If you ask Mark Cuban, it\u2019s no problem at all. \u201cI don\u2019t think the Clippers did anything wrong,\u201d he told Front Office Sports on Thursday over email. \u201cSo zero problem.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Torre has certainly uncovered compelling evidence<\/a> that raises many questions. Why did Clippers owner Steve Ballmer continue putting money in Aspiration\u2014and also in the personal charity of cofounder Joe Sanberg\u2014even after news broke<\/a> that Aspiration was under investigation by the feds? Why did his Clippers co-owner Dennis Wong invest in it, too? In what world is a $28 million player endorsement deal involving no ads or appearances normal?\u00a0<\/p>\n The NBA has initiated an investigation to attempt to answer these questions. Such investigations take months, not weeks, and the league knows the public\u2019s attention span is short. Here\u2019s an easy prediction: This one won\u2019t end with the NBA making Ballmer sell the team like the Donald Sterling investigation did. Depending on what the league finds, it could yield anything from a major to a minor punishment to nothing at all. The NBA could conclude it buys Ballmer\u2019s thin explanation that Aspiration \u201cconned me.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m more interested in how a little-known carbon-credits fintech company secured a $300 million deal as an official \u201cfounding sponsor\u201d of an NBA team\u2014a price and designation that required NBA approval<\/a>.<\/p>\n The situation reminds me very much of FTX, the fraudulent crypto exchange that launched in 2019, surged to a $32 billion valuation by early 2022, and collapsed by the end of that same year<\/a>. Along the way, FTX cozied up to Tom Brady and Gisele B\u00fcndchen<\/a>, plus a slew of athlete endorsers. (Aspiration had Drake<\/a> and Leo DiCaprio<\/a>.) In March 2021, FTX entered a 19-year, $135 million stadium naming rights deal<\/a> with the Miami Heat.\u00a0<\/p>\n Why did the Heat, NBA, and city of Miami trust that a company that had existed for less than two years would be around for 19 years? In an interview with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried\u2014now serving a 25-year sentence in a California prison\u2014in May 2021, I asked him<\/a> that. He smiled and said, \u201cIt\u2019s been a pretty good year for us. To the point where, frankly, we don\u2019t need to rely on the other 18 years to have the funds for this.\u201d By January 2023, the company was dead and its logo stripped from the Heat arena.<\/p>\n FTX Arena<\/p>\n![\"FTX\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/FTX-Arena-009-5aac922b38.jpeg\")
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