The Clippers incident has been the biggest test of the league s Xiaohua era, and solid evidence has become the key to the investigation.

We have met the angry Adam Xiaohua before.

Xiao Hua said on April 29, 2014: "Mr. Sterling's views are extremely offensive and harmful. These words come from an NBA boss and will only deepen the harm and make me feel personally indignant."

That day, if you remember, Xiao Hua was the NBA president at that time for less than three months, and announced that he would ban Donald Sterling, a long-time Los Angeles Clippers boss, from participating in NBA affairs for life and imposed a fine of $2.5 million, the maximum amount allowed in the NBA charter at that time. A previous recording was made public, in which Sterling made several racist remarks against the black community. (Even Magic Johnson was involved in Sterling's verbal trash.) Xiaohua also pushed the league bosses to force Sterling to sell the Clippers and drive him out of the league.

Last week in New York, we did not see the angry Adam Xiaohua.

After the NBA board meeting on September 10, when talking about the Clippers, Kawhi Leonard, Steve Ballmer, Dennis Robertson and Pablo Torre, Silver looked more like a guest trying to get rid of the boring conversations at the cocktail party.

Xiao Hua told reporters after the board meeting that it refers to the company that has some kind of "unusual" arrangement with Leonard, which is at the heart of the case: "Frankly speaking, I have never heard of Aspiration before, and I have never heard of any rumors about Leonard's endorsement contract, or any cooperation with the Los Angeles Clippers. So all this is brand new to me."

In the following time, Xiao Hua has taken back his statement.

But as the league's investigation of the Clippers and Leonard officially unfolds, it's better that he keeps the "stick" in his hands and the anger in his heart.

We have not yet got the answer from the Clippers version to respond to the question that ultimately ruined Richard Nixon's presidency. In June 1973, at the Watergate hearing, Senator Howard Baker (Republican, Tennessee) famously asked:

"What did the president know? When did he know?"

We don't know to what extent the Clippers are clearly aware of the $28 million contract signed by Leonard and Aspiration plus $20 million in company stock. Not only does this endorsement contract get more than the company’s other star spokespersons (such as Leonard DiCaprio), it also makes Leonard earn more than his sneaker contract with New Balance every year. We don't know whether the Clippers are just working with a team's partner company to boost Aspiration's brand value or whether they are actually co-conspirators in the salary cap avoidance program that the league has never seen before.

At this point, Mark Cuban, the former Mavericks boss who recently posted crazy posts on Twitter to defend Ballmer, is right:

There is no solid evidence yet.

However, Torre and his Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast reveal a lot of "smoke" week after week. Very much smoke. And Xiao Hua must truly understand the interests, because he and the alliance are rushing to the "scene of the incident". Most people in the

The league do like Ballmer and respect the work and resources he put into the league's affairs. As chairman of the Board of Audit Committee and his efforts to enhance the Clippers brand since he bought the team from Shelley Sterling for $2 billion in 2014. This is also why Xiao Hua chose to "let due process advance by itself" attitude after the board meeting: many team bosses also hold the same view.

But judging from the content currently disclosed by Torre's podcast and subsequent reports from other media, many people are not tolerant of the initial impression of Ballmer and the Clippers. If the league finally finds solid evidence of avoiding the salary cap, then the understatement of punishment will be far from enough.

The entire league will pay attention to the investigations carried out by Waltell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz. The law firm has led the league's investigation into the Sterling recording incident, and if it ultimately proves that there are behaviors to avoid the salary cap, it will impose severe sanctions on the wealthiest boss in the NBA.

You may still remember that in 2022, after the 10-month investigation by the law firm, the alliance suspended the then Sun boss Robert Savo for one year and fined $10 million for allegations of toxic working environments for women and minorities. At that time, LeBron James and Chris Paul expressed disappointment at the league's penalties. If the salary cap is evaded in the Clippers case, many teams in the league hope that the Clippers must pay a significant price.

A senior NBA executive said on Tuesday: "Once a violation is found, it will be a heavy penalty or it will be a roadmap for everyone."

Of course, Ballmer, who insists that he is innocent of the team, deserves due process, and so do anyone else. There is no doubt that the Clippers deny that they did something wrong. It is also unquestionable that the burden of proof is on the league side, to prove that in Playa Vista, California, the Clippers' headquarters in 2021 did have misconduct.

Conclusive evidence is often difficult to find, but Torre's unremitting efforts over the past few months have dug up a clue that almost points to the "smoke from the muzzle".

