00:00All right, John. So there's another part of this that I kind of want to dive into. And it is
00:07the Steve Ballmer part of this. And his, like, listen, initially he was all about, well, I was conned and
00:16they conned me and, you know, aspiration was the main culprit here and all that stuff.
00:22And now, like, the Clippers did have a response to this. I have to make sure we say that. The
00:29Clippers' public statement, I'm just going to kind of summarize it for you.
00:33I can paraphrase it for you if you want. I can put it in musical form.
00:36What are you going to do?
00:38You ready?
00:38Yeah.
00:39Since you caught me on the counter, it wasn't me.
00:43Shaggy? Shaggy?
00:44Started whispering on my shoulder, it wasn't me. Okay?
00:49Since you hit me on camera, it wasn't me.
00:51Saw the marks on my shoulder, it wasn't me.
00:54Heard the lies that I told her, it wasn't me.
00:57That's pretty much what they did.
00:59Pretty much what they told you in this rebuttal.
01:02Wasn't me.
01:03Hey, listen, man.
01:05Steve Ballmer, the only thing that he really suffers out of this is he can't go and see his toy
01:10live.
01:13It'll still be on the TV at his house.
01:15He'll build a theater room and make the greatest entertainment you could possibly have in a home.
01:20He'll invite a bunch of people over and he'll make it seem like he's at the game anyway.
01:25He's rich.
01:26He'll invent some technology through Apple or Microsoft that you'll wear a headset, you'll feel like you're at the game.
01:34You can smell the popcorn.
01:36He's that rich and that smart.
01:38This ain't going to hurt him.
01:39That $30 million don't do nothing to him.
01:41And that's what I'm saying.
01:42If you want to hurt him.
01:43The money I was never worried about.
01:44The money's irrelevant.
01:46Yeah.
01:47And so, again, if you wanted to really hurt them, you should have, like, Josh's idea was great of making
01:52the pick, the prize at the midseason tournament.
01:55Or you take that $30 million that you penalized him and put it on their cap to start every year.
02:02You have a $30 million penalty to start the year, every year, for the next five years.
02:06Like, that hurts Steve Ballmer.
02:09Losing hurts Steve Ballmer.
02:11The money is irrelevant to him.
02:13And so, this is why any time you find these guys' money, it's laughable because they're billionaires.
02:19Us poor folk, we can't even calculate how much a billion is to spend in a lifetime.
02:25They're spending it on things.
02:29So, this idea that the $30 million did something to him, it's laughable.
02:34Steve Ballmer, again, well, he'll be fine.
02:37He'll still be able to enjoy Clipper games.
02:39He'll just show up with the Bobby Valentine mustache on like he did with the Mets.
02:44Yeah, so, the Clippers' public statement says that the investigation was heavily biased and designed to support a predetermined result.
02:52What the NBA said publicly differed from what it previously told the team privately.
02:57That was a key point to me.
03:00The Clippers cooperated fully and will challenge the findings through every available avenue, John.
03:07Again, and this is what I'm saying.
03:08Steve Ballmer finna start snitching because he's basically saying, in straight form, the league told us the punishment would be
03:14one thing.
03:15And then they came out and then literally, you know, dropped the hammer on us.
03:19Because that's where the ESPN article, I think, came from.
03:22Correct.
03:23What I'm putting together here now is that the league told them these things that came out in that ESPN
03:30article that was by Ramona and all these different, like, top, like, Baxter Holmes.
03:34And then this happened.
03:36And the Clippers were probably like, whoa, wait, what?
03:38What did you just tell us?
03:40Try this on for size.
03:41What if the NBA did tell them everything that was in that ESPN article?
03:45And then the league got pissed that they leaked that.
03:48Oh, yes.
03:49To ESPN and said, oh, y'all think we playing?
03:52Y'all think this is a joke?
03:54All right, cool.
03:56We only told three people.
03:57Bruh.
03:58This is full tinfoil hat.
03:59This is tinfoil bodysuit.
04:00OK?
04:03They probably said, oh, y'all think this is a game?
04:06We only told three people.
04:07These are y'all the three people we told, unless y'all told somebody else.
04:10And we know y'all did, because we didn't tell nobody.
04:13So, OK, I got something for y'all.
04:15OK, y'all want to go around talking to reporters?
04:17All right, you're going to really have something to tell them when we drop this announcement.
04:21Maybe that's what happened.
04:22Because for them to say Adam Silver basically lied to their face about the punishment,
04:28that's bad business partnership.
04:31And I don't think that's the case.
04:33So, either something's not lining up.
04:36And I always say, when nothing makes sense, that makes perfect sense.
04:40So, somebody got to do some explaining.
04:43So, Steve Ballmer's attorney, David Kelly's letter to Adam Silver.
04:47Another attorney, great.
04:48Yeah, it called the investigation a, quote, witch hunt,
04:52and the punishment a gross injustice.
04:56They also claim that Ballmer spent nearly $50 million funding the investigation
05:01in related compliance.
05:03So, Steve Ballmer had to pay?
05:05Now it costs him $80 million.
05:06Who cares?
05:07Whatever.
05:07He got it.
05:08Yeah, but, like, why did the Clippers have to pay for the investigation
05:11if it's a league investigation?
05:13That doesn't make any sense to me.
05:14Because they created the infraction.
05:15Yeah.
05:15No, that makes perfect sense.
05:17OK, so, again, the league is a partnership of all the owners together.
05:22Yeah.
05:22So, if you create an infraction, the penalty is you have to pay
05:27to have the investigation done by an independent party.
05:30That makes total sense to me.
05:32Now, the fact that they ran it up on him,
05:34now that I have a problem with.
05:36If I'm Steve Ballmer, y'all gonna owe me some chips back.
05:39Because y'all ran this investigation up on me, period, to begin with.
05:42And then y'all charged me an extra $30 million on top of it.
05:44So, actually, this cost me $80 million.
