Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Ownership Update Changes Future Of Celtics & Lakers? + Heat’s Gameplan

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon to talk about new details on the Celtics’ sale after approval that could impact the future in Boston as well as what may happen for the Lakers in the approval process before talking the Blazers’ sale. Then, the guys talk what approach the Heat are taking going forward as a franchise and Trae Young’s future in Atlanta. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Hello, welcome to the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Monday morning, joining us from the Jersey Shore,

where the summer of Bontemps continues is Tim Bontemps. Hello, everybody. Joining us from Dallas, Texas is Ban McMahon. Howdy, partners, Monday morning in the dead of August. We talk about the NBA. Yes, we do. And it is certainly the dead time, which means it's a good time for us. where we're very happy to be dead.

Does that sound right? No, it didn't sound right. All right. Since we last recorded, we had a couple of developments in the ownership situations in the NBA. The Trailblazers sold,

which we'll talk about in a little bit. And the Boston Celtics sale was approved from Wick Grusbach as the governor to Bill Chisholm. But there was a wrinkle in there, which is interesting for the Celtics and for another franchise sale, the Lakers, which we'll get to in a second.

As part of the sale, which was for over $6 billion, remember when the Celtics sort of, at the time was pretty stunningly. Within a week of the parade, when they won the championship last summer, what Grusbach announced that his family was going to sell controlling interests of the team. And he had this list of expectations for the sale,

One, he was going to get a certain price, which he achieved. Two, he wanted to do it over the course of time, so that it would be over, I think, three years. And three, he wanted to remain as the governor of the team for the next three years. Or I don't remember how many years he said, but he wanted to remain the governor. Three years. Which was three wasn't just pulled out of thin air. When you looked at the Celtics, you could look at their window and say, you know, it looked like they had, you know, three to five years.

So it looked like he wanted to cash out, basically have his money, and eat the cake, which was to still run the team that was going to potentially win or compete for more championships. And it was sort of a stunning set of terms for a sale because if you're going to get a premium price, you know, you expect to not be able to dictate all the terms. The background on that was when they announced last summer, when the father, Irving Grusbeck decided he wanted to sell the team, the sort of the talk in the background the whole time was that Steve Agliuka, who had been sort of the co-owner the whole time, wanted to buy the team. But if he bought the team, he was going to be in charge.

And the undercurrent of this the whole time was, can Wick find a buyer that would agree to this plan? Which the whole time seemed a little hard to believe because you're paying, like you said, six, five, six, seven billion dollars ultimately led to being a little over six with some escalators later. You would think you'd want to take over right away, which is why it was so surprising when they did find somebody to agree to these terms last spring in theory and say, hey, yeah, you can run the team for a while and I'll pay all this money and I'll get the rest of it later. Basically, he's trying to sell, he's trying to sell his sports car and say, hey, you buy it, but you ride shot. You pay for all the maintenance. You pay for all the storage fees, all the car washes. And I get to drive this. It's exactly right, McMahon. And look, if your asset is rare and valuable enough, sometimes you can dictate terms. And it looked like he had gotten the terms that he wanted. Even though Adam Silver had said he didn't really kind of want those terms.

And even though history in the league made it very clear that if you have the control share, you're the governor. You know, I've said this. And just coming off this, obviously we just had the new owners of the pot of the Timberwolds on the pot in Vegas last. month, but that just coming off of what had been a very rollercoastery, chaotic few years figuring out who was actually going to own the team after that, her tracted sale fell apart. Well, also coming off the Maverick Sale. I remember McMahon coming on here and saying that Mark Cuban had, what was the thing?

Basketball, controlled basketball operations, oh, in charge of basketball operations forevermore. Forever more. That was the word. Here's the big difference. Cuban was telling everybody who would listen. That was the case, but it was not in the actual contract. And then Cuban's claim was that there was language that the NBA made them removed from the contract. And again, I'm told the language that ended up being removed from the contract was just that Cuban was allowed to sit in on all basketball operations meetings, not that he was in charge.

Yes. I heard from the beginning, the idea that Mark Cuban was going to be running the team going forward was. never accurate. I think Cuban was trying to speak something into existence. That's my theory there. But again, mine too. It's a different case because it was not in the contract. This is a case where it was in the contract and then things. On this one, the two guys came out. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. On this one, the big difference with, because a lot of people have compared this to Cuban. And I do think it's fundamentally different. Because like Tim said, he sells the team to Patrick Dumont and the Adelson family. And he comes out and says, hey, I'm going to be in

charge. This is going to be great. We're going to have money. I'm going to get to do the team. It's going to be awesome. Forever more. That was the word. Forever more. Yes. But nobody else ever backed him up on that. And then when the rubber hit the road and it was time to see who was in charge, Mark Cuban was. Okay. But let's ask a very basic question. Who decides who's in charge of basketball operations for a team? Who decides? The person who owns a team. governor, right? Right? Okay. So how do you become the governor? Who's the governor? Well, on this one, it's fun. Well, yes, now it's Bill Chisholm. But what I'm saying is the reason this is so interesting is because when this sale was made, the two sides came out together with their fists up,

like they're the president and vice president after they get elected. And they're like, hey, we're doing this thing together. We're in this thing together. This is going to be great. And then this goes through the vetting process with the league and we come out the other side of the process and what happens, there's one governor and it's the guy who just bought the team, which is why this is interesting. That's the point. The point is, I don't care what's in the sales agreement. I don't care what's said at the press conference. I don't care what's in the press release. I don't care what a guy says on a podcast. What matters is what the league approves. And the league says one governor.

One. And I was talking to someone who worked for the Sons 20 years ago when Jerry Colangelo sold to Robert Sarver. And I forgot about this, but there was a similar situation.

Jerry Calangelo, one of the most ubiquitous, powerful voice, still remains a big voice in professional basketball. And when he sold the team, he said something, the effect of,

I'm going to remain here, you know, he had some title, vice chairman or whatever, guess what happened? Robert Sarver bought the team, came in, and within weeks, Jerry Colangelo was no longer involved.

