Reply With Quote
peter holts wife shouldve given him everything spurs r cheap...........move the team to austin
Per Sam Amick: Uncle Dennis wanted part ownership, 24/7 access to private jet, guaranteed endorsement money, among other demands for neph to sign.
Lol.
peter holts wife shouldve given him everything spurs r cheap...........move the team to austin
ing amateur fancies himself an agent but doesn't even know how the CBA works.
I think trash hustler is more apt. Spurs talk never really confronted the Kawhi delimna of having to choose team iden y over players
. The FO cut Dedmon for much much less than this, and as good as Kawhi was, there's no way they'd give front office control away. I suspect Uncle knew it was a poison pill request
Begs the question if the Clips obliged with these requests?
He knew he wasn't getting that, just needed a reason to leave.
https://theathletic.com/1481876/2019...shared-article
Someone post the article if you can.
The Kawhi-Leonard-to-the-Lakers buzz was building in a big way.
These visions weren’t just coming from the outside, either, although there were plenty of plugged-in people outside those El Segundo headquarters who believed this might happen. ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith reported that Leonard was “seriously considering” the prospect of joining LeBron James and Anthony Davis and forming the NBA’s next Super Team.
Other reputable reporters followed with even stronger declarations: The Lakers were deemed “extremely confident,” and “LA’s true threat” over the Clippers as those first days of free agency unfolded. “Barring a last second change of heart,” said Fox Sports’ Chris Broussard, Leonard was about to don the purple and gold. There was even a person who put $10,000 down on a Lakers le just as the rumors of Leonard picking them heated up, and we all know Vegas has a way of hearing things before they happen sometimes.
But inside the actual Lakers’ facility, where their most influential operators were monitoring the situation in those three days after their July 2 meeting with Leonard, his uncle, Dennis Robertson, and agent, Mitch Frankel, there was a strong belief, for a short time, that Leonard would be a Laker. And then, after all the waiting and worrying about whether this pursuit would cost the Lakers dearly elsewhere in free agency if he didn’t come their way, the news broke. Leonard was joining the Clippers — along with Paul George, who would be traded from Oklahoma City in exchange for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Danilo Gallinari, five first-round picks and two pick swaps.
Nearly five months later, with the Clippers and Lakers set to face off in the NBA’s centerpiece Christmas Day game on Wednesday, resentment remains at the highest levels of Laker Land over how Leonard and his camp handled the process. And as if the growing rivalry between these intra-city teams wasn’t enough to make for a fascinating LA story, now there’s this previously unreported reality: According to three sources with knowledge of the situation, the NBA conducted a formal investigation of the Clippers last summer after complaints surfaced that Robertson had asked for improper benefits during the free agency process.
While sources with knowledge of the investigation said no evidence was found indicating that the Clippers had granted any of the lavish requests, the underlying message coming from Commissioner Adam Silver remains: He sees salary cap cir vention as a cardinal sin in the NBA, and will always keep a watchful eye on that front. If any relevant evidence of improper benefits surfaces in the future, the league will re-open the investigation and pursue the charges yet again.
“We did tell our teams (at the Board of Governors meeting in New York in late September) that we are looking into and continue to look into activities from this summer,” Silver told The Athletic earlier this season when asked if the Clippers were under investigation. “I will also say that we (were) trying to draw a line at this board meeting, and focus everyone on the (free agency) rules going forward. I think that (I’ll) just leave it at that. We are looking at the behavior from the summer. We have and we continue to look at it, but first and foremost we want to change the way business is done going forward.”
The stories about Robertson’s wish list made their way to the league office soon after Leonard made his decision, with concerned parties reporting that Leonard’s uncle had asked pursuing teams for much, much more than a max contract (Kawhi ultimately signed a three-year, $103 million deal with the Clippers). Sources say the league was told that Robertson asked team officials for part ownership of the team, a private plane that would be available at all times, a house and — last but certainly not least — a guaranteed amount of off-court endorsement money that they could expect if Leonard played for their team. All of those items, to be clear, would fall well outside the confines of the league’s collective bargaining agreement.
A source with knowledge of the Kawhi-Lakers talks said Robertson made those requests repeatedly to owner Jeanie Buss over the course of three phone calls that spanned several days, and that she made it clear that such perks were illegal and would not be considered. There was even a question raised by Robertson about why Lakers legend Magic Johnson had been given a small piece of Lakers ownership so many years ago, with Buss explaining that the two situations couldn’t have been more different – even beyond the fact that one was legal and the other was not.
When Johnson was forced to retire in 1991 because he had contracted HIV, the late Lakers owner and Jeanie’s father, Jerry, still owed him approximately $14 million on the 25-year, $25 million deal he had signed a decade before. So, Jerry decided at the time, the Lakers would enter into an equity relationship with Johnson in his post-playing days as a way of ensuring that he and his family – who feared the worst at the time – were financially secure.
