“We believed we were doing this the right way, and any circumvention was inadvertent. In our effort to support our players in every way possible, we as an organization must be diligent in complying with the CBA.”
The receipts
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“I can make it really simple. We cannot pay a player anything beyond what's in his standard player contract, and we cannot cause anybody else to pay the player what's beyond their standard contract. And that would include, for example, sponsors, endorsers. That is verboten. We can't do that.”
“I [Mr. Robertson] cant [sic] wait on [Ms. Zucker] - I have to get paid.”
“collective workers to try to help [Mr. Leonard] achieve his financial goals”
“[Mr. Sanberg] is making an offer to Kawhi to be a spokesperson for 5 million cash plus 7 million in stock per year for 4 years as long as he is with the clippers. Can someone please come up with a wish list [Mr. Sanberg] should ask for from [Mr. Leonard]? [. . .] [Mr. Sanberg] doesn't really know what to ask for.”
“Gillian shared with me that you guys spoke. She asked me to help you draft thoughts for the Kawhi offer. Please review and let me know if this is how you were looking at this.”
“bring [her] in the loop with Aspiration[.]”
“I got a response from Aspiration since we spoke so we are engaged again. Thank you.”
“[W]e even found the email that makes the first introduction. It was early November, I won't remember the exact date. So where, where could any of this circumvention have happened? It didn't. It couldn't have. The introduction got made and then they were off to the races on their own. We weren't involved.”
“I have no idea why we'd do this”
“this is not a good investment of our capital [. . . .] It's $48M over 4 years for Kawhi, who is not a big name [. . . .] Not sure why we would make such a commitment considering we are already paying a huge sponsorship fee to Clippers”
“[Mr. Sanberg said] that the Clippers are promising to increase the amount they pay us per quarter in line with what we pay this guy [i.e., Mr. Leonard].”
“Business Back Opporutnities [sic] … [t]o be filled in by Eric Chan ($7M back in business)”
“I never wanted this Forum deal. Always knew it was super shady.”
“I cannot begin to tell you all the red flags with these deals. Just doing what I'm told at this point.”
“[I]f [the Forum Agreement] isn't fixed, I will tear up the Clippers contract, we will do nothing with Kawhi and we will go into litigation . . . . Should I call Dennis and Kawhi and tell them that deal is off because we got f**ked . . . . If [the Forum Agreement] isn't signed tomorrow, that's happening next.”
“[D]o you understand how serious this is? This is the ball game. If this isn't fixed, the Clippers / Ballmer / Sanberg / Aspiration relationship is being burned to the ground and so is the Clippers / Kawhi relationship. ZERO CHANCE there is a Kawhi deal if this isn't fixed. You know that right?”
“[Sanberg's] last comment was if we don't sign this deal he will sue Steve, the Clippers, and burn everything down. But let's chat when you can. He will also call Kawhi and tell them how the Clippers screwed everything.”
“Steve knows that when this deal blows up, Joe is calling Kawhi and telling him his $12M deal is no longer because of Clippers management, right? I think so, but just double checking.”