Now, in this particular case, Whit Gruzbach is going to remain as the CEO. He will still be with the team. But the key thing here is, when this was approved by the NBA, Whit Crisbock was no longer the governor. The governor is the control share owner, and that is,

and I know you may say, Just to dumb it down, he's no longer the shot caller. The governor is the shot caller. And just because we're in August and we can take some time out here, there's something in the NBA where there is, what's known as the control share. It's sort of like a piece of the team with a little star on. You're the boss.

Sometimes the control share is 75%. Sometimes the control share is much less than that. These days, the control share has to be at least 15%. but there was previous situations where the control share was actually less than 15%. But if you have that one sliver that has been so designated the control share, you are the governor. In the case of Wick Grusbach, it was publicized that he only personally had 2% of the team when the sale began. But his family had the control share. And he was designated by the family as the governor.

His father always had the biggest share of the team, even more than C-Pagland-Uca, which is why Wick has been the governor for 20-plus years, even though he didn't know more than a couple percent. Now, why are we so focused on this? Because at the end of the day, I think Bill Chisholm hasn't indicated he's going to come in and start changing a lot of things. Brad Stevens has settled. Joe Missoula just extended his contract. Their team has had to make some financial decisions. But those decisions were going to get made no matter who the owner was. We can back up. We can back up to that's all true. The reason this matters is let's back up to June. Let's back up to when Jeannie Bus was the decided. voting vote to sell the Lakers to Mark Walter. Yeah, let me say a couple of things about the Lakers sale if you don't mind. I just want to lay out the, can I last? I want to take a step. No, I want to take even a step further back. It's a pretty's podcast.

So the Lakers are owned by three separate entities, the bus family on 67%. The Guggenheim partners, which Mark Walter is the head of, owns 27%. Patrick Shunshong, one of the very wealthy man in California, 07 or 8%, something like that. The Buss family, when Dr. Jerry Buss passed away, he left the team to his six children, four of which came from his first marriage, two of which came from the second marriage.

There's quite a gap in age between those six kids. To get anything accomplished, there had to be a vote. The vote had to be four to two. the interesting thing about the Lakers in the covenant in the family covenant which became public when Jim Bus and Jeannie Bus ended up in family court fighting for control of the team that the covenant gets into public record I have a copy of it somewhere I've read it the team doesn't get passed down by generation it it it conglomerates so if one of the six children passes away, that person's descendants don't inherit their 11% of the team, it goes to the other

five. And so if you were, and I'm certainly not going to imply anything to any of the bus children have said because they've never said anything publicly, but if you had five brothers and sisters and you had something worth $10 billion, and you were the youngest of them, you probably would be like, I'll just, you know, the longer we go on here, the longer we go on here, the longer I live, the more I'm going to inherit. So there was a split within the family amongst who would want to sell and who didn't want to sell. Four two, four older, two younger, okay? I don't need to go into it. It had to be four two to sell. Often, Jeannie Bus was the swing vote because Jeannie Bus, as the team president and the governor, she was not incentivized to sell. So that's right. Okay.

So something got Jeannie. And the one thing that was reported when they were sold is that it was not unanimous. Okay? It was not 6-0. So, but they got four votes. And clearly Jeannie voted to sell. So that's important for the background. It's been reported she was the swing vote.

And again, it's also very important to lay out the background with her and Witt. So her and Wick are in business together. They did have the tequila company together. the close friends, even though the whole Lakers Celtics thing. I think they sold the tequila company, by the way. But they started and sold the tequila company. Yes. But they've had business

dealings together. They are close. Even though the Salt Celtics Lakers rivalry, they have a longstanding relationship. He felt the team in this manner in the spring. Weeks later, months later, I guess, two months later, the Lakers do the exact same thing on a little bit longer timeline,

but the same sort of timeline. Like, I don't believe that is a coincidental thing to happen. Jeannie has not fully articulated her strategy for why she changed positions. So I don't want to overstep what I know. But I will say that the, you know, if you look at the NFL, the Packers and the New York Giants operate relatively on similar financial footings. The Giants, because they are in New York versus Green Bay. can get more money for ticket and sweet sales,

they're going to generate more revenue. But the media revenue that the Packers get and the media revenue that the Giants get is relatively the same. Maybe there's a little bit more for their preseason games and local radio, but it's relatively the same. The differentiation between the Lakers and the Bucks,

is that the Lakers have their local television revenue. And they have far and away the largest local television revenue deal in the NBA. And local television revenue is under pressure in sports. Local television is under pressure. Okay. So while I'm not speaking on anything about the local television revenue situation with the Lakers,

the future of the Lakers advantage in local television revenue is under stress, under threat. And so one, we have teams selling for record prices, the Celtics establishing a new benchmark 6 billion, which reset everything. To the reality that in the future, local television may not be as much of an advantage. I still think it would be a huge advantage for the Lakers, but it's not going to have them miles ahead,

maybe as it has had them for the last few decades. Yeah, we have no idea, we have no idea what the RSN picture across the league is going to look like five years from now, or even three years from it. It could be all encompassed under one giant umbrella like the NFL's. If you're Jeannie Bus, you see prices where they're at. You know, the media rights deal has been done.

So it's not like there's going to be an event that you can predict in the next three years it's going to lift prices. You're looking at this going. This is a great time. And you see that the Celtics were able to get this arrangement. As you said, Bontems, it certainly probably played into it. Now, here's where there's. So the reason this is all preamble is if Rick Gruis,

was not able to remain as the governor of the Celtics, will Jeannie Bus be able to remain as the governor of the Lakers? Or will Mark Walter immediately take over? Like Bill Chisholm just immediately took over. Right. And Wick Rusebuck stayed on the CEO, and there's no reason Jeannie Bus can't stay on his team president. But the key is- By the way, they're still going to own a chunk of the team anyway.