Those uncomfortable discussions with Robertson, along with Buss’ growing sense at the time that the Lakers were being used as leverage to help Leonard get what he wanted out of the Clippers, are at the heart of the frustration that remains to this day. What’s more, sources said that Robertson made similar requests of the Raptors.
The presumption among rival teams, of course, is that he did the same with the Clippers. The ripple effect of those extraordinary requests would be felt all around the league last summer.
As Silver made clear to the owners during those New York meetings, he would be revamping some free agency rules and reinforcing the ones that were too often ignored. Tampering fines were doubled, from $5 million to $10 million. The league’s ability to perform random audits of teams was re-emphasized. The threat of suspension for executives was openly discussed, as was the potential for a loss of draft picks or even the voiding of player contracts as the most extreme of measures. The league even opened an anonymous tip line so that accusers could share information without fear of reprisal. The league’s proactive efforts didn’t end there, either.
Sources say the NBA has asked the National Basketball Players Association to assist with this problem as well by re-emphasizing the rules of representation with its 400-plus players: Only certified agents are authorized to negotiate directly with teams. Translation: No more relatives leading the way, unless they’re also certified as an agent.
Conversely, team officials are expected to engage only with the agent of record when it comes to negotiations. The NBPA, sources say, has no issues with the league wanting to remind its players about the rules of operation.
As one prominent agent said at the time about the league’s renewed focus on laying down the law over the summer, “This is because of Dennis. He didn’t know the rules.”
Said one owner: “This (league-wide discussion) is all because of Uncle Dennis.”
Robertson did not return a call for comment from The Athletic.
(Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein / Getty Images)
From the union’s perspective, this sort of situation is more of an outlier than a trend. Multiple owners and front office executives polled by The Athletic agreed that it’s exceptionally rare. It’s one thing for superstars to make special demands relating to support staff (i.e. asking the team to hire their trainer or associate), or perhaps asking for other perks around the edges. Those sorts of things happen on a fairly routine basis.
But this was something altogether different. And Lakers ownership, make no mistake, was not thrilled with how their part in the Leonard saga all went down.
Even before free agency arrived, the Lakers’ courting of Leonard was getting messy – even if they had nothing to do with the damage being done. Magic was at it again.
Just two months after his abrupt resignation as Lakers president of basketball operations in late May, when he made that bizarre exit out of the Staples Center and then torched Buss and general manager Rob Pelinka on national television in the weeks thereafter, Johnson told The Los Angeles Times that he had met with Leonard’s camp. The Times also reported that Johnson planned on being part of the meeting with Leonard and the Lakers, only to inspire a quick response from the NBA reminding him that — since he was no longer employed by the Lakers — that would not be allowed.
These were baffling moves, to say the least, considering Leonard and his family placed a premium on privacy and didn’t want the free agency drama to play out in public. Alas, Johnson had taken that tact anyways.
As one person involved in the process told The Athletic in July, “I truly believe that when Magic started telling the media about the meeting he had with Kawhi and Dennis, that sealed the fate of the Lakers.”
As the Lakers saw it, the notion that Leonard’s decision would be impacted by something Johnson did simply didn’t add up, especially since he was no longer part of their team.
“We did exactly what (Robertson) asked us to do,” a Lakers official involved in the process said. “They never said anything about keeping Magic’s mouth shut.”
Leonard, it should be noted, told Yahoo Sports in late July that Johnson speaking publicly didn’t play a part in his decision. Still, Johnson’s handling of it all sent the discussions sideways at the outset of the Lakers’ pursuit. And after everything they’d done to make room for him to come, they weren’t about to back out of the pursuit now.
Back in mid-June, Pelinka was being roundly accused of botching the timing of the Davis deal in a way that prohibited the Lakers’ ability to have enough cap space for a third max star. Opinions differed about whether Pelinka had indeed blundered, or if he perhaps had a Plan B in store that might salvage their ability to chase the likes of Leonard, Kyrie Irving, D’Angelo Russell, Jimmy Butler or Kemba Walker. Yet by the time July arrived, after Pelinka sent Moe Wagner, Isaac Bonga and Jemerrio Jones to the Washington Wizards in exchange for a second-round pick, he had cleared the $32 million worth of room and set the stage for a star-chasing summer.
Above all else, they were back in the game for Kawhi. Or were they?
While Davis and James have said publicly that they believed Leonard was serious about joining them and have been consistently respectful regarding his final free agency choice, some key Lakers officials still question whether Leonard’s interest was real or part of a sordid plan to aid his cause with the Clippers en route to joining them. The su ions that they were used as leverage aren’t hard to understand.
