breaking NBA league rules: a $28 million no-show endorsement for star Kawhi Leonard, underwritten by a bankrupt startup Ballmer personally funded. On its face, it resembles textbook creative salary cap circumvention. But Torre's case illuminates something much deeper than alleged sports corruption: like a high-profile prosecution, it shows how investigative journalism weaves a one-sided sense of certainty from circumstantial facts in the court of public opinion.
The financial web has smoke all over it. A company related to Kawhi Leonard, KL2 Aspire LLC, signed a four-year, $28 million deal with Aspiration, a now-bankrupt sustainability-as-a-service startup with celebrity investors such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Cindy Crawford, Robert Downey Jr., and Steve Ballmer, owner of the Clippers, who put in $50 million. (Other investors included the venerable Allen & Co. and Omidyar Network, and fans included Ron Klain, later President Biden’s Chief of Staff.) In total, Aspiration raised around $250 million with hopes of going public via a SPAC. After a federal investigation that eventually caused the company to collapse, Aspiration co-founder Joseph Sanberg pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud. It’s all a bit icky.
Torre is making a headstrong case that Ballmer himself, personally, was behind a plan to funnel money to Kawhi Leonard via an investment in Aspiration, which then would create a partnership with an LLC with ties to Leonard, as a way to circumvent the salary cap. The NBA and outside counsel from white-shoe firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz are investigating whether this arrangement actually broke salary cap rules. Ballmer, formerly the longtime CEO of Microsoft, firmly denies orchestrating anything. (It’s probably important to note that Ballmer has a personal office of 50-100 employees whose only job is to manage his philanthropic initiatives and assets.)
Both Ballmer and the Clippers have consistently stated they are cooperating fully with the NBA’s ongoing investigation, as well as with any relevant law enforcement inquiries. In statements to the media, Ballmer has welcomed the league’s scrutiny, explicitly saying “I’d want the league to investigate, take it seriously,” and reiterating his denial of any wrongdoing. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and league policies are also clear: disciplinary action against a team, owner, or player requires clear, direct evidence of violations and not simply a suspicious pattern or appearance of impropriety.
Despite Torre’s prosecutorial enthusiasm about Ballmer’s guilt, there’s plenty of reasonable doubt in the pile of circumstantial evidence, and there are many reasonable alternative hypotheses as things stand today. As I understand it, there’s no corroboration inside the Clippers from people like minority owner Dennis Wong, president Gillian Zucker, or basketball ops president Lawrence Frank, any one of whom theoretically could have made such arrangements behind Ballmer’s back (or made none at all). I don’t believe there’s any information directly from Ballmer’s family office, either. And the “seven sources” Torre keeps bragging about from inside Aspiration all got their information from the same place: the leaders of the company, who are not beyond lying. The CIA calls that “information laundering,” and PR people call it “astroturfing.” It’s suspect evidence at best.
Mark Cuban, who knows a thing or two about running businesses, investing, and owning an NBA team, says the evidence shows the hallmarks of a grift on the part of Aspiration. Imagine a desperate and fraudulent startup seeking to juice its public profile with celebrity endorsements by overpaying to manufacture an aura of momentum. (Tom Brady and FTX, anyone?) Now, owners investing in sponsors of their own team who, in turn, work with a player with unusual contractual provisions is certainly poor optics and perhaps even a bit bizarre. Nevertheless, intent and authorship are essential when assessing what all of the evidence really means.
Here are some key questions that I don’t think have been answered yet. First, what exactly did Ballmer know, and when? Similarly, what did Clippers minority owners and leadership know? If this were a Law & Order episode, you’d interview these people and get them to turn on each other to save their skins—or discover that they really didn’t know anything at all.
Second, what did Kawhi, his uncle Dennis Robertson, his agent Mitch Frankel, or his legal team know? I don’t think any of them have sat for an interview, but that’s not exactly the Clippers’ problem; the questions remain unanswered. Moreover, Kawhi’s contract required no promotional or other work to get paid $7 million a year, which is interpreted by Torre as evidence of a crime. But it also could be interpreted as a “loophole” to ensure he himself did not know about the payments, so that someone else could benefit. Who were the members of the LLC, what bank account(s) did it use, and where did the funds go from there, if anywhere? If Kawhi didn’t even know he was getting “paid off,” that would certainly be evidence against circumvention of the salary cap via that LLC.
Finally, who exactly at Aspiration created this arrangement, and did they have direct contact with Ballmer or other Clippers leadership about this specific issue? Cofounders Andrei Cherny and Joe Sanberg could go on the record about this, and in fact would seem to be incentivized to do so at this point. You’d have to take their word with a grain of salt, but it would certainly be something if they themselves named names.
Listening to Torre speak about this topic, he reminds me of a prosecutor who doesn’t quite have the goods and should probably bring a lesser charge, but who is pressing for the death penalty anyway because it’s a high-profile case. But unless investigators uncover direct orders (emails, messages), cooperating witnesses (e.g., Clippers executives or Leonard’s reps) stating the true intent, or clear quid-pro-quo paper trails, this case should not clear the NBA's burden of proof. Recall: the Joe Smith precedent needed both extensive documentation and executive confessions. The NBA is not a court of law, and these are not criminal charges, but right now, there’s so much reasonable doubt that it doesn’t matter how enthusiastic Torre is, how many podcast interviews he does to promote the story, or how many times he repeats “3000 documents and seven sources” as if volume and workload itself is evidence of something.
To be sure, Torre's reporting is interesting and invaluable for surfacing the realities of power, regulation, and narrative in pro sports. But from what I understand of the facts that are out in public view, one could objectively draw several different conclusions. But it also shows how quickly circumstantial patterns harden into public "proof" and why journalistic rigor actually matters when concentrated wealth and regulatory ambiguity are in play. The most basic of journalistic questions haven’t been answered yet in this case: Who knew what when, and why did they do what they did?
In the end, this entire saga is a living example of what we might term Pablo’s Paradox, in honor of Mr. Torre: The rush to bring hard-hitting accusations into the spotlight is always in tension with the patience needed to settle every last question. Torre’s work reminds us that journalism’s greatest challenge isn’t just unearthing secrets, but also resisting the urge to mistake the volume of evidence for the weight of proof. As Ballmer’s case shows, in sports and in journalism alike, the line between exposure and certainty can be razor-thin, and like in sports, getting there too soon can sometimes be as risky as getting there too late.