If the NBA finally finds the Clippers guilty, it cannot treat the Mavericks as they did in 2018. At that time, the team launched a seven-month investigation under league supervision, confirming the report of Sports Illustrated on the club's systematic toxic working environment for women.. To put it bluntly, the Mavericks' "punishment" is nothing more than a $10 million "donation" that the league tactfully called, funded by Cuban to support organizations that are "dedicated to promoting women's leadership and development in the sports industry and combating domestic violence."

Of course, that is noble and helpful, but there is no word "fine" in it.

In 2014, when TMZ website released the infamous recording of Sterling and his mistress, Shawhad drove Sterling out of the league, there was no such vague treatment. The recording did not reveal Sterling's specific illegal behavior. Sterling's words did not violate the law.

They are just... disgusting.

However, the NBA and Walker Lipton started and ended a survey in just three days, and the core of this investigation seemed to be only one problem:

"Donald, is this your voice in the recording?"

"Yes, it's me."

"No other problem."

The whole process took only 72 hours from beginning to end.

Of course, those remarks and investigations also coincided with the first round of the playoffs, when Sterling's Clippers were playing against the Warriors. The reality facing Xiao Hua is that if he doesn't take a heavy blow to Sterling, the six teams and three playoff games that were arranged on April 29 that night would be collectively boycotted by the players. So, he took action decisively.

Of course, the "Leonard incident" will take longer to investigate. A third party involved: Aspiration, the company went bankrupt earlier this year, and its co-founder Joe Sanberg agreed in August to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, when Sanberg defrauded Aspiration investors, including Ballmer, for a total of $248 million. This seems to be Ballmer's core defense: I'm cheated like everyone else.

But Torre's report revealed an unusual unified memory: when Leonard reached an agreement with Aspiration, many former employees of the company's finance department firmly believed that Leonard's contract with Aspiration:

1. It is a "no-show" arrangement, and Leonard can get the four-year promised $28 million without actual work;

2. It is obviously intended to circumvent the NBA salary cap;

3. The contract stipulates that if Leonard leaves the Clippers, the agreement will expire;

4. There is evidence that before Leonard signed the Clippers in 2021, his agent Robertson had asked other teams for similar evasion plans. Andrei Cherny, co-founder of

Aspiration, told TA via email last week that Leonard's work was not a "no-show", but he did not provide the latter's specific job responsibilities, nor did he explain why there was no record of what the latter did for the company. (In addition, other company executives' memory of Leonard's arrangements is different from what Cherny said.)

Again, this matter will be long and complicated. Former Aspiration executives are not under the jurisdiction of the NBA and do not have to cooperate; the NBA has no subpoena rights. Many personnel at all levels of the company must testify. For the clearest situation, Leonard himself and/or his agent Robertson must provide information. The Clippers must of course cooperate: not only Ballmer, but any executives who know Leonard and Aspiration's arrangements (if they do know).

A senior NBA executive said of Clippers executives: "Once they communicate with the NBA, they'd better give a more convincing answer than Ballmer's interview with ESPN last month." However, besides whether Ballmer and the Clippers violate Article 13.1 of the NBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement, there is another equally important principle worth paying attention to.

In our current era, objective truths are often shattered into pieces and rarely re-patched into a coherent whole. Our information ecosystem has been contaminated with misinformation, and this virus penetrates into every aspect of our lives. No matter what we believe, you can rest assured that there will always be someone or some kind of existence that may be someone with a good salary, or it may be a free robot that goes out of its way to make you wonder if what you see or hear is really as you see. They do this for selfish purposes; as for whoever benefits the most, leave it to you for your own judgment. This attack on the truth is intended to destroy our perception of shared, widely accepted beliefs. The news reports provided by

Torre are not intended to prove something without a doubt. But news, good news, will guide you in a clear direction. It is saying, "This is what I know right now. Tomorrow, I hope to know more." In the movie Insider, Al Pacino's "60 Minutes" producer Lowell Bergmann, who presented the reporter's creed clearly, said, "I got two things: angry, and curious." Of course, the NBA's system arbitrator, technically, will rule whether Walker Lipton's investigation can initially prove the salary cap avoidance behavior. But it was ultimately Adam Shawheat who decided Ballmer's fate. If he finds Ballmer and the Clippers violate the rules, he must unleash the determination he showed when he imposed severe punishment on Sterling a decade ago. That punishment was not based on legal violations, but was out of justice and could not look back. Because he knew that the truth was right in front of him.