[Rome] “You’re one of the most successful business people in the world. You’re worth over 150 Bill with a B. But you got completely swindled by some dudes with a tree company? Yeah, I don’t know, Stevo. That sounds dumber than you think we look. Can you hear me, Ramona? I’m the one who got conned.”

33 comments

  1. To be fair, 69 year olds are kinda the prime age for conners and scammers to prey on. Poor fella should just let me run the squad at a discount, something like 5 million a year sounds fair

  2. Steve Ballmer was as much ”conned” by that company as all those people on social media being ”hacked” after posting questionable shit with massive backlash.

  3. I don’t want to hear that Steve Ballmer is too smart to not funnel money to Kawhi when the same guy didn’t think the iPhone was going to be successful

  6. Idk why people are even talking about that aspect of it. Kawhi literally got paid 48m *for no reason for doing nothing* and it just so happens that his team’s owner got 50m scammed from him by the same people who are paying his player almost that exact amount? If anyone believes that shit they’re dumb as fuck no further discussion needed

  7. He invested $50M, but somehow $48M of his investment ended up going to his star player in the form of cash and stock.  

    Because that’s what conmen do.  They take the money they conned you out of, and use 96% of it to benefit you.  

  8. There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and whatever Balmer is shoveling out there.

  9. The argument by Mark Cuban that “Steve is not that dump to leave such a trail like that” is already falling apart LOL

    So it’s either

    Steve was not that dumb to leave trails of NBA circumvention

    Vs

    Steve was dumb enough to get dupped by scam – > Steve himself said he was scammed.

    Either way, something does smell fishy kekw.

  10. If the nba lets this go I’ll never watch it again. Regardless of whether he knew or not, it’s clearly a rules violation at the highest magnitude. If the nba makes this go away, that just means they know others do the same thing. I’m looking at you NYK and that weird Jalen Brunson deal.

  11. Rome is a good example why it’s good to have variety in the media. It’s not very often I give a shit what he says but sometimes it’s nice to hear someone say the obvious in a condescending tone and not butter up the billionaire because it’ll effect your sources.

  18. Ballmer should be shutting up and letting his lawyers and media people talk. There is a high probability this will end up in a court room, and all these lies are going to sound terrible when he has to contradict them later, when subpoenaed and questioned under oath.

    After Adam Silver hands LAC their “franchise death penalty” there are going to be law suits. So many stakeholders, so much money that other people have lost or will lose over this.

    And think of all the gambling money that may have been lost or won due to this criminal conspiracy to defraud the NBA and the LAC fans?

    I still think there may end up being a criminal investigation at some point.

    Ballmer better have some fall guys and some cut outs between him and these “business transactions”. Saying he got conned, already keeps him from being able to deny he knew about the company, for example. Why does Ballmer even think he personally needs to spin this? Public perception of Ballmer doesn’t really matter, because most people don’t like him or don’t really care about him.

    Strictly amateur hour at his legal team and media team.

  19. Ballmer is willing to give up $50M let’s be clear here. The transaction is obviously “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” Ballmer give them $50M to give it, well most of it, to Kawhi to circumnavigate the salary cap and Ballmer will make sure that the tree company valuation soar to a billion. That’s basically it. Ballmer, Kawhi and Aspirations get away with it initially if not for Aspirations filling bankruptcy. We just know that they did that because Aspirations filled chapter 11! If Aspirations don’t go under then we might never know this kind of salary cap circumvention!

  20. I hate Jim Rome as much as the next guy but this is fucking hysterical. Gingerbread Man voice absolutely killing me

  23. Think the funniest scenario is Ballmer is actually innocent but the Clippers gets fucked anyways

  24. Good businessmen get caught up in bad deals all the time. The idea that Ballmer got caught in a bad deal and feels cheated is not implausible to me.

    It’s everything else. There is no other explanation for this failing company to shell out $48M to Kawhi Leonard. And Steve can say “I don’t know why they did what they did” all he wants, but that’s not going to fly in the court of opinion or with the other owners either.

  26. people gotta stop equating rich with smart. The richest people in the world and absolute idiots. They are usually good at nothing and if they are good at something it is 1 very specific thing and nothing else.

    In this case Balmer being dumb is that he thought he could do all this and no one would find out. Now he’s dumb enough to think we all will just buy his BS. the fact he is talking at all instead of instantly lawering up and saying nothing also shows how dumb he is.

    its also not just stupidity but the arrogance these rich fucks have that comes with the stupidity.

  27. Someone who was truly conned, who was truly taken by surprise over this whole thing, would be dragging their star player straight into their office and saying “WTF!?!” Not really seeing that. Just seeing “oh, poor brilliant and rich me, I didn’t know they were gonna give all my money to my star player 😭” GTFO with that shit. As prosecutors, fraud is often the most difficult to prove at trial because of the way *mens rea* is handled. You pretty much always operate by building the best circumstantial case you can, because you almost never have that smoking gun where the defendant lays it all out for you in an email or a recording or something. When you do, you get a plea. When you don’t, you have circumstantial evidence. A big one is finding behaviors that are inconsistent with statements. Here you have Ballmer saying one thing, but he isn’t acting consistent with what he’s saying. Where’s the lawsuit? Where’s the meeting with Kawhi? Where is he cooperating with authorities to help unwind the fraud? Where’s Steve saying he’s going to make sure he’s included in the restitution payments the court orders at Sanberg’s sentencing? It’s all a bunch of bullshit.

  28. Want to become a billionaire, have no ethics, screw people over, steel, and lie to everyone. It’s the only way.

  29. Ballmers PR Emergency people got Cuban and Simmons on the phone and told them to say “Ballmer couldnt have been this dumb” trying tio sow reasonable doubt.  Dude is guilty as fuck, the obvious truth is obvious.

  30. This whole storyline is so insanely dumb. Ballmer is a fool and Uncle Dennis and Kwahi are just dumb, greedy and completely tonedeaf. I hope he has to pay a considerable amount of money.

  31. The same guy who went on Jon Stewart and was bragging about making a website that took pride in combing through trillions for government transparency but is a clueless a victim when some tree planting hippy scammers hood wink him for $50 million? Fuck off.

  32. The thing I don’t understand about Ballmer’s “I Got Scammed!!!” defense is that the scam itself doesn’t make sense nor does it have an obvious goal.

    We’re gonna take 50 million from one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men, use most or nearly all of it to acquire a complete cypher of an NBA player, all in service of ???????.

  33. This is not the best argument: rich people can’t be dumb?

    Have yall seen… all of our government?

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