Pablo Torre Drops New Stunning Report on Steve Ballmer During Clippers’ Media Day

Pablo Torre dropped a new perfectly timed report on Clippers owner Steve Ballmer's alleged involvement in Kawhi Lonard's lucrative endorsement deal with Aspiration.
Pablo Torre dropped a new perfectly timed report on Clippers owner Steve Ballmer's alleged involvement in Kawhi Lonard's lucrative endorsement deal with Aspiration. / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
In this story:

There's no rest for the wicked—or for those trying to uncover the wrongdoings of the wicked, as in the case of sports podcaster Pablo Torre.

On Monday, Torre shared a new report on Steve Ballmer that raises more questions about the Clippers owner's alleged role in the Kawhi Leonard scandal. For a quick refresher, Torre alleged that the Clippers funneled millions of dollars to Leonard through Aspiration, a team sponsor, to circumvent the salary cap. Ballmer had invested a large chunk of money in Aspiration, which signed Leonard to a four-year, $28 million deal in 2022 for a "no-show job" that allowed the Clippers star to pocket that money outside of the NBA's salary cap restrictions.

As the NBA continues its investigation into Ballmer and the Clippers, Torre dropped another stunning piece of evidence to back his reporting.

Torre revealed new documents that prove Ballmer donated $1.875 million to a charity of Aspiration's co-founder, Joe Sanberg, in December 2024.

While Ballmer insists he was a victim of a scam run by Sanberg, who has since pled guilty to defrauding investors of over $200 million, Torre pointed out the odd timing of Ballmer's very charitable donation. The Ballmer Group announced the grant a few months after the arrest of Sanberg's co-conspirator, and almost a year after news broke that the federal government was investigating Aspiration, per Torre. Not to mention, it was over a year after the Clippers had already ended their partnership with Aspiration.

Torre poses a very important question for Ballmer to answer: if the Clippers owner felt he was being defrauded by Aspiration, why would he keep sinking money in projects run by the company's co-founder months after the jig was up? Why indeed.

Listen to Torre's findings below:

Woof. Torre knew exactly what he was doing dropping this report on the Clippers' media day.


More NBA on Sports Illustrated

feed


Published
Kristen Wong
KRISTEN WONG

Kristen Wong is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020. Before joining SI in November 2023, Wong covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL Network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. Outside of work, she has dreams of running her own sporty dive bar.