In a long anticipated Wednesday announcement, the National Basketball Association imposed millions of dollars in penalties (and an array of non-monetary sanctions, as exemplified by the forfeiture of five first-round draft picks) on the Los Angeles Clippers, star small forward Kawhi Leonard and owner/Microsoft co-founder Steve Ballmer.
Naturally, principal 2026 Audio Reporting staff contributor Pablo Torre reacted to the news (initially scooped by ESPN Chief NBA Insider Shams Charania) with his signature burger emoji on X, having broken the whole affair last year. It was indeed a whopper of sorts, for Torre and his team had uncovered nothing less than a slop-era analog (i.e. with sports increasingly foregrounded in the popular consciousness as a lucrative monocultural reserve in the era of postmodern fragmentation) to the craven New York City political machine documented by Jack Newfield and Wayne Barrett in their epochal reporting for The Village Voice forty years ago, deftly interposed throughout with contemporary reverberations of the hard-boiled absurdities of Towne and Hammett. From a no-show endorsement deal in the tens of millions that would have elated the erstwhile heelers of Chicago's First Ward to an eco-friendly company known as Aspiration, it's a shocking disquisition on the commodification of the game.
Congratulations, Pablo (even if it risks banality at this juncture!). Listen to the entry here.