Until that stunning turn of events, there was no shortage of league insiders who believed the Clippers were trailing in the Leonard race. What’s more, Leonard’s well-chronicled desire to return to his home region in Southern California had left many people skeptical that he would return to Toronto.
No matter the intent, having a second suitor in Los Angeles was a key component in his bold plan that broke new ground on the player empowerment front. Consider this much, too: A source with knowledge of Toronto’s process said the Raptors never truly believed that the Lakers were an option for Leonard.
There was some skepticism within the Clippers’ group as well that Leonard was actually considering the Lakers, albeit not from their top decision makers. The driving force in that line of thinking, it seems, was the belief that Leonard wanted to build another le contender as the foundational piece rather than teaming up with LeBron and becoming the Lakers’ third new star on the scene.
But a source with knowledge of the Lakers’ thinking said they maintained the pursuit, in part, because one of their players had been told that Leonard truly wanted to come. There was a fear that they would lose out on other free agents while playing the waiting game with Leonard, but this calculated risk was deemed to be worth it, even if the structure of their meeting with Leonard wasn’t what they’d hoped for.
James and Davis had expressed a desire to take part in the meeting, to share their vision for the league’s latest Super Team in much the same way that the in bent Golden State Warriors had with Kevin Durant during that legendary Hamptons visit in 2016. James, who learned the power of sacrifice in his Miami ‘Heatles’ days, had made it clear privately that he would go to great lengths to empower both Leonard and Davis. But none of that mattered in the end, as Leonard’s camp requested that the July 2 meeting only include Buss and Pelinka. As was reported at the time, the meeting took place at a Westlake Village Four Seasons hotel 41 miles north of the Lakers’ facility.
Davis, meanwhile, would later share that he spoke briefly over the phone with Leonard.
“Somebody said he don’t really like all the recruitment and all that stuff, so I felt like I overstepped my boundaries,” Davis told reporters with a laugh.
And isn’t that ironic? Little did Davis know at the time how much recruiting Leonard had been involved in as he tried to find a co-star with the Clippers.
In the end, the Lakers aren’t about to complain about how it all turned out. Their James-Davis pairing has been nothing short of spectacular, and they enter this showdown with the Clippers with a 24-6 record that is tops in the Western Conference. The players they were able to add in the wake of Leonard’s July 6 decision — Danny Green, Rajon Rondo, Avery Bradley, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Alex Caruso, Troy Daniels and Jared Dudley — have fit in well while making them one of the league’s deepest teams.
Even still, the frustration in some Lakers corners about the unsavory nature of the Leonard subplot won’t go away anytime soon. So no, in other words, there will be no Lakers Christmas card being sent the Leonards’ way this holiday season.
(Photo: Andrew D. Bernstein / NBAE via Getty Images)
smart
"Sources" this, a "source" that, har har. Haven't people caught on about anonymous sources yet?
Amick is just kissing Faker ass so they'll give him media access. That's all it is.
He’s a weasel. Thanks for the 2014 le, now off, basically.
oh wow! Sure showed him!
I’m sure OP and PATFO love seeing demar and LMA midrange their way to an 8th seed sweep (best case scenario).
Spurs owner skimping out on medical staff and got rid of all the cheerleaders. They can't afford any of Uncle Dennis's demands anyway
I’ll take this ty season and rebuilding only to get away from Kawhitter and his uncle. Lol letting another man control you.
Wasn’t this reported months ago? Oh it must be the timing of the Christmas game. lol. Maybe they’ll chant uncle Dennis and rattle Kawhi. Wait. Teams have done that too to no avail.
Lost in the article is ...
While sources with knowledge of the investigation said no evidence was found indicating that the Clippers had granted any of the lavish requests...
Nothing wrong with what he asked tbh
Funny note: I've been contacted by an investigator regarding things I've posted about Uncle Dennis and nephew. Someone (NBA? Lakers? Raptors?) is angry and looking for dirt on those two
Not surprising at all, the Raptors said the same thing
Kawhi could become a world-class diplomat.
He's already something that the Spurs, Raptors and Lakers can all agree upon . . .
lowkey top spurs insider on the net..
This isn't about the Spurs at all, at least directly. If it was reported before, this is a better sourced story, discloses the investigation, tells us how mad LA is still. Also lol that everyone calls the new anti tampering laws the Uncle Dennis laws (instead of the LeBron James anti tampering)
As I’ve been saying from the start, the true villain behind all of this is Uncle Dennis, not Leonard. He’s the mastermind pulling the strings, while Leonard was his brainwashed puppet.
Fantasy land but if George was worth these assets, imagine the haul Leonard would've brought if he asked for his trade in Summer 2017, before his knee 'injury' plummeted his value.
Seriously paywall worhty
They investigated and it was closed.
What funny timing of the article.
them
Neph isn’t winning a single chip from now on.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
