NBA Corporate Espionage, and A Deep Dive Into One of Trump's Indictments,

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On NBA Corporate Espionage

The NBA has become Desperate House Wives for sports bros.

I’ve always been a fan of basketball. Its dynamic, fast paced and hits all the rights spots as a fan. But in the last ten years of following the NBA, I have witnessed a pretty dramatic change to the way the sport is marketed and talked about. And by that I mean the actual sport itself has essentially become second fiddle to the inter-player drama happening outside of the games. The rise of social media in particular has transformed the NBA into what I see as being one of the most lucrative soap opera’s on television. I love the sport of basketball, don’t get me wrong, but what the NBA has done is taken it’s star driven brand, and amplified the drama inherent to a small league of only 450 professional athletes; an exclusive club in comparison to the 1500+ NFL athletes, or 800+ in the MLB

So in a lot of ways, the offseason between July and October has become just as entertaining as the regular season itself. Its the period when players demand trades (bye Dame!) coaches are fired and hired, teams sell off all their assets to reset their rosters… its a yearly dance. And this offseason has a fun new addition: Corporate Espionage!

Early this Summer the Toronto Raptors parted ways with longtime head coach Nick Nurse. In his place, they’ve hired a new kid on the block named Darko Rajaković. Darko notably has very limited coaching experience, and thus has looked to surround himself with a staff of seasoned assistant coaches, scouts, and video coordinators to inform his coaching strategy.

But according to the New York Knicks, this strategy involved stealing a mountain of coaching and scouting data from one of their former employees. Just this week, the Knicks filed a lawsuit against the Toronto Raptors alleging information theft from a former employee named Ikechukwu Azotam, who recently was added to Darko’s staff as a video coordinator .

The lawsuit claims that “former employee Ikechukwu Azotam shared thousands of proprietary files with the Toronto Raptors to help the newly-hired rookie head coach Darko Rajaković exploit the Knicks’ organizational structure and coaching methods.”

Azotam, according to the Knicks, was quietly hired by the Raptors in June, and while still employed with the Knicks began forwarding these files, including scouting reports, videos, etc. to his personal Gmail so that he could later share with his new employer, the Toronto Raptors.

I don’t know about you, but forwarding proprietary files from your work email to your personal Gmail sounds like the first rule you don’t break if you’re attempting corporate espionage.

If that’s rule #1, then rule #2 would probably be that if you are the organization conducting said espionage, then you better take extreme precaution in accessing those files. The Raptors broke that rule too. According to the Knick’s insider threat security team, one day after Azotam’s left the Knicks, the files he forwarded to his personal Gmail were accessed “over 2,000 times by the Raptors Defendants.”

What makes this story interesting to me is that the NBA is again, a small league. There’s only 30 teams, 30 front offices, and 30 coaching staffs. Are you striving to make a career in an NBA front office? Then you better ensure you maintain positive working relationships with every organization, as they may become your future employer. Being found liable for Corporate Espionage would seem to be a quick way to land on a league-wide hiring blacklist.

I appreciate stories like these as they make for a relaxing break from the political controversies and increasingly intensive heat waves impacting our lives. At the end of the day, its basketball, not war. There’s no lives on the line, no negative impact on the rest of us. It’s pointless drama at its finest.

And I love every second of it.

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On Trumps Election Interference Indictment

January 6 was a pretty weird day. I distinctly remember being on a weekly Zoom call with a client, and noticing that everyone suddenly appeared distracted. Eyes kept darting to whatever monitor people had to their left or right. Finally someone said “uh, is everyone seeing what’s happening at the Capitol?” A call that was at first focused on some niche biotech PR media relations strategy pivoted to become a popcorn gallery for the unfolding events in DC.

That was a few years ago, and of course recent legal action has begun unfolding against both the people who partook in the capitol riots, and against Trump himself. I’ve read two schools of thought regarding January 6. People seem to interpret the events as:

A) A Modern day 9/11; an insurrection that should end with every participant in Guantanamo Bay or blasted into Jupiter’s orbit or some equivalent.

