Smith talked about role of Leonard and Ballmer in 'no-show' scandal!
ESPN broadcaster Stephen A. Smith reacted to Steve Ballmer’s comments on the alleged ‘no-show’ scandal. Ballmer broke his silence about the allegations made by sports reporter Pablo Torre in his “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast and claimed that he was ‘conned’ by Aspiration, a now-bankrupt company backed by him. Smith, who launched a scathing attack on forward Kawhi Leonard earlier, talked about his belief in the scandal, considering how seriously the star forward has taken his work commitments over the years.
Smith spoke on the latest episode of First Take and said that Leonard is known for earning huge sums of money for doing absolutely nothing. With this remark, Smith took a jibe at the number of regular season games that Leonard has missed in the last eight years, which is 290 as per the NBA. “The number one reason this story has credibility is because it implies that Kawhi Lennon got paid for doing nothing. And that is what we know him to be,” the renowned broadcaster revealed.
He added, “45% of his games missed in the regular season throughout his career. 30% games missed in the postseason. When you need him, he just ain’t there. This last playoff series was an aberration simply because he showed up to play because it was a shock to everybody that he was going to be available.”
Ballmer sat with ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and said he was “mad” and “embarrassed” by the report which claimed that he and the Clippers circumvented the NBA’s salary cap rules in 2021. He said, “We made an investment in the company. All fine. I had no control over this company. This is important under the salary cap rules. I owned less than three percent of the company. There were investors who put in a lot more money than I did. I had no board seat. I had no control. Heck, it was a fraudulent company. It’s possible nobody had control.”
“At that time, we hadn’t introduced Kawhi to Aspiration. We were done with Kawhi. We were done with Aspiration. The deals were all locked and loaded. Then they did ask to be introduced to Kawhi. Under the rules, we can introduce our sponsors to our athletes. We just can’t be involved. We made an introduction… Where could any of this circumvention have happened? It didn’t. It couldn’t have,” Balmer added.
While Ballmer has refuted the claims made by Torre, the NBA has hired the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz to investigate the matter. It is the same firm hired which investigated Donald Sterling and Robert Sarver, the former owners of the Clippers and Phoenix Suns, respectively, when they faced misconduct charges.
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