Kawhi Leonard's endorsement deal problem just became two problems, which in the NBA's ongoing quest to prove tampering is real but unprosecutable feels almost like a franchise strategy at this point. The New York Times reports the league's investigation into Leonard's Aspiration marketing deal, the one that conveniently collapsed the same year Aspiration itself collapsed into fraud charges, has widened to a second arrangement, meaning the Clippers now have two separate paper trails to explain rather than one. Ballmer built an $18 billion arena in Inglewood on the promise that his roster was assembled the ordinary way. The league office would very much like to keep believing that too.

Meanwhile in Dallas, the Mavericks are conducting the offseason equivalent of asking out your ex's whole friend group: floated LeBron after the Anthony Davis trade, now linked to Joel Embiid, all while Dusty May fills out a coaching staff for a roster that may not exist yet by October. Nico Harrison traded away Luka Doncic for win-now pieces and is discovering that win-now pieces keep wanting new agents. The Kawhi file and the Dallas rumor mill are the same story wearing different jerseys, teams paying the toll for treating a championship roster like a Wall Street deal instead of a sports team, and finding out later isn't a discount.