Or,

B) That it was more of a “tour” then a riot. A fun holiday excursion where a bunch of Trump supporters strolled through the Capitol unabated by police. Where only a handful actually caused damaged, and the rest of the rioters used the opportunity to take photographs for social, or to piss in the occasional potted plant.

My take is that both of these views are missing the whole point of what happened that day.

As of today Trump has been indicted in four separate cases:

• A hush money case in which he allegedly used campaign funds to pay porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about his affair.

• A federal classified documents case in which he allegedly illegally withheld from the National Archives critical and classified intelligence documents long after he left office.

• This federal election interference case I am writing about today.

• And a Georgia state case (related to the above one) where he has recently been indicted for meddling in Georgia’s election process.

I want to focus on the third case here, as this one feels particularly misunderstood.

The “insurrection” on January 6, the riots at the Capitol, are to me like the least important part of this indictment against Trump, and I worry a lot of people aren’t aware of what he is actually being investigated for.

Donald Trump is not only being indicted for allegedly urging a bunch of supporters to break into the Capitol and halt the certification process, Donald Trump is first and foremost being indicted for a conspiracy to send a bunch of fake electoral votes to Congress in an attempt to throw out legitimate votes and retain power.

If you’ve been confused about the significance of January 6, let me try and break down what we know, and what is being alleged by the Department of Justice in its indictment.

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For brief background, Presidential elections are decided by which candidate receives the most electoral votes. Each state has a set number of electoral votes predicated on the number of members of Congress (House and Senate) they have. So there are 538 electoral votes (100 total US Senators, and 435 House of Representatives, plus three Washington DC electors = 538).

Each state’s political parties choose their own slate of potential electors. Who is chosen to be an elector, how, and when varies by state.

Because of this process, Presidential elections are most often decided by swing states. Swing states being states that have a high population (and thus more electoral votes) AND a population with mixed or more centrist political views. If a candidate can successfully win a combination of states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania or Arizona, they basically always win the election.

Now what Trump is being indicted for is the orchestrating of a plot following his November 3rd election loss to put forth fake electors and electoral votes in seven of these swing states. The plan, as laid out in the indictment involved:

• First sending certificates that falsely asserted Trump had won the electoral college vote in seven swing states, with an emphasis on Georgia.

• Trump, along with his attorney’s John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani then organized a conference call with about 300 Republican state legislators to persuade them to hold joint special sessions.

• The purpose of these sessions would be to replace the certified electors with specifically chosen “fake” electors who would call those swing state votes in favor of Trump, on the basis of election fraud.

• This plan hinged on Mike Pence, his Vice President, to then bring this to a vote in Congress. Congress could’ve then certified the votes of the fake electors, giving Trump the nomination. Mike Pence of course did not go along with this plan, which is when it fell apart at the already breaking seams.

Now this scheme isn’t some crazy conspiracy the Department of Justice drummed up, its becoming clearer by the day that this plan was a fact. A fact backed up by a mountain of publicly available evidence (call logs, texts, etc.), testimony from dozens of Trump’s own top aides, and from Trump himself.

After losing the election in November, I think we can all recall the frequency with which Trump claimed the election was rigged, false, or that he won (he still does claim these things). But even according to the Department of Justice, those claims are protected under the 1st Amendment.

What is definitely not protected, and what Trump is being indicted for by Special Counsel Jack Smith, is the level of actionable involvement Trump himself had in this scheme. Whether he is convicted or not will be based on the evidence and witness testimony Smith brings forward when this goes to trial, and its interesting to note that there are six unnamed co-conspirators who are also being charged. Who they are, and what they say in the trial will be a key part of this case.

So no, the riots weren’t the central part of these scheme. They were the aftermath. An epilogue to a crazy failed plot. But I all to often see it propped up as being a the primary component of this plan.

What is being alleged here is an attempt at the total subversion of our election process, and that’s what I think people need to focus their attention on. Trump’s team of attorneys, family, and other close confidants wanted to throw out the legitimate votes of the people in order to retain power. If he is found guilty in the court of law, then he 100% deserves to end up in a jail cell. And if you go by the Justice Departments 99%+ conviction rate, it sure appears to be heading that direction.