Bold Prediction: Steve Ballmer will be the owner of the Dodgers 12 months from now (half joking).

LA is a one-team basketball town & now’s the time to stop pretending this can change. The Clippers don’t have any history or nostalgia worth saving in LA & the basketball operations are dead for the near future

Steve Ballmer should just accept this & resurrect the Sonics in Seattle

Sell the Intuit Dome to the Lakers & use the money to fund a new arena in Seattle. Build Sonics basketball courts all over Seattle

The team won’t have any draft picks to start the Seattle era, so free agency will be extra important. Start with Kevin Durant

Ballmer has always wanted a real rivalry with the Lakers. They’d still be in the same division & he wouldn’t have to convince people in Seattle to be Sonics fans

If Ballmer put the same energy & passion into the Sonics as he has the Clippers, it’d be an entertaining journey to watch

ESPN released an article on Aug 17: Sources: NBA has no evidence Ballmer funneled money to Leonard via sponsors.

Even after NBA called it inaccurate, they released a statement saying they stand by their reporting.

Yesterday, "ESPN Insiders" released another article documenting the NBA's findings, but with no reference to their original story. Additionally none of the original authors have posted about the findings on twitter:

• Don Van Natta Jr.: No acknowledgement
• Baxter Holmes: No acknowledgement
• Ramona Shelburne: No acknowledgement on twitter. Did do an interview on ESPN LA, but didn't admit being wrong in any way.

Puck News also released a video titled Did Pablo Torre Get the Kawhi Leonard Story Wrong? on Aug 24 with Peter Hamby and Jon Kelly. Now with the findings out:

• Peter Hamby: No acknowledgement
• Jon Kelly: No acknowledgement

Journalists love to ask people "for comment" when they do something wrong, but seems unlikely any of these will admit being wrong themselves.

Feel free to comment other people to add to the list.

Following this Clippers saga has been such a roller coaster, and there’s no shortage of takes on what this all means for the NBA, for its wealthy owners and partners.

To me though, one thing has become exceedingly clear: Pablo Torre is doing journalism the right way, and in doing so, he’s exposed the decay at the roots of the entire media ecosystem. Reading and listening to everyone’s post-investigation coverage has been rough, to say the least. Because recapping ain’t journalism.

Pablo could have avoided breaking a story that implicated one of the richest and most powerful owners in sports. He could have caved to corporate pressure or pulled a Haberman and written a book that would have made waves for a week or two. Instead, he stayed the course. Why? I guess only Pablo can say, but it seems to me he just really cares about intrepid, pound-the-pavement journalism. He was the kid who grew up trying to figure out who Deep Throat was, I’m sure of it.

Maybe the work he just did will inspire a bunch of little Pablos out there, but let’s face it: he got his masters in journalism at Columbia, he became a fact-checker at SI, he worked at ESPN for 10+ years. Those pathways are largely closed and the Gen Alphas aren’t watching All the President’s Men. And why would they? The Washington Post is owned by one of the guys its remaining journalists should actually be covering closely.

So while I’ve been glued to this story and Pablo’s part in it since his first Kawhi pod, I’m finding it a hard thing to celebrate. Because we’re seeing more of an end to something than a beginning.

Bill Simmons in 2025 when Pablo did a story on Belichick - "Pablo Torre would have done a podcast and then a media tour about it afterwards… This f—— guy! I've never seen anyone dine on a stupider story for a week and a half, pretending you're a journalist."

He just is!

Shout out to Uncle Dennis, just going hard in the paint even after everyone gets told to report his type of B.S. Has one of the richest men in the world absolutely scrambling to finalize deals, securing tens of millions of dollars for himself and his nephew.

I have an amazing uncle who influenced my life a lot, but I'd rather have 50 million dollars.

Any sickos up watching? Cheers to an early weekend for me

Even as a Lakers fan reveling in Clippers misery, the best part of this pod was Chuck detailing explicitly going into a casino to place his first football bets of the season while Bill just sat there silently.

The best part is I’m sure Chuck has no idea and Bill just sipped his coffee.