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After the NBA handed the Clippers a historic punishment, one of the country’s most decorated investigative journalists believes Pablo Torre stillisn’t getting enough credit.
Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown, whose “Perversion of Justice” investigation helped expose Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse and the system that protected him, ripped The New York Times and The Athletic for what she viewed as minimizing Torre’s role in uncovering the Clippers scandal.
“It is shameful that @nytimes @TheAthletic buried the fact that the biggest punishment in NBA history was the result of an investigation by journalist @PabloTorre,” Brown wrote on X. “And to call it the result of a ‘podcast episode’ is a further slap in the face.”
Brown received a 2026Pulitzer special citationfor her groundbreaking Epstein reporting. The Pulitzer board honored her work for exposing Epstein’s abuse, the justice system that protected him and the powerful network surrounding him.
Torre and the staff of “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” meanwhile, won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reportingspecifically for their investigationinto how the Clippers seemingly circumvented NBA salary cap rules.
The New York Post first detailed Torre’sbombshell reporting on Kawhi Leonard’s $28 million “no-show” endorsement dealin September 2025.
Torre continued uncovering pieces of the financial relationship in the weeks that followed, including a$21 million Aspiration paper trail involving the Clippers.
A year later, the NBA concluded that the Clippers committed a “pattern of misconduct and multiple significant rules violations” by facilitating outside income opportunities for Leonard with companies doing business with the franchise. Los Angeles wasfined $30 million and stripped of five first-round picks, while owner Steve Ballmer received a one-year suspension.
The league also suspended Clippers executives Gillian Zucker and Lawrence Frank, fined Leonard $700,000 and banned Leonard’s former business representative Dennis Robertson from conducting NBA business for five years. The NBA said its findings followedan independent investigationby Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.
The findings landed after months in which Torre’s reporting had faced significant pushback.
Ballmer and the Clippers repeatedly denied wrongdoing. When Torre’s original report surfaced, the team called allegations that it circumvented the salary cap “provably false.”
Mark Cuban became one of Torre’s most prominent skeptics, publicly declaring himself “Team Ballmer” and arguing Torre was focusing on the wrong villain. Cuban warned that Torre’s theory involving Ballmer would “back fire on him.”
The NBA’s ruling prompted amarkedly different responsefrom Cuban.
“Congrats Pablo.”
