Category: Basketball

Ahhh, the 2020–21 season. I remember it well. After years as a punchline, the Knicks unexpectedly became competitive under first-year, veteran coach Tom Thibodeau and breakout star Julius Randle. They finished with a winning record, earned the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference, and returned to the postseason.

Randle’s stellar season (24.1 points, 10.2 rebounds, six assists, All-Star, second-team All-NBA, Most Improved Player) helped the team go from the butt of jokes to something more competent. He was high-usage, physical, available, and visibly invested in the work ethic Thibs demanded. Randle defined the season on April 21, 2021 when—after scoring 40 points and grabbing 11 boards to beat the Hawks in overtime—he famously told the MSG crowd, “We here.”

We loved it, this weird, slippery feeling he brought back to us called hope. The Knicks lost to the Hawks in the first round, but we were undeterred. For the first time in a long time, the hope felt real.

Randle was taken seventh in the 2014 draft by the Lakers. Take a look at how young and unrefined he was back in 2019, at his first media day as a Knickerbocker. He would come a long way in a short time under the bright lights of NYC.

On August 25, 2021, Randle signed a four-year extension worth a reported $117 million with incentives and a player option in the final year. It was the most the Knicks could offer under CBA rules, but a sight less than Randle might have earned by reaching unrestricted free agency in 2022. Had he maintained something close to his All-NBA production, projections put his next deal near five years and $200 million. (I’d love to know how he explained that to Mrs. Randle.)

Randle justified leaving tens of millions on the table by saying he believed the decision would give the Knicks greater flexibility to build a contender. After earlier career stops with the Lakers and Pelicans, where he had not always been happy, Jules wanted to lock into a situation he believed in. The big fella received security, continuity, and a chance to help shape the franchise. And the fanbase received an encouraging sign that sophomore team president Leon Rose was committed to building around what the Knicks already had rather than waiting for a free-agent savior.

The immediate results were a tad worrying, however. Randle regressed in 2021–22, and the Knicks missed the playoffs. The frustration peaked on January 6, 2022, against Boston at Madison Square Garden. After the Knicks fell behind by 25 and heard boos from the crowd, Randle responded to a fourth-quarter bucket with a thumbs-down gesture. Asked afterward what it meant, he replied, “Shut the f*** up.” He later apologized on Instagram, and the NBA fined him $25,000 for the language.

There are many reasons that season went off the rails, including the gamble on Kemba Walker’s knees and the mixed results from Evan Fournier. Randle’s prominence on the team, his mood swings, and his drop in production made him the most obvious target for fans who, less than a year earlier, had such high hopes. There’s that word hope again, the slippery bastard.

Nevertheless, the organization did not regress into perpetual reconstruction. Thibodeau’s culture of toughness and accountability took root around Randle and holdovers such as RJ Barrett and Mitchell Robinson. The Knicks had begun to resemble a credible basketball operation again, and that mattered in 2022, when they cleared cap space and signed Jalen Brunson to a four-year, $104 million deal.

Brunson quickly became the primary creator and eventual face of the franchise (and captain!). Randle adapted to playing alongside him, producing additional All-Star and All-NBA seasons. Success followed.

The Knicks became regular playoff participants while improving the roster through savvy front-office moves. Josh Hart, OG Anunoby, and eventually Mikal Bridges joined the group. Then, in October 2024, Randle’s part of the story ended. New York sent him, Donte DiVincenzo, Keita Bates-Diop, and a first-round pick to Minnesota in the three-team trade for Karl-Anthony Towns.

The front office publicly thanked Randle for helping establish the foundation and culture, and the trade showed how far the franchise had advanced. New York could exchange one accomplished All-NBA player for another whose skill set better suited the roster around Brunson. Towns brought size, shooting, and secondary creation to a starting five reinforced by Anunoby, Bridges, and Hart.

That group eventually reached the mountaintop Randle never could as a Knick. Thibodeau was replaced by Mike Brown, who coached the 2025–26 squad to 53 wins, an NBA Cup championship, and the franchise’s first NBA title in five decades. Brunson became Finals MVP, while Towns delivered consistently on the biggest stage.

Five years after the extension, the anniversary is bittersweet. Randle never won the big prize in New York, but our appreciation for his contribution has grown in retrospect. He joined a dysfunctional franchise, restored respectability and expectations, embodied its culture of hard work, and ultimately became a valuable enough asset to help acquire the third-best center in the league (according to The Athletic . . . any guesses whom they put ahead of KAT?).

On the timeline from the crappy years to the championship, Randle’s 2021 extension stands as a pivotal moment. The line extends from there through Brunson’s arrival, the Towns trade, and the hanging of the banner (coming soon!). Randle is back in New York these days, about to start a season with the Brooklyn Nets. If you see him around the city, give him a nod and show some respect. The championship we are celebrating now might not have happened without him.

Knicks in five.

The Golden State Warriors are adding depth to their backcourt, agreeing to a one-year, $2.6 million contract with free agent guard Brandon Williams.

Free agent guard Brandon Williams has agreed to a one-year, $2.6 million deal to sign with the Golden State Warriors, agents Derek Lafayette and Curtis Lawrence tell ESPN. Williams averaged 13 points, 3.9 assists and 22.2 minutes per night across 66 games for Dallas last season. pic.twitter.com/VcDytjCDKe

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) August 25, 2026

Williams, who played for the Dallas Mavericks last season, provided solid rotational production across 66 appearances. During his campaign with Dallas, he averaged 13 points, 3.9 assists, and 22.2 minutes per game, proving to be a reliable spark off the bench.

