Historic Clippers penalty adds scrutiny to ESPN’s report around NBA investigation into Steve Ballmer

Beneath the surface of the NBA’s yearlong investigation into Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers, the reporting around the team’s attempt to circumvent the salary cap began to take on a life of its own.

Now that the NBA has stripped the Clippers of five first-round draft picks and fined the franchise $30 million, among other penalties, it is clear that Torre’s coverage held up to legal scrutiny.

The result, however, has not answered all the questions that came up along the way.

Pablo Torre published the first report on his podcast nearly a year ago, and the NBA announced an independent investigation soon after. In follow-ups, The Athletic and some local outlets added context on Leonard’s camp’s efforts to use team-affiliated business partnerships to generate additional income from his playing career. By the time Torre released episodes this past summer revealing multiple additional alleged deals, his series had grown to more than a dozen installments.

In August, however, ESPN put out its own report that cast doubt on the veracity of Torre’s episodic investigation. The story, from a murderer’s row of ESPN journalists — Don Van Natta Jr., Baxter Holmes and Ramona Shelburne — stated that the NBA had not found evidence that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer “funneled money through team sponsors” to pay Leonard.

Despite the report’s relatively narrow claims, it was widely received as contrary to Torre’s finding. The NBA almost immediately issued a public statement disputing it, accusing the Worldwide Leader of “numerous and significant inaccuracies.”

ESPN told Awful Announcing that it stood by its reporting.

Soon after, Torre’s partner in the Leonard story, Meadowlark Media colleague Amin Elhassan, went on air to deliver sharp criticism of ESPN. Elhassan noted that the NBA’s response to ESPN was stronger than it had been to any of Torre’s reporting, and argued against the insinuation he believed was present in ESPN’s story that Ballmer “didn’t do anything wrong.”

The NBA’s verdict signals substantive support for Torre’s assertions, but does not necessarily disprove what the August ESPN story claimed.

ESPN reported that the league found no evidence that Ballmer “funneled money” to Leonard through a sponsor. The report from the NBA’s chosen law firm does not, in fact, draw a straight line linking knowledge and intent to Ballmer’s partnership with Aspiration or to the three other partners with whom Leonard made side deals. Instead, it carefully lays out how Ballmer used personal investments in these companies and the structure of the Clippers’ partnerships with them to create the financial circumstances for deals to be made.

Still, ESPN’s original story about the NBA’s findings is, at best, technically accurate but not directionally accurate. With Ballmer now on the hook for $30 million and under suspension after previously being disciplined by the NBA for a similar issue involving his pursuit of former star center De’Andre Jordan, ESPN’s reporters may have missed the forest for the trees.

ESPN declined comment.

In a statement Wednesday, the Clippers appeared to threaten a legal challenge:

“We vehemently reject the NBA’s findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence. What the league told us privately differs from what it announced today publicly, and they have not held themselves close to the standard Commissioner Silver set at the start of this investigation to ensure it’s fairness and accuracy.”

Torre and Co. appeared to see this coming. For weeks before the NBA issued its penalty against the Clippers, Torre and his boss, Dan Le Batard, laid the groundwork for a fight between the Clippers and the NBA. In separate appearances, each suggested Ballmer and the Clippers might aim to undermine the league’s authority to enforce its own collective bargaining agreement rules and even its authority to govern team operations at all.

Others, meanwhile, continually questioned Torre’s reporting and even whether it met the editorial standards of the New York Times-owned Athletic, which licenses his show. The NBA’s verdict would seem to negate those concerns.

Ballmer’s enormous wealth certainly makes him a formidable enemy for the league, however, and time will tell whether his efforts to fight back reach that scale.