I listened to the Pablo/Mark Cuban conversation, and I have to say I'm not really moved by Mark's assessment of the situation. He gives the example of how he has been scammed in the past in other business deals, how someone you trust may be working with someone else, and it lets your guard down on the due diligence, which may be the case with these Aspiration guys being so well connected. I don't really buy that argument, as Ballmer invested in this company several times, and made them the team's sponsor in a $300 million deal. They had to do some work investigating the people and the business before striking that deal.
Mark also says Ballmer is like Warren Buffett in his being a smart finance and investor guy, and that being so obvious with the quid pro quo here would make no sense. It would be unbelievably stupid to do so in such a blatant and sloppy manner, that it couldn't possibly be him involved in it. Basically Ballmer is too smart to do something this dumb. I don't buy it, but whatever.
Pablo brings up the Deandre Jordan episode from way back when he almost went to the Mavs, but backed out of the agreement and went to LA to sign with the Clippers at the last minute. Kind of a funny segment, since this was when someone famously claimed "Mark Cuban is driving around LA looking for Deandre Jordan!!!" Mark seems to think Ballmer learned his lesson with tampering with that one, and that he wouldn't do it again. I really don't buy that argument, rich people love to break the rules and use their wealth as a "get out of jail free" card.
Mark says multiple times that if you can prove that Ballmer knew about this deal and funded it to any degree, that "He's Toast!" That the league would not allow that, and that the penalty would be severe. He doesn't believe there will be a smoking gun found between them, and I agree with that. I don't think Ballmer has a paper trail to him or the Clippers execs regarding this endorsement, it's just too poorly constructed to be done by anyone that knows what they are doing. It is much more likely to be an Uncle Dennis/Kawhi deal on the side that the team may or may not have known about. But that's the real issue here, linking the Clippers in any way to making this deal happen, or knowing that an absurd amount of money was going to their star player. Hard to think they wouldn't have found out at some point, and just left it alone, but it's possible. Anyways, I hope they all get the book thrown at them, and then Dolan and whoever owns the Nets next.