September 4, 2025 • 7 mins
In this riveting segment of The Ben and Skin Show, hosts Ben Rogers, Jeff “Skin” Wade, Kevin “KT” Turner, and Krystina Ray dive headfirst into the explosive allegations surrounding LA Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and the alleged salary cap circumvention involving Kawhi Leonard. But the real twist? Mark Cuban jumps into the conversation—unprompted—and defends Ballmer in a fiery retweet that sparks a chain reaction across sports media.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Been in Skin Show ninety seven point one the Eagle.
Be listening for your chance to win Addison October Fest tickets,
will be giving them giving them away rather sometime in
the next hour and a half. Be listening for that.
And don't forget tomorrow we're gonna be at Pluckers in Dallas.
That is the Greenville Lover's Lane location, doing the show
from three to six. But right now it's time for this.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Now around the sports KTD quins as all the.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Sports yes.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
See. Yesterday we did talk about this situation going on
with the LA Clippers and this investigative report from Pablo
Tory of The Athletic You. Basically, he's saying that Steve
Ballmer circumented the salary cap by paying Kawhi Leonard a
little money on the side to do an appearance for
(00:53):
this company called a Spire and that company went bankrupt,
and there's a paper trail and there was an informant
and it's all kind of basically a side job to
get a little more money to keep you here on
our team, a different numbers on the contract without hurting
the salary cap. So we talked about how this is
really bad. Adam Silver has commented on this before in
(01:15):
the past, how this is like a cardinal sin, this
is something you just can't do. I think this hasn't
happened since I think like two thousand.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
The last time it happened was with Joe Smith for
the Minnesota Timber yeh wow. And if I remember correctly,
they did not allow him to sign with the team.
I think they made him move teams. And it costs
a first round pick. So there's big controversy over how
will this play out. Will the Clippers be punished? Surely
an investigation will start first. Could Balmer the extreme side
(01:44):
of it? There's a lot of crazy things. Well, Mark Cuban.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Did retweet this big story, and he retweeted Pablo Torre
and it says, I'm on team Balmer. For those that
don't know, Steve Balmer's the owner of the Clippers. As
much as I wish they circumvented the salary cap.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
That's what. That's a funny. That's a funny approach. As
much as I wish they circumvented the sour cap, I
wish they were dirty first.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Steve, isn't that dumb? If he did try to feed
Kawhi Leonard money knowing what was at stake for him
personally and his team. Do you think he would let
the company go bankrupt knowing all creditors would be visible
to the world. They got scammed by Aspiration, along with
many others crimes for which they pleaded guilty last week.
Scammers do scammy things. They did a three hundred million
dollars sponsorship deal with the Clippers in twenty twenty one.
(02:36):
That's a huge deal. The better the team does, the
more value the sponsorship pass. It actually makes perfect sense,
perfect sense that if they stole money from investors and
want the Clippers to succeed, why not give stolen money
to help keep their best player. It's sad that Pablo
Torre didn't take the time to find out how these
scammers pulled off their scam. The idea that the default
is Balmer's the bad guy is going to backfire on him,
(02:58):
to which I saw that went come on Mark Way.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
It feels like it just feels like a great.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Opportunity to just like I'm not as much in the
mix as I used to be. For me, it's go
play golf on an island somewhere, you know, and just.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Live my life. Cuban's never been into golf. Yeah, I know,
I'll take for him. It's got to be something else. Yeah,
I don't know. It does think it's TikTok videos with
weightlifters cost plus drugs. I noticed.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I understand for me, I'm gonna go ahead and get
out of that. Right.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
He just entered the fray unnecessarily. And you know, I
my take on this is, I'm not surprised. And I
assume that a lot of people try to circumvent the
cap and a lot of different sports and have for
a long time. It's kind of what people always do, right.
It's the same idea as uh, paying college players under
the table or whatever. You know, boys and diners got
(03:50):
accused of it in the nineties. So I think, yeah,
if I owned a team or had a partial ownership
and a team, I would sit out as well because
I would imagine and that there's skeletons in my closet. Now,
if I had no skeletons in my closet, maybe I
would jump in and try to get somebody's back, especially
if I really believe that. Yeah, here's here's what I
(04:11):
was thinking about yesterday as I was, you know, watching
Cuban's response, And did y'all see Pablo Torre's response to Cuban,
Have it right here?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Read it?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Dear Mark Cuban, care to come on the show to
discuss my reporting? I have some questions. I'd love to
ask you the exact same thing he did to Bill
Simmons about a month ago. Yeah, because Bill Simmons called
him out for his Jordan Hudson Bill Belichick reporting.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
So here's what I would say about all of this,
whether or not it did happen or didn't happen or whatever.
