Pablo Torre would like to set the record straight.
In the fall of last year, after he uncovered a wacky sports scandal ensnaring NBA superstar Kawhi Leonard, billionaire Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and a fraudulent environmental sustainability company called Aspiration, the muckraking journalist popped up on “The Dan Patrick Show” and let slip that he’s considering looking into the Knicks’ signing of Jalen Brunson. He’s still feeling the aftershocks 10 months later.
“I’m getting stopped on the street regularly by people saying, ‘Leave Jalen Brunson alone,’” Torre says. “It’s been a consistent theme as a New Yorker of people threatening me. Even Rick Brunson reached out to me being like, ‘What are you up to?!’”
To answer Jalen’s dad’s question: No, he’s not “sitting on some investigation” of the King of New York. But it’s a testament to Torre that the mere mention of his interest in one is enough to strike fear in the hearts of fans, players and even their parents, like a baby-faced assassin.
As host of the Meadowlark Media podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” an addictive mélange of a chat show and true-crime docuseries wherein Torre breadcrumbs the reporting to his pals, the 40-year-old has emerged as the new face of sports journalism. He lights up social media with such stories as deep-dive investigations into Jordon Hudson and Bill Belichick’s cursed union, Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Harvard athletics and how the Clippers circumvented the NBA salary cap by having Leonard receive a $28 million no-show endorsement deal from Aspiration, whose co-founder was recently sentenced to 14 years in prison for defrauding investors (Ballmer among them). In May, the Aspiration story earned Torre and his team the Pulitzer Prize.