It's not like they're going to be gone. Well, that's what is important. Well, Mark Cuban still owns a chunk of the team. And you know what it gets them? Of course. That's right. That's right. So, look, and I'm not saying like Mark Walter is going to come in there,

you know, if he is indeed the governor and say, you're all fired. All of you clean out your offices. That's not how he's operated. But if there's a changeover in the governorship of the Lakers, it's potentially very significant. And so the fact that we're- Yeah, it's potentially very significantly bad for the rest of the league. Well, that's your opinion. I mean, I would say that generally, again, we've talked.

talked about this before. The first 64 years the Lakers were in existence, I think they missed the playoffs four or five times. They missed the playoffs more times than that under Jeannie Bus. And they are a team that I think we all would agree as because they are one of the few family-owned teams left in the league, they have struggled to keep off from a backroom financial standpoint with a lot of the other teams. Like, look at the team across town for all the issues they've had with Steve Balmer. Steve Balmer has Mark Walter kind of money. He can do whatever he wants.

Mark Walter's got Steve Balmer type money. Correct. Well, of course. But my point is, like, the Lakers didn't hire Ty Lou. I think you would know directly more than me. I'm pretty sure Ty Lou didn't get hired by the Lakers because of money. Well, I think Ty was underwhelmed by the contract offer. I don't want to say it was only because of money.

But that will happen again. if Mark Walter owns the Lakers. Like, that's just a fact. Like, they're going to become a much more modern organization when he takes over. It's not a lot different than what happened with the Dodgers. It's when he came in, he spent a couple of years looking at things, and then he invested heavily with all the backroom infrastructure with the franchise, and that team has become a juggernaut.

And it's different in baseball because you can have a, there's no salary cap, You can have farm systems, all that kind of stuff. But the point remains that I think if you pulled the league and said, is Mark Walter buying the Lakers a good thing for, like, the rest of us as competitors in the NBA? I would guess the answer to that would be no. Just like Steve Palmer buying the Clippers, turn the Clippers into a team players wanted to go play for it and be around, which is not great for the league from a competitive balance standpoint,

even though they have a one of a title. So you know what I mean. Right. Yeah. So just this, this development with Wick Khrushbach, which was a definite curveball, but was not to the big money folks in the league, was not a stunner. Because what Witt Khrushbach was asking was against a core principle of the NBA. But, you know, but I will say this. Like, if you're the league and you have sort of a core principle, which is one team, one governor, and the control share is the government. governor, the governorship, and you're seeing the beginning of a trend, regardless of how high profile and highly respect that these people are, you know, you're defending a basic tenant of the league. So the question is, now that this has happened with Rick, Rick Frewsbach, will Jeannie Bus become the governor?

And if Jeannie Bus is no longer the governor and she's just the team just, I mean, the team president of the Lakers, how much will that affect the way the Lakers do business? Right. Well, and the other thing to think about too is part of the reason this sale was going to take a while, at least in theory, was that Bill Chisholm needed a while to get money together because of how expensive the team was. And Mark Walter obviously does not have that issue because he has all sorts of money to just buy the way because of $10 billion valuation. But like there are very few people left on the planet who can buy teams for these kinds of numbers. So that is just another thing to keep in mind going forward if you're interested.

and sort of these machinations behind the scenes, which have a large, play a large part in how the league is operated. Like, this kind of stuff is just going to be interesting to see, you know, the pool of people who are able to buy teams going forward, which is not getting bigger as the teams get more and more expensive. Yeah, I think it is important to note just specifically with the Lakers when you're talking about what would this mean. Everything you hear coming from Luca, like the statements he's put out. out from his people. When he talks about the future of the Lakers, Mark Walter's name is always mentioned in there. Very strategically, Mark Walter's name.

It's Jeannie Bus and Mark Walter. I don't think it would change anything in terms of how Luca views his future in Los Angeles, which obviously from a fan's perspective, I think that's one of the most important. More Hoop Collective Podcast after this. By the way, Luca dodged a scary knee injury over the weekend. Yeah, I knew it wasn't serious, though, when he was yelling at the refs on the way off the floor. Yeah, so this was a play.

We've seen this happen a number of times in the NBA where a player is, this often happens near the basket, not always, but Luca was near the basket and a teammate fell into his knee. What was fortunate, we've seen this happen with Kevin Durant a couple of times. and it typically leads to sprain knee ligaments. What was fortunate in a way was that Luca was kind of already falling down. And so his knee was not stationary and then took the blow. He sort of took it. He did leave and not come back. As you said, he walked off under his own power.

After scoring 26 in the first half. And as Luca pointed out to the referee in very diplomatic fashion, the reason is because he was pushed. Right. I thought it was fairly diplomatic by Lucas standard. It looked like it was more of a discussion than a shouting match. Yes, I've seen worse. He's fine and he'll continue playing in Eurobasket. Which is good.

By the way. By the way. Yeah. Which we'll definitely be talking about. Yonis has been cleared to play. Smacking teammates upside the head. I'd like to try that out. Maybe next time we get together with Boston.

Yes. Google Yonis, there was a huddle. So teams have been playing exhibition games leading into Euro basket. And Janus wasn't playing in that game, but there was a huddle and he just whacked one of his teammates upside the head, like, not like. And not even one of his brothers. I know his brother left and right. There were brothers available. Both Thanassas and Costas are playing on the team. And it was not done with love. I wasn't there and I don't speak Greek. Yeah, I've only seen the brief clip, but it like it was a good, it was a pop. Like there was wind up. It would have easily been they flagrant too.

Well, anyway, he has, it's been announced he's going to play. Yokich is going to play. And did you guys see him throwing down some dunks? Yokic, Yokich is, and the little exhibitions has been hooper. I believe they're called Friendlies. You know, it's been putting up unbelievable numbers. Oh, the finished sensation. Larry Marketing.

Dude, he's putting up like, I forgot he played in the league. He has, he's played like 17 games in the last 12 months. He's put up like, he's putting up 40 plus per game. for Finman. So anyways. Well, I'm looking for, so first off, the Eurobasket is the highest level of competition in international basketball because all the European teams are very good. Certainly, once you reach the quarterfinals of the Olympics, you're now into big time basketball. But from the overall breadth of the tournament where all of those teams, I mean, like in the last decade, there's been like six, five or six different European teams who've beaten the Americans,

or something four or five. So just to be clear. So you've got all those teams. So it's a very highly competitive tournament. We've got Yokic, we've got Donchich, we've got Janus, we've got Lowry Markinen playing in it. So by the way, I saw an interview with a couple of Luca's Slovenian teammates. And McMahon, they were saying how much, what they've noticed from Luca in the training camp and in the exhibition is how much more he's jumping. I did see one of the highlights he's had, it was a post-up, and he had a very quick baseline spin into a two-hand finish, a two-hand dunk.