I'm we are living in a time where corporate crimes,
no one's held accountable for this stuff anymore. I mean,
everything is being deregulated and it's tied up in court
for years. And you know, honestly, the NBA has already
(04:53):
got all these problems with the gambling and how people
feel about that, and so I'm sorry to be cynic,
but what I've seen over the last seven or eight years,
I just feel like no one gets called to the
mat for this stuff anymore. And it's basically just gonna
end up being a fifteen minute piece on a John
Oliver show that nobody cares about.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
He cares about corruption anymore, didn't Cuban didn't.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
He also talk about the O six finals being rigged
or I saw.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Yeah. I didn't see him doing that, but I saw
reaction to it.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
He did it. I believe he did it. Was it
on DLLs? He did it somewhere reaching out.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I wonder it was probably tongue in cheek, right, because
he couldn't just say that as with an ownership stake,
and I do respect that was always the cool thing
about him buying the Mavericks as he is a Maverick. Yeah, yeah,
you know, and that whole deal. He's not going to
do it the way everyone else does it. I dig
that he's has the balls to get into these things,
but hopefully they're not. They don't have any skeletons to
(05:53):
worry about.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
So I haven't heard it, but apparently he did go
on with Pablo and Cuban did.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Oh wow from this, Yeah, tweeted thanks for having me on.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
How long did we talk?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Damn.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Okay, we did it, and I'm sure fine because when
Pablo had Bill Simmons on, they had a great conversation.
Simmons back down, quick back down quick because Pablo's good
and Pablo is very likable too. Yeah, so everyone's like,
I'm not getting into that with him.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Well, I mean, I'm sure the big big nuggets from
it will make the news cycle. Maybe, I mean tomorrow
will be talking so much Cowboys. Maybe we talk about
it on Monday. But as a wise man wants saying,
I promise you you can change the world, and they'll
just change it back again. The Rangers lost yesterday, guys,
that's two in a row. But wow, they're off today
and everything. Hey, everything is still in front of him.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
I like that. That's a good report. Everything is still
in front of him.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I think the Maritor's lost again though, and that's where
I get into my fun times here.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
That's even better reporting. I think this team lost.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
You know what they did because the damn elevator didn't
update the standings this morning.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Yeah, and I checked it last night.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
George Rangers one and a half games out of the
wild Card off tonight for the Cowboys and then a
three gamer against the Astros. Guess how many games back
there are the Astros four four and a half sweep
the Astros.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yep sweep Rosstros. It's on, it's on all right. There
you have it, there's around the sports. We will talk
Dallas coming up at five o'clock. But coming up next
in the weekly weekday update, are people really trying to
live to be one hundred and fifty years old? We'll
have that discussion next
Been in Skin Show ninety seven point one the Eagle.
Be listening for your chance to win Addison October Fest tickets,
will be giving them giving them away rather sometime in
the next hour and a half. Be listening for that.
And don't forget tomorrow we're gonna be at Pluckers in Dallas.
That is the Greenville Lover's Lane location, doing the show
from three to six. But right now it's time for this.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Now around the sports KTD quins as all the.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Sports yes.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
See. Yesterday we did talk about this situation going on
with the LA Clippers and this investigative report from Pablo
Tory of The Athletic You. Basically, he's saying that Steve
Ballmer circumented the salary cap by paying Kawhi Leonard a
little money on the side to do an appearance for
(00:53):
this company called a Spire and that company went bankrupt,
and there's a paper trail and there was an informant
and it's all kind of basically a side job to
get a little more money to keep you here on
our team, a different numbers on the contract without hurting
the salary cap. So we talked about how this is
really bad. Adam Silver has commented on this before in
(01:15):
the past, how this is like a cardinal sin, this
is something you just can't do. I think this hasn't
happened since I think like two thousand.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
The last time it happened was with Joe Smith for
the Minnesota Timber yeh wow. And if I remember correctly,
they did not allow him to sign with the team.
I think they made him move teams. And it costs
a first round pick. So there's big controversy over how
will this play out. Will the Clippers be punished? Surely
an investigation will start first. Could Balmer the extreme side
(01:44):
of it? There's a lot of crazy things. Well, Mark Cuban.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Did retweet this big story, and he retweeted Pablo Torre
and it says, I'm on team Balmer. For those that
don't know, Steve Balmer's the owner of the Clippers. As
much as I wish they circumvented the salary cap.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
That's what. That's a funny. That's a funny approach. As
much as I wish they circumvented the sour cap, I
wish they were dirty first.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Steve, isn't that dumb? If he did try to feed
Kawhi Leonard money knowing what was at stake for him
personally and his team. Do you think he would let
the company go bankrupt knowing all creditors would be visible
to the world. They got scammed by Aspiration, along with
many others crimes for which they pleaded guilty last week.
