09-05-2025, 10:49 AM
FWIW I just saw where Bobby Marks posted a video discussing this situation, and he understands the situation better than most because he's been there -- he was in the BKN front office when they were charged with something similar about 10 years ago. He said that in their case, it was the "optics" (it looked bad) when they had not actually done anything wrong, the investigation took about a month, and they were exonerated. He thinks that's what will happen here.
The question will be one of proving LAC/Ballmer had knowledge (of KL getting money for nothing ) AND control (directed by Ballmer/LAC) AND Ballmer's money was being given to the company for the express purpose of then handing it to KL. He says the NBA will have top-level forensic investigators who will get full access to emails, phones, documents, etc (the company is in bankruptcy AND there's a federal fraud investigation, so all of those types of things are already seized and investigated for other purposes too, so readily available). Marks' guess is that while the optics are bad on the surface, there's going to be nothing whatsoever proving any of those prohibited acts actually happened. Marks also makes the point that it will take WAY more than anonymous people in the shadows unwilling to come forward publicly supposedly claiming they knew it was a cap-circumventing scheme, and it seems there's the strong possibility that rather than Ballmer doing wrong, the money he gave them was a Ponzi-style scam where money was flying around (to sell the scam) but he was just one of the victims (along with others). We'll see what happens.
The question will be one of proving LAC/Ballmer had knowledge (of KL getting money for nothing ) AND control (directed by Ballmer/LAC) AND Ballmer's money was being given to the company for the express purpose of then handing it to KL. He says the NBA will have top-level forensic investigators who will get full access to emails, phones, documents, etc (the company is in bankruptcy AND there's a federal fraud investigation, so all of those types of things are already seized and investigated for other purposes too, so readily available). Marks' guess is that while the optics are bad on the surface, there's going to be nothing whatsoever proving any of those prohibited acts actually happened. Marks also makes the point that it will take WAY more than anonymous people in the shadows unwilling to come forward publicly supposedly claiming they knew it was a cap-circumventing scheme, and it seems there's the strong possibility that rather than Ballmer doing wrong, the money he gave them was a Ponzi-style scam where money was flying around (to sell the scam) but he was just one of the victims (along with others). We'll see what happens.