And it's like, okay. Well, remember we talked about Lucas's numbers? That's some explosiveness that is from his summer work for sure. So Luca, he's never been Vince Carter. but in 2223, so two years ago, Luca had 12 dunks for the season. He's had total of three the last two years.

He had one last season. He did not, according to this, he did not dunk with the Lakers. There was no footage of Luca dunking with the Lakers, according to basketball reference that I have here. So you may think that dunk that... 1-2-23 at 8. Oh, no, I'm sorry, that's heaves.

My bad. But the last time, Luca was this, you know, probably this weight was his rookie year. He had 25 dunks his rookie year. And to your point, he's got a total of three the last two seasons. So I don't want to like over, I think there was like this year, Donovan Mitchell only had like a handful of dunks like his first 40 or 50 games and people were all of a sudden tracking that. Donovan heard it and started throwing down dunks. Like just in case you thought that, you know, I think he was just sort of conserving it. little bit. But I do think it's something, you know, Luca dunking a little bit more than once a season at six foot eight may be an indication, not only of condition, but also of health. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's hard to dunk when you've got a calf that keeps getting strained and those things obviously are intertwined. By the way, there has been drama with the Slovenian national

team on multiple fronts that has weakened the roster. Luk is the only player on that roster now any NBA experience. Vlako Chanchar, who obviously with the Nuggets for a while, his European club team, I believe it was Olympia Milano. I don't know like the technical terms here, but basically they said he can't play. So he's not playing. That's what just happened. The Bucks had to approve Janus playing.

Yeah. And that was a formality that hadn't been, that's from my understanding now has been given the thumbs up. So Blacko's not playing. They're naturalized pick and roll big, Josh Nebo, who doesn't have NBA experience. But like, they naturalize a pick and roll big for obvious reasons to give Luke a lob threat. He's not playing for the same reason. And then there was Zoron.

I mean, the Lakers are looking for a naturalized big. Zoron, Droghich, not Goron. Goron's been retired, but his brother, Zoron, who had very, you know, just a brief little stint in the NBA. but a long time fixture for the Slovenian national team had big time beef with the coach was basically told you're not going to play much he said well I ain't playing at all and like his wife's been going after the coach

on social media Goron kind of had some stuff on on social media but old Zoron has gone so let me just say as somebody who's covered international basketball the drama within these national teams could have its own Netflix Oh for sure

But the thing about it is... The biggest roster is the greater point. Especially where the coverage of these teams is either light or not in English. Yeah. The basketball world doesn't see it. The basketball world speaks English. One of my fondest memories of the Olympics last year was using the translate function on X after the French upset the Canadians.

in the Olympics and just sitting there in Paris and looking at the local X commentary on the French and translating stuff. I was almost in tears laughing looking at the reactions of stuff. But that doesn't, you know, even as accessible as the French national team is a lot of the coverage is in French.

Well, and you've got to be careful with Google Translate because a lot can be lost in translation. I understand. When I was over there, Eurobasque when I was falling Slovenian around for a little bit, one of the players said something, it was some kind of like Slovenian phrase about like drinking wine. Like, you know, and basically the translation was, yeah, we, you know,

we drank a bunch of wine last night and talked and then came out. It's like a saying, like, you know, basically we told, you know, we told each other the truth is what it meant. Yeah, yeah. The translation was they drank a bunch of wine. And I'm like, how do that help you prepare for the game? Well, I can verify that after the bronze medal game last year, the Serbians were drinking all kinds of substances. Key word there after.

That's right. That's right. Anyway, Yokic is throwing down dunks in warm-ups. So it's hard to watch this thing, but there's going to be some real basketball with some teeth in the next few weeks. It starts this week and runs until early September. I think we've got a bunch of that on ESPN Plus. Great.

We should definitely check that out. We will keep an eye on it for you. One other thing in the team sale department, we mentioned the Trailblazers have sold within the last week since we did our last podcast. Now, the Blazers have been in various stages of speculation about sales for almost a decade now since Paul Allen passed away. They announced that they were for sale last year. I suspect for some of the same reasons

that Jeannie Bus changed her vote, which was the erosion of local basketball. Well, this thing was weird from the beginning because Jody Allen, the sister of Paul Allen, inherited the teams when Paul Allen died. She didn't actually. She was the executor of the estate. She actually inherited the team.

Correct. Correct. Good point. So this is why it's interesting. So both the Seahawks and the Blazers got put into this trust. And under, I believe Paul Allen signed a giving pledge, which means you give away all your money. And so as part of that, when he died, he had cancer, like you said, eight, nine, ten years ago, the teams were supposed to be sold as part of that.

It was like, hey, we're going to sell the teams. They're going to put the money back into charitable endeavors. But there was no real indication of when that was going to happen or, what it was what exactly the rules were in terms of how long she was supposed to hold the team before she sold it. And every time it came up at a press conference, you know, Portland media would ask Adam Silver every now and again or national media. Hey, like, what's the deal with Portland? It would just kind of be like, yeah, we're that way in the situation. And it just never was it really any clarity on what would happen or what the process was.

And then, as you said, last year was it now it's a team that's going to be sold. And now it's been sold for a bunch of money. And from a strategic business standpoint, if nothing else, you have to say that made a lot more money by hanging out to it for several years. Well, that's true. And I will also say, well, the thing about it was is that there was no quote unquote a grieved party for the inheritance or the will not being followed. Like the teams are supposed to be sold and then that money given to the Paul Allen Foundation

and then that money donated. It's not like somebody was saying, where's my money? would have been the Paul Allen Foundation. So, like, in theory, they could have kept the teams for a long time. Then something sort of interesting happened a year ago. The Blazers lease. So the Blazers, Paul Allen and, you know, his estate owned the Motor Center. The building is owned, was owned by the estate.

