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[Shanoff] Pablo Torre on the NBA’s Clippers report: “The sensation that I have felt personally is that people have been almost delighted that maybe we can hold the richest people in the world to something resembling a standard of accountability.”

4 September 2026 at 13:32

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7562990/2026/09/04/pablo-torre-steve-ballmer-clippers-nba/

I really hope that people don’t think that the only way that you can trust reporting like this is if the entity or the institution that you’re investigating takes their hand and raises it and says, ‘Yes, the journalist was right.’

But I also hope that people can evaluate the work on its merits and learn to trust that our process is rigorous in ways that are bordering on unhealthily obsessive, which is a separate problem, but hopefully one that they can trust.

The sensation that I have felt personally and have felt in our audience — such that I can get a sense of what has been a head-spinning day — is that people have been almost delighted that maybe we can hold the richest people in the world to something resembling a standard of accountability.

I think that is what I feel most acutely: That maybe that’s possible. That maybe a collection of documentary evidence and human sources who are brave enough to talk to a journalist, and months of research that have been vetted legally and otherwise, can combine to create something like consequences at a time at which those extraordinarily wealthy people seem to be able to avoid them.

I think that we have the ability to do something that the rest of our culture is yearning for, which is make people who are too rich to care about anything resembling the public interest worry that maybe they need to tell us the truth.

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[Pablo Torre] You know we’ve been waiting for this day for a year. Accountability for the wealthiest people on Earth is hard to come by. Thank you for believing in the power of independent reporting to accomplish it. (And, yes, more to come.)

3 September 2026 at 08:42

Source: https://www.pablo.show/p/it-happened

From Pablo Torre:

If you’ve been following our (ongoing) investigation into the Clippers and Steve Ballmer and Kawhi Leonard, you know we’ve been waiting for this day for a year.

We published Part I on September 3rd, 2025.

This, Part 15, we streamed, live, last night — on September 2nd, 2026 — roughly 90 minutes after the NBA announced its punishment and the league’s outside counsel, Wachtell Lipton, dropped a detailed 35-page report.

Accountability for the wealthiest people on Earth is hard to come by.

Thank you for believing in the power of independent reporting to accomplish it.

(And, yes, more to come.)

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[Charania]: BREAKING: The NBA has ruled on the Los Angeles Clippers in for salary cap circumvention investigations on Kawhi Leonard after yearlong probe -- stripping the franchise of 5 first-round picks, issuing a $30 million fine to owner Steve Ballmer and suspensions for Ballmer, Lawrence Frank

2 September 2026 at 15:22

Shams Charania has posted the following:

BREAKING: The NBA has ruled on the Los Angeles Clippers in for salary cap circumvention investigations on Kawhi Leonard after yearlong probe -- stripping the franchise of 5 first-round picks, issuing a $30 million fine to owner Steve Ballmer and suspensions for Ballmer, Lawrence Frank and Gillian Zucker, sources tell ESPN.

Kawhi Leonard will have to pay $700,000 in restitution for improper benefits by the Clippers for his uncle and former business rep, Dennis Robertson. No contract void or suspension for Leonard. And Robertson -- who was fired by Leonard in June -- is being banned by the NBA from all business dealings.

Link to the story: https://www.espn.com/contributor/shams-charania/5378a64df7b61

Follow up:

Per NBA: The Clippers shall forfeit five first-round draft picks, one in each of the 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032, and 2033 NBA Drafts.

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is suspended from all league and team activities for one year for knowingly seeking to help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities, for approving a business deal that he knew was a precondition for Aspiration to enter into an endorsement agreement with Mr. Leonard, and for his failure to create conditions under which his organization abided by the NBA’s circumvention rules.

Clippers President of Business Operations Gillian Zucker is suspended without pay for one year for being primarily and directly culpable for the impermissible endorsement arrangements and for providing false and misleading statements to investigators.

Clippers President of Basketball Operations Lawrence Frank is suspended without pay for six months for his involvement with the impermissible endorsement arrangements and for approving impermissible expenses incurred by Mr. Leonard and his family.

The Clippers organization and personnel are subject to a compliance and monitoring program overseen by the league office for a period of five years.

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