Pablo Torre Found Out!

I would refer to Pablo as an investigative journalist, but let’s be real, he’s just a podcaster who creates content. Dude doesn’t really find out much; his three career achievements so far seem to be reporting on Bill Belichick’s super-young girlfriend and why that was bad for the Patriots, making the rounds on the political show Morning Joe (whining about whatever is on his mind with Mika and Joe, who have both molded their tans to RFK Jr.’s Aged-Pigskin Brown™) and of course winning the Pulitzer for covering the Kawhi and Aspiration cap-circumvention saga for roughly more than a year. And while I would not call this post fantasy basketball relevant, this is a pretty nifty platform and since there are maybe like a few dozen Clippers fans out there, with none actually paying attention to the entire story, I do want to add a short-but-super-hot take to the current NBA discourse.

First and foremost, let’s get this out of the way. Am I biased? Yes. Does that make me wrong? Maybe, but maybe not…

Let me lay it out like this: I root for the Clippers, but they aren’t called the Ballmers. So if he and his front office did something wrong, so be it. Ain’t nothing on me, I personally didn’t circumvent the salary cap to pay Kawhi. As a fan, I just root for the team, what the owner does is completely out of my control and if he is guilty of malfeasance, punish away, I insist. Sure, I guess myself along with other Clippers fans could take the blame for something we didn’t do, wouldn’t condone, and can’t control. But I won’t and they shouldn’t either.

Why? Because go look up the last Clippers owner before Steve Ballmer and tell me what you think. Was he a better owner? Was he better for the Clippers? Was he better for the NBA? You can even watch the sappy but fun made-for-TV dramedy about the fall of Sterling… but when you do, be sure to look around at all the owners and ownership groups currently infesting the NBA right now. Are there other billionaires on that list? Yeah… And what about them? Any of them visit Epstein island? Any of them make their money in less-than-stellar ways? Any of them have side-deals with foreign entities? Are any of them fronts for foreign entities!? Yeah, so I don’t ever want to hear about ethics and its crossover with the NBA from any fan until they provide their team owner bios.

And now to Pablo, our hero… so look, I don’t have to dissect every little thing about his podcast series with a baker’s dozen of drawn out episodes, there’s already been a great source via ClippersTalk following the entire PTFO Aspiration coverage (you can watch/listen to one of the episodes here that breaks Pablo’s timeline and narrative) that does a great job of framing Pablo’s storytelling in as a neutral way as possible.

Or you don’t have to, I don’t care, because the main point is that for those who are paying attention, Pablo has already done immense damage to his own case the last couple of weeks by trying to morph his findings into something new, and I can only surmise it’s because the actual NBA investigation found nothing from his house of cards and the grift must keep going. Conspiracy? Maybe, but what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, is it not? After Torre’s long history of hyping and selling, the recent switching of narratives and broken timelines from that, combined with new ESPN reporting basically blowing Torre’s assertions out of the water, no wonder his official response was teasing a response when the time is “right”. LOL.

My man, it’s been a year, if you don’t have the facts to respond to this now, I doubt you ever had anything at all.

I mean, after bloviating on every media platform for a year that the lack of communications between Kawhi and the Clippers and Aspiration was proof of a larger conspiracy, Pablo now alleges that found communications of Clippers staff following up and checking in on Kawhi’s team and their engagement with Daktronics is now proof of a larger conspiracy? Doesn’t pass the sniff test for any rational operator, and just shows another attempt by Pablo to keep selling his story to the lowest bidder. And that’s just one of many examples and the issues with him and his so called “reporting” once you look at his career as a whole. But you don’t even have to do that.

Just look at Pablo’s last “Daktronics” episode, Pablo had a random scoreboard company representative to add context. Not a terrible idea, but have a listen. Pablo out-right asked him if it was normal for his company to do sponsorships. I am sorry, but that info does nothing for me. First, is this company known in the industry? Might other companies do things differently? Why is this one scoreboard rep the definitive knowledge base for this? Does he know other companies and how they engage with the NBA and sponsorships? What are his bona fidas when talking about Daktronics specifically? Or why doesn’t Torre actually use his brain and hands and mouth and/or just freaking Google to do his job and research these answers and provide his listeners with that information? Could it be that those answers won’t be able to lead you down his path? I WONDER. So while this guest might have been helpful with contextual information, instead, Pablo uses it as another tool in his kit to sell-sell-sell. Always just selling…

Pablo specifically creates a format where fact-checking is not the priority, only his story-telling and the continued molding of that story. If you haven’t listened or watched his podcast, it’s basically him presenting a piece of evidence for a few seconds (generally filtered, very controlled, never the entire “evidence”), then he immediately tells us his personal conclusions and then here comes his carefully curated guests to help shape the leading questions and answers with a very narrow view, whether through evidence presented (again, only snippets, never full-context) or questions asked (never “is this possible, or does this happen elsewhere” only “have you done this, is this what you would do,” etc.) And quite frankly, whenever standing up to a little pushback in a neutral arena, Pablo collapses on repeating talking points, never interacting or engaging with the story itself or any pushback thereof, just redirecting back to his “conclusions” and nothing else. Just check out the Podcast with Pablo and Bill Simmons about Bill Belichick and listen for yourself.

At the end of the day, when someone is trying to sell me something that hard, I figure there must be something up and y’all should too.

And that’s my problem with this podcaster. It’s not because I’m a Clippers fan. It’s not because I’m a basketball fan. Though obviously that may factor into my bias. But hey, unlike Pablo, at least I admit to that and add it into the ingredients so you can gauge it with the rest of what I say. With Torre, he sets the stage as a neutral presenter while at the same time, presenting one side, his side and only the parts he knows will affect our emotional centers to his ultimate benefit.

At the end of the day, a professional provocateur took a run-of-the-mill basketball conspiracy theory and created and molded it into a huge national story about “class commentary” and “wealth inequality.” Are you kidding me?

Yeah, I’m sorry America’s healthcare sucks and that things are so sh*t right now, but I’m not sure why that gives Pablo the moral high ground to self-promote and sell a conspiracy theory just to take his brand to the next level. But everyone has an opinion and you have yours, and so does Pablo.

Sure, the Clippers may have been guilty of going around the salary cap. Maybe Steve Ballmer did funnel money through third parties. Maybe all the owners do this. Maybe Adam Silver knows. Maybe this, maybe that.

All I can tell you is maybe. And at the end of all of this, all you can tell me is maybe.

But one damn thing is for sure now; Pablo Torre is that much richer and famous for all these maybes, so maybe we should spend at least a minute thinking about that before we continue crashing out to the news that Pablo Torre’s year-long investigation essentially ended up a big fat dead end.

And maybe Pablo Torre could just, I dunno… aspire to be a better podcaster?

(Is that it, did I do that joke right?)

Image by Clippers fan lolwtferic, artist extraordinaire. 

Jay is a longtime Razzball everything who consumes an egregious amount of Makers Mark as a vehicle to gain wisdom and augment his natural glow. Living in the D.C. area, he also likes spending time visiting the local parks and feeding lettuce to any turtles he encounters, including Mitch McConnell who is totally alive and well!