Golden State Warriors proprietor Joe Lacob, a Massachusetts native and former Boston Celtics minority proprietor, mentioned in a latest interview that he has little interest in attempting to purchase his hometown workforce, which was put up on the market earlier this summer season.
Lacob was a minority proprietor of the Celtics from 2006 till 2010, when he left to purchase the Warriors for $450 million. Within the 14 years since then, he has turned Golden State into one of many league’s premier organizations and has overseen 4 championships. He needs to proceed constructing his legacy within the Bay Space somewhat than return to the Bay State.
“No probability,” Lacob advised David Aldridge and Marcus Thompson on “The Athletic NBA Present”. “No probability, sorry. That ship sailed a very long time in the past — an extended, very long time in the past. I am a Warrior, that is my identification, it is our identification. I really like what we have executed. I really like our followers, our enviornment (and) the final decade, and I simply wanna do extra. I simply wanna create a fair longer and even better legacy for this group.”
Simply weeks after the Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks to win the franchise’s record-setting 18th championship, the workforce launched a press release relating to its deliberate sale:
“Boston Basketball Companions L.L.C., the possession group of the Boston Celtics, introduced at the moment its intention to promote all of the shares of the workforce. The controlling household of the possession group, after appreciable thought and inside dialogue, has determined to promote the workforce for property and household planning issues.
“The managing board of the possession group expects to promote a majority curiosity in 2024 or early 2025, with the stability closing in 2028, and expects Wyc Grousbeck to stay because the Governor of the workforce till the second closing in 2028.”
NBA franchise values have skyrocketed lately, and Forbes’ most up-to-date valuation in October of 2023 had the Celtics at $4.8 billion. When Grousbeck and his group bought the workforce again in 2002, they did so for $360 million. That’s actually one purpose for Grousbeck and Co. to get out.
One other is the Celtics’ impending luxurious tax invoice, which might be even steeper below the punative second apron within the new collective bargaining settlement.
Earlier this summer season, the workforce gave Jayson Tatum the richest contract in NBA historical past, a five-year, $314 million extension, which surpassed the five-year, $303 million deal Jaylen Brown received final summer season. As well as, Derrick White earned a four-year, $125 million extension. Add in $30-plus million a 12 months for Jrue Vacation and Kristaps Porzingis, and the Celtics’ payroll might be over $200 million by 2025-26. Assuming they preserve the workforce collectively that lengthy, the anticipated luxurious tax could be $250 million, bringing the entire for that season to north of $450 million, for that 12 months alone.
Within the coming years, whomever owns the Celtics will both should foot a historic tax invoice or break up a title-winning workforce. Whlie Grousbeck has declined to enter additional element relating to his household’s choice to step away, it is clear that they do not need to be those to make that call.