But the ground underneath it was owned by the city. And you had to lease the ground. And the lease was running out. And so they did a deal where they extended the lease for the ground. around only five years. That's, when you do a new lease with a pro sports team, you want to see like 25 years, 20 years, you know? So they only did a five year lease and there was like a opportunity to extend for five more,

but whatever it was, it was a very short lease. And then the Paul Allen estate sold the arena to the city for $1. Oh. Now, there's, there's planned renovations that they're going to share. share and so they were going to get more money, but planned renovations are just that. They're planned. So when the team was put for sale,

they had offloaded the arena and they had signed a very short leash, a lease, leash and lease. And so like while the owner, while they had made it clear they didn't intend to move the team, what was actually in place was very, movable. And so, you know, had an ownership group with strong ties to maybe like, you know, for example,

had Jeff Bezos bought this team, okay? You know, you were going to wonder what's going on here. You know, had, you know, had the, the Adelson family bought the Blazers and not the Mavericks, you wouldn't need some sort of insane conspiracy theory about Las Vegas. Right. So this is sold to. Now, Tom Dundon is a Dallas-based guy, McMahon. Are you friends?

No, not familiar with him. Don't know them. That's a shame. But he owns the Carolina Hurricanes. From what I understand is the sole owner of the Carolina Hurricanes, which is unusual in pro sports. They play a sport I'm not allowed to discuss. I saw that's right good job I saw

I wonder how he feels about the stars I'll just leave it at that big hockey fan yeah I saw that it said his net worth was like relatively low like less than $2 billion

I'm like excuse me if he's the sole owner of the hurricanes his net worth is a hell of a lot more than $2 billion but whatever he bought this with with a group for $4.25 billion

an excellent price considering the sons sold a couple of years ago for four. And what did the wool sale go through for? 1-5, but that was agreed to. I know, but I'm saying what a deal. Mark Lorry and Alex Rodriguez from an equity standpoint, they don't have their hands on the money, but from an equity standpoint, it's one of the best equity deals in professional sports history. So, but the indications are that he is not planned to move the team.

He is 53 years old, so, you know, I would assume intends to keep this team for a long time. And, you know, Adam Silver had said previously he had indicated when he talked about the Blazers that there needed to be something done with the arena. There had been some agreement on the city sharing renovation situations. So we'll see what that is. But I think the most important thing is that the Blazers have sold for a lot of money and that the intention is not to move them. It's not like we have a guy coming in who wants to do that.

And he doesn't have the pockets of the Allen family. but with the aprons and the media rights deals, I don't think it's as big of an issue for teams, unless you think I'm wrong about that, Bontemps. Well, I would say this just falls under the same corollary. All these things do, right? Which is, I would guess, Portland will keep the blazers for a long time. The NBA likes having teams in these markets where there's not a lot of other competition,

Obviously, we've seen the timbers and the thorns, the women's soccer team there and the MLS team there, have a lot of success. Portland Fire are coming back from the W next year, I think. So I think the NBA is fairly committed to Portland. But as we've seen before, where the rubber hits the road on these things is on the arena deals. And you just laid out all the oddities that have gone to the arena deal. and I assume that an arena deal will get done and Portland will keep the Blazers, but, you know, actions over words

until we see the action of the arena deal being done. If I was a Blazers fan, I'd feel less confident about portly keeping the Blazers and it would have to say Phil Knight bought the team, like he tried to buy the team. So, you know, doesn't mean they're leaving. I would bet on the same. Phil Knight didn't try to buy it this time.

In the past, he was interested. He passed. I think it had been made fairly clear for whatever reason they were not going to sell the film. I don't know why, but I think there was some sort of... He's also approaching 90 years old. Yes. But, yeah, so he's not from Oregon. There's a if the arena situation.

Lees you at least wondering what's going to happen. But the one thing I would say is for Portland fans who are probably the biggest fear for Portland fans is they would move up the road to Seattle. Right. I would not think that is going to be a problem because for many reasons, it makes sense for the NBA to leave Seattle open, both from an expansion standpoint, and as a threat to teams to potentially move to Seattle when you're trying to say, get an arena deal done like Portland is. So I don't think that is ultimately what will happen, but we'll see how it plays out. Well, and when you talk about relocation with a new owner, obviously you think about the thunder with Clay Bennett, buying the Sonics. And this is a very different situation because Clay Bennett was an Oklahoma guy who bought

the Sonics. And the similarities are Pacific Northwest on a certain arena situation. But Clay Bennett moved the Sonics to his home. That's right. This guy's not moving the Portland Trail players to Dallas. They're going to be a second team in Dallas. That's right. The Dallas Texans and Cowboys had a little rivalry briefing.

It didn't last very long. They're not going to do that in the NBA. Well, I do think, this is a podcast in August of 25. We're not, I'm not making any, but I do think because expansion to a certain extent is a little bit uncertain, I think we are more uncertain about expansion now than we were two years ago.

And you have sort of arena situations on the, at least the back burner of a couple of small market teams, New Orleans, Portland, Minnesota. All three teams are looking for arena situations. And while there's been a stretch of arenas that have been totally privately financed, like Steve Balmer totally financed that arena, what other arenas have been totally financed? The Chase Center in San Francisco, totally privately financed. We did just see a public, private, largely public. I was going to say. But technically,

public-private financing for the coming arena for the thunder. Oklahoma City is more relevant to a place like Portland, Minnesota, New Orleans. And just to be clear, the private part of that, Clay Bennett pitched in $50 million, which, hey, I'm not saying it's nothing. Well, the funder, I don't even know if it's Clay Bennett itself. The thunder are putting in $50. Okay, whatever. The thunder are putting in $50 million.

That's right. Or an arena. So in other words, they're putting in significantly less than Shagueless Alexander will be making per year. They're putting in like, it'll probably end up being less than 5%. They also signed like a 25 or 30 year lease, which is what you want to see when that happens. So like I said, the Blazers signed a five year one a year ago. So, okay. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. All right. Now let's go to the court a little bit after all of those things were handled. We did have a trade in the last few days.

