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Rodger Sherman @rodger.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I’m a little surprised the other 29 owners are on board with the league office letting Ballmer get away with it. Aren’t they mad their richest rival is showing that they could spend more money on their basketball teams if they wanted to? Don’t they want everybody to think the cap is super real???

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Rodger Sherman @rodger.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Agreed on the general premise. BUT! In this case, Ballmer is the one interfering with the method of screwing others over. The salary cap is a system to artificially depress player wages! Why would they let anybody mess it up? Now they’re going to be expected to pay their employees more money!

@tallpaulor.bsky.social@tallpaulor.bsky.social

Rich people view other rich people as their tribe. They’ve ALL gotten rich by somehow screwing somebody over and they ALL stay rich by protecting themselves and propping up a system that allows them to buy different justice for themselves. No way they’re going to drop that shield.

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tallpaulor.bsky.social @tallpaulor.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Agree with you here but, Balmer’s as much richer than other owners as they are richer than you and me. And Balmer has the power to drag the NBA through mud with endless lawsuits. Team valuation is *much* more important than player salaries. And endless NBA mud = potentially lowering team values.

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Anthony @anthonyesbensen.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

In any other sport, they would go hard after that one owner because not paying labor is important to rich people

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Soy Ron Mexico @soyronmexico.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I think functionally the outcome of this is owners have cover to avoid having to do just that. They can point to this and say, “Well, we’d love to pay you off books but the NBA is not going to stand for another scandal like that. Ballmer only got away with it because there wasn’t hard evidence.”

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crb1079 @crb1079.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Occam's Razor is the rest of the owners (or a sufficient majority) are engaging in similar behavior just not at such a large scale

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Nemo 🦢🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @cebriggs.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

They are litterally shutting down baseball next year because 1 team decided to not suppress labour costs and the other owners got big mad.

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e.g. @shmoolyd.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

The revealed preference here is that class solidarity and impunity from consequence is the only value these billionaires care about. Not to get too Bluesky about it, but there are a few other examples of this phenomenon

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jagsfan346.bsky.social @jagsfan346.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

NBA just posted this on twitter so seemingly not over yet (probably just mad because it leaked but ya)

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