Scammers do scammy things. They did a three hundred million
dollars sponsorship deal with the Clippers in twenty twenty one.
(02:36):
That's a huge deal. The better the team does, the
more value the sponsorship pass. It actually makes perfect sense,
perfect sense that if they stole money from investors and
want the Clippers to succeed, why not give stolen money
to help keep their best player. It's sad that Pablo
Torre didn't take the time to find out how these
scammers pulled off their scam. The idea that the default
is Balmer's the bad guy is going to backfire on him,
(02:58):
to which I saw that went come on Mark Way.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
It feels like it just feels like a great.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Opportunity to just like I'm not as much in the
mix as I used to be. For me, it's go
play golf on an island somewhere, you know, and just.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Live my life. Cuban's never been into golf. Yeah, I know,
I'll take for him. It's got to be something else. Yeah,
I don't know. It does think it's TikTok videos with
weightlifters cost plus drugs. I noticed.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I understand for me, I'm gonna go ahead and get
out of that. Right.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
He just entered the fray unnecessarily. And you know, I
my take on this is, I'm not surprised. And I
assume that a lot of people try to circumvent the
cap and a lot of different sports and have for
a long time. It's kind of what people always do, right.
It's the same idea as uh, paying college players under
the table or whatever. You know, boys and diners got
(03:50):
accused of it in the nineties. So I think, yeah,
if I owned a team or had a partial ownership
and a team, I would sit out as well because
I would imagine and that there's skeletons in my closet. Now,
if I had no skeletons in my closet, maybe I
would jump in and try to get somebody's back, especially
if I really believe that. Yeah, here's here's what I
(04:11):
was thinking about yesterday as I was, you know, watching
Cuban's response, And did y'all see Pablo Torre's response to Cuban,
Have it right here?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Read it?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Dear Mark Cuban, care to come on the show to
discuss my reporting? I have some questions. I'd love to
ask you the exact same thing he did to Bill
Simmons about a month ago. Yeah, because Bill Simmons called
him out for his Jordan Hudson Bill Belichick reporting.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
So here's what I would say about all of this,
whether or not it did happen or didn't happen or whatever.
I'm we are living in a time where corporate crimes,
no one's held accountable for this stuff anymore. I mean,
everything is being deregulated and it's tied up in court
for years. And you know, honestly, the NBA has already
(04:53):
got all these problems with the gambling and how people
feel about that, and so I'm sorry to be cynic,
but what I've seen over the last seven or eight years,
I just feel like no one gets called to the
mat for this stuff anymore. And it's basically just gonna
end up being a fifteen minute piece on a John
Oliver show that nobody cares about.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
He cares about corruption anymore, didn't Cuban didn't.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
He also talk about the O six finals being rigged
or I saw.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Yeah. I didn't see him doing that, but I saw
reaction to it.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
He did it. I believe he did it. Was it
on DLLs? He did it somewhere reaching out.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I wonder it was probably tongue in cheek, right, because
he couldn't just say that as with an ownership stake,
and I do respect that was always the cool thing
about him buying the Mavericks as he is a Maverick. Yeah, yeah,
you know, and that whole deal. He's not going to
do it the way everyone else does it. I dig
that he's has the balls to get into these things,
but hopefully they're not. They don't have any skeletons to
(05:53):
worry about.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
So I haven't heard it, but apparently he did go
on with Pablo and Cuban did.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Oh wow from this, Yeah, tweeted thanks for having me on.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
How long did we talk?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Damn.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Okay, we did it, and I'm sure fine because when
Pablo had Bill Simmons on, they had a great conversation.
Simmons back down, quick back down quick because Pablo's good
and Pablo is very likable too. Yeah, so everyone's like,
I'm not getting into that with him.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Well, I mean, I'm sure the big big nuggets from
it will make the news cycle. Maybe, I mean tomorrow
will be talking so much Cowboys. Maybe we talk about
it on Monday. But as a wise man wants saying,
I promise you you can change the world, and they'll
just change it back again. The Rangers lost yesterday, guys,
that's two in a row. But wow, they're off today
and everything. Hey, everything is still in front of him.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
I like that. That's a good report. Everything is still
in front of him.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I think the Maritor's lost again though, and that's where
I get into my fun times here.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
That's even better reporting. I think this team lost.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
You know what they did because the damn elevator didn't
update the standings this morning.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Yeah, and I checked it last night.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
George Rangers one and a half games out of the
wild Card off tonight for the Cowboys and then a
three gamer against the Astros. Guess how many games back
there are the Astros four four and a half sweep
the Astros.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yep sweep Rosstros. It's on, it's on all right. There
you have it, there's around the sports. We will talk
Dallas coming up at five o'clock. But coming up next
in the weekly weekday update, are people really trying to
live to be one hundred and fifty years old? We'll
have that discussion next
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