The trade isn't a big deal in and of itself, but I want to take a minute to take a look at what the Miami Heat are doing. The Miami Heat traded Haywood Highsmith in a salary dump deal to the Brooklyn Nets. The Nets use of their salary kit. The Nets offseason in general, Bontems has been interesting, curious. They've taken on some contracts

to get some draft picks. They used all five first round picks and used them in a way that was surprising the people in the league. Maybe they'll pull a couple of All-Stars out of here and they'll have the last laugh. Their draft picks did not exactly jaw drop at Summer League. And so they do this deal of the Netsar is sort of a different story. In the case of the heat, the heat did this to get under the luxury tax, which is a far cry from where they've been the last few years when they had Jimmy Butler in there. They did sign Drew Smith, a guy who's missed the last couple of seasons with

injuries after that. But the reason that the heat are interesting. And the reason I'll talk about them now, Bontemps, is the heat have some very large expiring contracts on their books. And you're always looking at the heat to see what sort of big plans that they may have. This maneuver to get under the tax makes sense. They were probably going to get under the tax one way or another, whether it was Hysmith or somebody else. But they're sitting there, Bontemp's in a transition spot. They paid off a first round pick that they had owed to the Thunder for years, so they're clear of that this year. So they have some pick flexibility going forward.

They have a lot of salary cap flexibility, both in trade with expiring contracts. So you have Terry Rozier, 27 million, Norm Powell, 20 million, Simone Fontechio with 8 million, Yovitch, who Nikolai Yovic, who they can possibly extend. And they also have Tyler Hero. He is extension eligible. He's got one year left on his contract. Typically, you want to see a contract extension there.

One year after this year, to be clear. One year after this year. So you typically would see an extension in this situation. Norm Powell, even though he's an expiring contract, he's extension eligible. I mentioned Yovic extension eligible. So this is a team, and the reason every team you can go over and say, well, they've got expiring contracts, they have extension eligible guys. That's the same for everybody.

But Bontem's in the case of the heat. They are a team that is always big, big fish hunting, big fishing, what everyone would say? Yeah. What do we make of the heat's positions? This is not a team we've talked about a lot this summer. I would say the heat are keeping their options open for the summer of 2027. like several other teams. You mentioned the Clippers earlier. I think that's more or less what the heat are trying to do. Like we talked about it earlier this summer. They got Norm Powell essentially

for free. Kevin Love, Kyle Anderson, and a second round pick. It's both a sign that one position, two guards, like we've talked about some, they're probably the least valuable archetype in the league player-wise. Like they're just not, those are not a guy's to get a ton of value in trades. you know, Anthony Simons didn't really have any value around the league. You know, we've talked about those guys a lot. But he's a good player. He will help the heat this year. He's a good fit next to Tyler Hero.

Gives them some more scoring punt. Well, look, Hero's sort of operated as their point card last year. I think they can play together fine. I mean, again, is Hero multi-position guy, but go on. I mean, I don't think he is really either. But the way they play, Bam, out of bio, handles the ball some. Hero handles the ball some. They're going to have Davion Mitchell.

They can do some different things. I think it's a good stopgap move for free to get him. We'll see Norm Powell is a free agent after this year. Maybe they do some short extension with him. But I think the heat are, look, the last few years, the heat kept making these runs with Jimmy Butler to the conference finals and kept finishing in the bottom half of the playoff picture in the Eastern Conference. It was a very hard thing to square on both sides to figure out just how good the heat were.

Right. And we've talked about it a bunch this spring and in the summer both. They had an opportunity if they wanted to to trade for Kevin Durant. And both times, the Heat opted to not do that. And when they really did not. Well, they made offers. They just didn't make offers that were. Well, they made very tepid. They made very tepid offers. And I would say, specifically with the Jimmy Butler trade, I would say the Heat had a choice. I would say the Heat had a choice to get Kevin Durant and give up draft picks to do so, or the Heat had a chance to get a draft pick and get Andrew Wiggins and add to their asset base and vote to go younger and take a longer view and decide they weren't good enough. And they chose that path, which I think with the correct path, because I don't think they were good enough. And I don't think they're going to be good enough with this group. So going forward, I would say Bam at a bio who's been extended, he's the new, you know, Captain of the Heat and the flag bearer for heat culture. and all of that. But he's the guy I think you look at and say,

Bam out of bio is all but certainly going to be a member of the Miami Heat for a while. I think everything else is up for debate and we'll see where it goes long term. And I would say the heat now are waiting to see if they can get a player that's better than Bamatabio. And the reason I say the summer of 27 is that's when Janus is a free agent. That's when Nicole Yokic is a free agent. that's when Donovan Mitchell can be a free agent. That's when a lot of these guys can be available. And we've seen the clippers and these other teams talk about,

we're going to wait until the summer 27, have the ability to do something. I think the heat are probably going to sit in that space. And look, if they have the expiring contracts, like Deionis wakes up tomorrow in Greece and says, you know what, I'm done being with the bucks and I really want to go to Miami. Well, they've got a bunch of expiring contracts. They've got a guy in time of here is from Milwaukee.

they can come up with a package with some draft picks and say, we can try to give you something to get you honest. But I think this is about biding their time, rebuilding their asset base sum, and acknowledging that despite the fact that they had a really good five-year run and made the conference finals three times and the finals a couple times, they weren't really a championship level team and they had to do some sort of a reset. And while the heat are not anytime soon, I think, and to go back to the full tank days, they've kind of middle bit, getting Coalwearing the draft, making the Norm Powell deal, having some

salary cap flexibility, and now we'll see where they sit over the next 12 to 24 months. With Jimmy, they were a very good playoff team. They've been a, you know, they've had one 50 win season since LeBron was there. Yeah. They were a mediocre regular season team that got hot in the playoffs on multiple occasions. Yeah. And, you know, looks, coming off of 37, win season. That obviously was filled up the whole saga of Jimmy wanting to get the hell out and eventually succeeding. But they have to operate as a team that isn't close and has to kind of not rebuild, but prepare to open up another chapter. Because to operate as a team that even in the weekend Eastern Conference, for the heat to operate as a team that has a chance to do real damage now

would be short-sighted and foolish. So they're not a short-sighted and foolish franchise. They're looking at this through a realistic lens and making moves that reflect that. Yeah, I mean, I think part of what you have to be in Miami is opportunistic. You know, you may not say we want to get this particular player. I mean, you may dream of that,

but what you want to be able to do is you want, you know, Miami seems to make it on short lists of players, you know, it has historically. People like to be. Yeah. It's important for the heat to be have flexibility and be opportunistic. And do your point, Brian, they have a roster right now that is both flexible and can be opportunistic if the right thing comes along.

