2025-26 Team Developments: Trades / Free Agents / News / Rumors / Ideas

We're talking about Ballmer, the tax isn't an issue. Guy's worth 150+ billion, what's an additional 40m in tax a year if he had to pay 6x that 7 million extra in the highest punitive tax bracket. He could pay 500m in tax every year for 300 years.

The clippers didn't gain an advantage in team building (unless you can prove that Kawhi signed there because of this stuff). But Kawhi did gain an advantage, so him and uncle Dennis should be punished for sure. Maybe give the clippers a 100m fine? That would be probably provide a decent enough incentive to not cheat. 100m is still a lot of money.

 

I 100% disagree.

Firstly, Joe Smith's deal wasn't waiting another year, it was actually signing for the minimum deal 3 consecutive years in a row, so the Timberwolves could get his bird rights, then they were going to offer him a max 4 year contract. Taking the minimum was way below market value, and then getting a 4 year max was above market value.

To put it into perspective, imagine our team, Lebron, Luka, Ayton, Smart, Rui, Reaves etc etc. And then all of a sudden we sign someone like Pascal Siakam, Lauri Markannen or OG Anounby for the minimum for the next 3 years, and then when we get their bird rights at 32, and sign them to the full max at 300m. That's why it's worse, because there's a real advantage, those guys aren't worth the minimum and we get an unfair advantage by paying the minimum for someone.

Signing a player like that is the difference between a ring and losing in the second round.

 

i'm saying the in principle, they had 7 million more to spend than other teams did. again, if you can just tack on to the max, you don't have a max, and you don't really have a cap. kawhi's functional salary was 7 million more than what he got. in the apron era, that would have negated their ability to use the mle had the money been properly accounted for.

their squabble is with the owners, not the fans. and the owners are the ones cheating themselves on these deals. which is why other owners should be annoyed with ballmer. if they're not, the players should definitely highlight this during the next work stoppage: you guys won't even abide by your own rules to keep our costs down!

and the only people making these huge endorsement deals are players that don't need it. a tiny percentage. the majority of players should be interested in helping the median nba player make more money. kawhi's no-show deal does s*** for them. the point you keep throwing out about money tacked on to the max not mattering is precisely why most nba players should be annoyed, too, imo. only a handful of people are getting this potential benefit. if they catch you pulling an aspiration on a sub-max, you're screwed!

not being able to stop everything doesn't mean you allow egregious s*** like the aspiration deal to happen. rich people will always cheat on their taxes; that's not a reason to disband the IRS or not to try to close loopholes as you find them.

so yeah, you close this loophole with clearer language, then you watch ballmer like a hawk for the next loophole.

meanwhile, you use the fact that you're not a court of law to punish violations of the spirit of your agreement.

 

this is interesting because the wolves would have at least eventually had to pay the piper, right? the punishment almost should have been forcing them to honor the under-the-table agreement! joe smith's max would have created a competitive disadvantage on the back end.

there are no downsides for ballmer in the aspiration situation, as the money not counted against the cap...still doesn't count against the cap.

 

Exactly 5 years ago today AD hit the “Kobe” shot vs Denver in the bubble.

 

Peak AD - that jumper was never the same

 

my theory is still that the injury caused rust which caused him to just abandon the shot. but maybe the three point shot was always going to be a bit too far out for him. but the midrange used to be a thing he could do, and he got it back up to the mid-40s from 16-23ft last year. he's taking fewer of them, though, and more threes, which he's not hitting enough to warrant it, imo.