Pablo Torre's Hot Streak Continues After He Released Even More Incriminating Evidence Of Additional Shady Payments Made By The Clippers To Aspiration

Sean M. Haffey. Getty Images.

What, you thought we were done with this story? Ha! You fool. If anything, we haven't even scratched the surface when it comes to this whole scandal so my advice to you would be to get comfortable, grab your popcorn and let's dive in.

The beauty of this entire scandal is the fact that every time someone from the NBA to Mark Cuban tries to refute what Pablo Torre reports, he drops the hammer with more cold hard facts. How none of these people seem to understand Pablo Torre has ALL of the receipts and all the evidence he needs is beyond me. Take our latest update that came this morning in regards to some additional shady payment activity by the Clippers. 

Man, Mark Cuban really walked himself into that one! What I now cannot wait for is how the team/league/Cuban tries to spinzone their way out of this

You have to admit, it's pretty funny that the exact example that Cuban gave of how the Clippers could circumvent the salary cap.....is actually what it appears they did in an attempt to circumvent the cap. He tried to spinzone this new evidence himself with a 10,000 word Twitter post, but nobody is reading all that. The paper trail does the talking if you ask me.

Now, it'd be one thing if this was all Pablo brought to light today. Unfortuantely for the Clippers, it was not

Gee, I wonder what Uncle Dennis could be referencing in that text message about things dragging? Could it be…the fugazi payments that were part of this "no show" job? Surely all those payments from the Clippers is because Steve Ballmer was duped by a scammer! Nothing to see here!

The deeper this whole thing goes and the more lies that are thrown out there, the worse it seems to get for the Clippers. In addition to that letter, in addition to those texts and payment history, there's also this

I mean what more does Adam Silver and the league office need? They wanted a smoking gun, well what the hell are we calling all of this hard evidence that Pablo Torre is bringing to the table? Is this not a smoking gun? The thing is, the CBA doesn't even require that! It sure seems like everyone involved didn't think Pablo Torre would be able to provide this level of incriminating evidence, which is what makes this all so fun to watch. Remember when Adam Silver tried to say he had never heard of this company or the deal with the Clippers? It took two seconds for Pablo to prove he was full of shit

which led to Silver immediately trying to backpedal on his initial claims. He got caught and tried to spinzone it

The same is true now when it comes to all of these payments by the Clippers. Every time they try and deny it or provide some sort of excuse/rationale for why this all happened, here comes Pablo Torre with the actual proof that shows what really went down. 

At this point, the NBA's hands might be tied. There's simply no way that they can just pretend like this wasn't cap circumvention and that there's actually "nothing to see here". You cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube. We've seen the documents, we've seen the reporting that has only become more credible as more evidence gets presented, there's simply now way you can operate moving forward as if nothing happened or was going on.

So what happens? In a blog the other day I talked through the different penalties that are allowed under the CBA

initially I didn't think Kawhi's contract being voided was likely given what that would mean for the rest of the league. We all know he's not leaving CA and would end up on the Lakers for the minimum or some shit. For a league that is obsessed with competitive balance nowadays, that felt a little too strong.

But now? After this additional reporting? I don't think we can rule it out. It feels like the NBA now has to really drop the hammer in terms of punishment, because what's stopping another rich as fuck owner from doing the same if the penalty isn't severe? My gut still says massive fines, Ballmer being banned for a year, and a loss of a shit ton of picks is where this settles, but I also have a feeling Pablo Torre has even more up his sleeve that will probably come out once people try and discredit today's reporting.

Considering the entire integrity of the NBA is essentially on the line here, you can't be lax when it comes to the penalties. Then again, nothing about this stuff from the NBA side is passing the smell test, so who the hell knows