Let me ask you a question, Bontems. Sure. What is the value of Andrew Wiggins on the market? He has $28 million on his contract this year. Then next year, he has a player option for $30 million. He, in theory, is extended. eligible as well. I didn't mention it, but I should. He can extend his contract as well. Are you asking from a contract standpoint or a trade standpoint or both? Trade standpoint.

I think it's hard to say. I agree, by the way. I don't have a good answer for this. I mean, his position archetype is really hard to find, right? And he's had moments like in the 22 playoff run when they won the title when he has really fulfilled the promise of being a, you know, a two-way wing that obviously is incredibly out. athletic and long and can rebound and guard. And, you know, he's a really, he could be a really dynamic player. He's also had, you know, some family stuff and injuries the last couple of years. You know, it's kind of yo-yoed with value while he was a golden state.

I think if Miami, if he especially is having a good year, I think that he could get some decent value for him this year, depending on what they try to do. But, I mean, I would say it's just as likely opts into that player option and plays next year at 30 million. So he's going to be an interesting player to watch. He's 30 years old, still in his prime. Last year in 60 games with the Heat and the Warriors, his role was a little bit different. He played more minutes and got more shots with the heat. So, you know, his scoring was a little bit higher. But he averaged 18, well, I'll just give you this heat numbers. With the heat, he averaged 19 points shot 30.

36% on threes. On six attempts a game. Pretty good volume. He's a pretty solid three-point shooter on volume. Yeah, he can distribute a little bit. The average three assists, they put the ball in his hands a little bit. Obviously, Jimmy Bother had his ball in his hands a lot. And so when Wiggins came in, some of that went to him.

He had the ball in his hands more than normal. In fact, yeah, that's not really a thing, though. Yeah, it was the most assists he'd averaged in five years when he's with the heat. So, look, he's a big wing who can guard bigger wings. that is a player that has some value. But again, if you're the heat, like, it'll be interesting to see what his long-term contract situation is a year from now. Like, if your point, he's 30, it's probably a good time for him to try to cash in next summer

on one longer-term deal. Is that going to be something Miami wants to do when they have these other potential designs down the road? Maybe, maybe not. Like, we'll see. But I think that's kind of where their whole roster sits. I think that's where Norman Powell sits. I think that's where Tyler Hiro sits.

I think that's where Andrew Wiggins sits. Hero situation. So Hero's coming off the best year of his career. He's an All-Star. He puts up huge numbers. You know, he's, yeah, he's probably 26, 27. I mean, he's in his prime. He's 25. It'll be 26 in January. Okay, so if you're Tyler Hero, you're thinking, all right, I just, at age 24, 25, I just made the All-Star team. You just traded your franchise player. Let's go. You know, like, you know, like that, if I'm Tyler Hero and his side, that's what I'm thinking. Yeah. And so, but if you're the heat, you're like, yeah, you know, you were the guy on a 37 win team.

True. You know? That's true. Like what they do with Hero, you know, they don't really have stress right now. Like this is the same situation they're in with Jimmy Butler and they elected to not extend him.

I don't think Hero would cause the same type of problem. It certainly would be reasonable for the heat to say, let's see you do it for another year. And if Hero does it another year, it only impress improves him. Again, he's under contract. But it's also again, it's also again,

like it's a matter too of how valuable is it what Tyler Hero does? Well, I think it's this. I asked a question about what Wiggins trade value is. This is a classic situation of if you sign, if you elect to extend Tyler Hero right now, you have to extend him into a contract that you can trade. But this is the same question with De Aaron Fox with Trey Young, with Lamello Ball,

with Tyler Hero. Like all of these guys are all a similar kind of player, really good players, really talented players, like have all made all-star teams, multiple, several of those guys. I don't think Lamele's made all the NBA team, but Trey and Deerrin certainly have. You know, all those guys have had very decorated careers so far. But in the current league that we're in, when you're really parsing out dollars and looking at it from a big picture standpoint, if Tyler Heroes, one of your two best players, how good is your team? Probably around where the heat were last year. So in theory, he needs to be your third or fourth or fifth best player,

because you really want to have a chance to win at a high level. It's hard to pay, especially your fourth or fifth best player, and maybe even your third best player, at a max or right near a max. So, you know, Tyler's max, I think, is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of, what, $50 million? Yeah. So, you know, like, are you allocating that out for him? Or would you rather, like, if they could sign him going forward on a deal like where he's at now, around 30 going forward with the cap, that's a number where I'm. I think if Tyler Hero is a part of your team, you can build a really good team around him. It's a lot like the Tre Young conversation we've had.

Like, if the Hawks can get Tre Young on an extension around where he's at now or a little less, they have a lot of depth around him. They could build a really interesting team around him. They could have a really good run. If you're paying Trey Young, 35% of the cap, I just think it's going to be very hard to build a team that can really be competitive around him. And that, I think that's the question the Spurs could have with Deer and Fox. And I think it's the question that.

