Pablo Torre Finds Out

As Kawhi Leonard resurfaces, Pablo shakes loose written proof of the Clippers trying to help make their star do something — anything — for a scoreboard company. David Samson beams in with meditations on an emergency: how the governor of Rhode Island paid hundreds for an NBA ticket, how to hide millions in a stadium construction site... and how much a billionaire owner really knows about the cost of doing business.

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Is a mysterious substation — looming over an NFL practice facility "like The Eye of Sauron" — really causing a wave of injuries? Pablo teams up with Wendy Zukerman of the "Science Vs" podcast to map the actual electric waves, explain the cancer research and pore over the football data, to determine why the grass is always browner... on the other side of a deep story.

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The 25-year-old girlfriend is one thing. But as the greatest football coach of all time attempts to salvage his final act, the University of North Carolina is now investigating GM Michael Lombardi — aka Bill's Guy. Bruce Feldman of The Athletic explains how an old-school consigliere stepped on campus, in the middle of an already slimy era of college sports, and left Belichick a laughingstock.

• "North Carolina put Michael ...

Sophie Cunningham brought the Riley Gaines School of Victimhood to the WNBA, and then attempted to walk it back — but not before protests, counter-protests, and all the social-media engagement that hate can buy. Also, Katie Nolan and Michael Cruz Kayne react to a troubling and unbelievable fetish map of the United States.

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How high up did Kawhi Leonard's silent deals go? Pablo ties a larger-than-life scoop to Steve Ballmer's "seemingly impossible aspirations," as Hunterbrook Media's Sam Koppelman follows the money from South Dakota to L.A. — and Amin Elhassan is left to deconstruct the Death Star.

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She notoriously parlayed a tie for fifth into a star turn on Fox News. Now, as MAGA's top sports troll takes the WNBA's Sophie Cunningham under her wing in the trans-athlete debate, re-visit our Emmy-nominated, six-month investigation in partnership with Madison Pauly from The Center for Investigative Reporting. Who's funneling money into the radicalization of Riley Gaines? And what's her dark past lurking beneath the surface?

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The World Cup was a $15 billion jackpot. Then FIFA president Gianni Infantino overplayed his hand, with a secret plot to allegedly enrich the extended Trump family — and himself. The Athletic's Adam Crafton explains the NFL-inspired motives, political naïveté and potential downfall of the man who would be king of sport.

• More from The Athletic: Inside the Week That Shook Gianni Infantino, FIFA and the Football World

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Fans want a "smoking gun" with Kawhi Leonard. Portland doesn't want its new owner to move the team. Even Vegas is looking to fill a C-suite. TrueHoop's Henry Abbott — the skeptic-in-chief of NBA insiders — stops by for a reality check on the state of truth, big money and basketball scandal: Should you believe Adam Silver and his lawyers, who all answer to the 1 percent? Who gets to be in the most exclusive club in sport...

Just when you thought the Kawhi Leonard scandal was almost over, Pablo peels off another branch of the saga, with stacks of new documents and a group of reporters in tow. Amin Elhassan and David Samson reunite to trust the process of local journalism, meet another benevolent entrepreneur... and follow the public money, straight to the top — and back to The House That Ballmer Built.

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The hosts of TrueAnon and Pablo Torre obtain Trump’s personal cell number and debate what to ask him. Plus: “FreddyLA7,” Nicholas Adamopoulos, special presidential envoys, America 250, Woke 2, Tom Brady vs. Logan Paul, Zohran Mamdani vs. The Internet, Lori Lightfoot vs. The Fridge... and whether you should autograph a bomb.

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• Previously on PTFO: Six Degrees of Jeffrey Epstein, with ...

A three-hour puzzle in IMAX makes for great storytelling, but does Christopher Nolan make going to the movies feel like homework? The New York Times critic at large joins Pablo for a (relatively spoiler-free) cinematic sparring session: What goes wrong when an auteur plays with too many Hollywood toys? What goes right when Homeric text aligns with classic Damon? Is the casting really so "woke" after all? And why were those Greek is...

Forget hold music and Kenny G. Move over Michael Jordan and HGH. Smooth jazz — yes, smooth jazz — is the "stimulax" you've been sleeping on. From geriatric hotel ballrooms to the moneymaker-shaking high seas, correspondent Mickey Duzyj fights off the jazz police to report on the communal power of a comeback genre... then outs a closeted, world-champion super-fan.

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James Bordeaux was a 23-year-old in Kentucky, playing EA Sports College Football 27 for a living. Then Electronic Arts — the $50-billion mega-developer backed by the Saudis and Jared Kushner's private-equity firm — tried to extract so-called "microtransactions" from inside his beloved video game. So the furious creator put his mouth where his money is: leading the type of organic, populist revolt that has become all too...

Victoria's Secret mogul turned mega-donor Leslie Wexner introduced Epstein to Harvard. Now, a growing protest movement to strip his name from university buildings is getting shut down. What did Epstein's money man know? When did he know it? And who really calls the shots in higher education? The Harvard Crimson's Dhruv Patel returns for Part 3 in our series on America's most prestigious school and most notorious predator, to examin...

A superstar held up by the salary cap. A billionaire under the microscope. A league inquiry hidden from public view. De Smith has seen this playbook for punishment before. The former NFL union boss — and white-shoe law-firm investigator — returns to answer questions the NBA still won't: Who is "independent" when the league (and Steve Ballmer, in particular) pays the legal bill? Why would witnesses participate if they fa...

Virtual currency is a new cheat code. But when EA Sports tried to squeeze extra cash out of sports fans with so-called "microtransactions" inside its latest-college football title, gamers revolted... and won? Comedian Dan Soder, who's been playing video games with a future NFL coach since childhood, takes Pablo on a journey to the seventh circle of nerddom: What does this phenomenon say about private equity turning fun into an asse...

The Heisman? "An American classic." The World Cup? "Uncircumcised." A white-gloved Pablo welcomes back New York magazine's unfiltered, Pulitzer Prize-winning arbiter of taste to evaluate the history of competitive hardware as sculpture — with a curated tour of shiny balls, stolen chalices and one gigantic mystery box.

• Previously on PTFO: Athlete Statues, Reviewed by Pulitzer-Winning Art Critic Jerry Saltz

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Why were Taylor Swift's wedding guests and celebrity Knicks fans assigned "risk" scores inside Madison Square Garden's secret VIP database? Who was the karaoke MVP at the wedding afterparty? And would you rather test-drive the "most potent weed beverage known to man" ... or Bill Simmons' colonoscopy? Plus: Guy Fieri, Shaboozey, Polyp George, The Mike Vrabel Sliding Scale of Chivalry, The Blandino Tier and fogging the glass of exclu...

The reason for this re-air is dire: A wrongfully convicted football fan is running out of time — and legal avenues to pursue. When Pablo sat down with Cowboys superfan Charles Flores in January, Flores’ legal team was working on a Hail Mary: petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case — and to consider whether the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had violated his right to due process. On June 15, that eff...