Well, they made up the Spurs made their decision on. that one. Well, but I'm just saying in a couple of years, we could be looking at that like that. The material difference between Trey Young and Tyler Hero is that Trey Young has one year left and Hero has this year and next. So if the Hawks do not extend Trey Young, he is headed for a free agency. We never, maybe he's got a player opting. By the way, do you see Trey Young chiming in on Twitter about the Micah Parsons situation with the Cowboys? Trey Young, didn't. Micah Parsons ought to get paid, really thinks you ought to take care of your own. Well, I happened to. to agree. I don't think that's a hot take. Well, I wonder what Tray Young's deciding to chime in on

well, that's true. But it's not like this. This is going in a very different direction, but like, look at Julius Randall this past summer, right? Julius Randall's a really good player and really good moments in the playoffs. But, and I know there wasn't a lot of cap space this summer, but I don't think it would have really matter. Julius Randall is a difficult player to build around. He's a guy who needs the ball to have in his hands to really be effective. We've talked to, about the Wool's point guard issue. He's sort of their de facto point guard. He's a good player and an interesting player, but there isn't a huge market for him. So what do they get done? They get done a three-year extension around what he's making, keeps him in Minnesota in a really

good situation for him. Everybody wins. I think for a lot of these guys, whether it's Hero or Trey Young or any of that kind of player, I think that's sort of the question you have to ask yourself going forward. It's like, what is it that you're trying to do? Do you want to stay where you're at in a good situation where you're involved and you take a little bit less, but you're still a really important player? Or do you really test the market and see if you can go get some more money to maybe be in a worse situation or to not really have a chance to win a lot of games? Like that, I think for a lot of these guys now coming forward, the idea of just, well, you got to pay the guy, you got to have them around. I mean, again, look at Jamal Murray.

Is that a good contract? No. That was, they shouldn't negotiate that from the beginning. Jamal Murray, I'd say, is right in the same group with these kind of guys. And a lot of the reasons Denver is in trouble there in financially is because they've overpaid a bunch of these guys. They overpaid Michael Porter. They overpaid Jamal Murray. They then had to do cost-cutting moves with Michael Porter instead of going to add a player to the roster. So that is to me when you're talking about the heat, when you're talking about the hawks. Again, the spurs decision with the Aaron Fox.

They made that when they made the trade. But all those kind of deals, they're all made with this under. current of what is the right allocation of money if you're trying to build a real championship level team going forward because most teams aren't the thunder who have 10,000 abilities to add cheap young players to go along with their three stars. So a lot of these other teams are going to have to be more judicious than they've been if they want to be successful. We talked about Orlando. Orlando's got four guys making an absolute metric ton of money going forward. How are they going to build out the rest of their own? And by the way, the decision that you, what you're talking about

the decision for Trey Young. Like, Trey Young has to kind of make a decision. The Hawks have to make a decision too. Yeah, that's right. Because you're, you know, you're described, all that is fine. But like, if the Hawks are like, look, Trey, we know you've been a multi-time All-Star. We know that you've led us to some success.

I mean, Trey's the best Atlanta Hawks since Dominique Wilkins will stop. So I didn't even really get the date. If Trey opts out of his contract and walks next year, you don't just go, oh, okay, we'll replace you. We got another guy on the roster. like, you know, the tough decision goes both ways. And this was for a franchise player this didn't exist until now. Before, if you had a franchise player, you just gave him the max and worried about it later.

Well, there's a couple things here. Number one, Tyler Hero is not a franchise player. He's not. He's a very good player. He's Trey Young is a guy who's been all NBA. You look at his, he's got obvious flaws. By the way, Heroes got similar flaws on the defensive end. But Tyler Hero is a 20th.

25-year-old rising All-Star, you would in the past say that's a guy that he absolutely have to lock up, no questions asked. My point is the production, if you just put their numbers on paper, Trey Young's a significantly more productive player. I also just want to, I agree with your greater point about Jamal Murray, about the Nuggets, just kind of saying, hey, boom, here you go, you get it all, baby, especially he was coming off, you know, not great playoffs in a really rough Olympics. at the time of that contract.

I think there is one major difference between Tyler Hero and Jamal Murray. Jamal Murray has proven that he can be a driving force in playoff winning. Tyler Hero has absolutely not proven that. In fact, he was out during that finals run for the heat. Jamal Murray's numbers get significantly better come playoffs over the course his career.

Tyler Heroes go the other way. Jamal Murray is the player version of the Miami Heat the last few years. That is not a guy that I would be maxing. And I said it at the time. And I don't, like he's a, again, he's a really good player. Like he, like you said, he had incredible moments in that run. He's had incredible moments in the playoffs. He's a big guard who can really shoot it.

His incredible two-man game with the Koliokic. Like all those things can be true. On the other hand, the reason the nuggets have done all these cross-cutting moves is they auto max Michael Porter Jr. And they twice auto maxed Jamal Murray. And that cost them KCP. And it cost them having to trade their one tradable first round pick this year to get Cam Johnson, who's cheaper, but more or less the same player as the guy they traded.

And like that that's played a fundamental role in the nuggets, in my opinion, failing to have enough depth around Nicole Yokic to win more than one title the last couple years. And that might cause them to only win one title with them, period. So going forward for all these teams, that is going to be the fundamental question you have to ask. Because it isn't like it used to be where, like, again, five years ago, 10 years ago, a 25-year-old rising all-star like Tyler Hero, be like, oh, you're going to keep Tyler Hero. It's Tyler Hero and Bam Out of Bio and then what? Now it's, they have Bam out of Bio. I think we agree he's going to be there.

And the questions start right after that. Well, just know that this, it's not like this just came to the plate. the heat and the hawks in this particular case knew this was going to be a big question this summer have obviously had conversations with the players agent over the course of the last few months and here we are in vacation season where everybody's in the Mediterranean or Europe

and we don't have a deal. So that just tells you that it is a complicated situation. It will come to a head at some point, probably going into training camp or going into the regular season and that's why we're bringing it up now and the heat as they take care of their business here it brings to the four with what their plans are.

And like you said, there is more time with Tyler Hero too. It is worth pointing out. He doesn't, he isn't an option next year. Right. But as you point out, typically in the past, if you had a 25-year-old All-Star and you had the opportunity to lock them up, you locked them up. Yeah, for sure. All right.

Well, we made it through another podcast in August. Woo! Thank you. Thank you to Jackson and putting it all together. Thank you to McMahon. Thank you to Bontems. Thank you for sticking with us through the doldrums. Hope you're enjoying your summer.

We hope to have a player guest later on this week. We don't want to count our chickens, but I'm excited about a friend of the pod coming on. So hopefully later this week, we'll get to do that. Until then, have a great summer. We'll talk to you soon. Adios amigos.