By bringing in Williams on a manageable one-year deal, Golden State gains an efficient scorer and playmaker capable of stabilizing their second-unit guard rotation. For Williams, the move offers an opportunity to showcase his dynamic playmaking in the Warriors’ motion-heavy system as he looks to build on a breakout year in Dallas.

What, you thought just because Ben Simmons isn’t around here anymore that offseason workout footage went out the window? Our watch never ends, ladies and gentlemen. Philadelphia 76ers second-year guard VJ Edgecombe recently participated in another Rico Hines private run (games to nine points by ones and twos). We had you covered with one from a few days ago and now we’re back for more. Should we be paying this much attention to a glorified workout in a small gym? No, probably not. But it’s August and we’re hoops degenerates. It’s what we do.

Here’s the edited video of the run via YouTube:

If you don’t want to sit through all 25 minutes, I’m going to go through chronologically and list Edgecombe’s highlights here, complete with time stamps.

You can see VJ start by rattling home a three-pointer [2:38 mark]. He hits another at the 3:20 mark, both of the standard catch-and-shoot variety. On the next clip, Edgecombe fakes at the three and when his man presses up, performs a little give-and-go to score on a cut to the hoop for an and-one. At the 3:55 mark, he drains a three off the dribble while bringing the ball up court. VJ then nails another outside shot from the wing [4:26 mark]. Then, in maybe the top highlight of the entire video, Edgecombe performs a nasty spin move off the dribble and draws the foul [5:42 mark]. An audible gasp from those in attention comes through the video recording.

At the 12:46 mark, VJ breaks his man off the dribble and hits a contested baseline jumper. He later blows by his man off the dribble for a dunk [13:57 mark]. At 20:45, he recovers from a bit of a fumbled dribble, and drains a stepback three from the top of the key. Finally, at 21:25, Edgecombe attacks off the dribble from the wing and converts a pull-up mid-range jumper.

I’m no shot doctor, but Edgecombe’s jumper is looking extremely smooth. With the collection of ball handlers on the Sixers roster now, he is going to need to be able to readily knock down open catch-and-shoot looks, and I’m confident he’s up to the challenge. Of course, the on-ball reps are going to come too, despite what the “there’s only one ball” fearmongers would have you believe. Edgecombe got great experience last year in that department and he looks to be continuing to improve there.

Anyway, good to see the 21-year-old continuing to perfect his craft. We also know from an additional camp video this past week, if any NBA opposition tries to throw a curveball at the Sixers in the form of a young child playing defense, VJ will be ready.

VJ Edgecombe just dunked on a kid 😭
(via fishern_nicole/TT) pic.twitter.com/UROCmfTq1D

— Overtime (@overtime) August 22, 2026

62 wins is a high bar to clear. The San Antonio Spurs needed to win 30 of their last 34 games to get over 60 wins last season to secure the second-best record in the NBA. After losing the NBA Finals, the expectations are higher for the 2026-27 Spurs. The basketball world expects San Antonio to hover around 60 wins and get back to at least the Western Conference Finals. The question is, will they be able to improve upon such a great season?

Currently, FanDuel has the Spurs win total over/under at 60.5 games. If San Antonio pulls off another 60+ win season, it would be the first time the franchise has done it since winning 67 games in the 2015-16 season and then 61 games in the 2016-17 season. The last team to win 60 games in back-to-back seasons was the Oklahoma City Thunder (2024-25 and 2025-26) and should be in line to win about 60 games again this season.

The Spurs have done something that’s typically needed to win 60 games: added a lot of depth. They’ve retained their core while signing veteran wing Tobias Harris, and drafted first-round big men Tarris Reed Jr., who is likely to be ready to play this season, and Jayden Quaintance, who may not suit up this year. With some injury luck, this is a team that is primed to win a lot of games in a weakened Western Conference.

But will they have enough to win more than 62 games next year? Answer that question in the poll below, and we will be back with the results later this week!

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NBA. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Spurs fans and fans across the country.

Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys:

On August 12, 2026, ten months after he finalized the $10 billion deal to acquire the franchise from the hallowed and chaotic Buss family, Mark Walter sold the Los Angeles Lakers to a group led by Josh Kushner and Bob Iger at a valuation of just over $12 billion. His tenure at the helm is the shortest since the merger, by a factor of at least three: only Ted Stepien, who was possibly the most batshit decision-maker ever to own an NBA team, gets even close, and he lasted three years. This is without a doubt the most shocking sale of a franchise in my 25 years on this planet, and I’d guess that it’s probably the most shocking one anyone reading this can remember. This is theLakers, the runners and gunners and star chasers and champions and the NBA’s crown jewel and the home of a million MVPs and the NBA’s biggest glamour market, and there are people in the world who might really saw off their own legs for a 20 percent chance at taking the reins. And this is also Mark Walter, the billionaire owner of the Dodgers who’s managed to bring a couple World Series to LA by paying just about every superstar imaginable and whose pockets previously seemed to run so deep as to appear endless, and whose organization has proven so successful that the upcoming MLB labor negotiations will in all likelihood take aim at him specifically. 

Walter was supposed to bring some of that magic to the Lakers. Gone were supposed to be the days of Ramona Shelburne exposés and palace intrigue and the dropping-and-reading-of-tealeaves that had so long defined the Lakers after family patriarch Dr. Jerry Buss passed away. They were supposed to have money again, and they were supposed to be smart, and now Walter is gone. The timing of this is strange, and the facts of it make it look even stranger: the FBI investigation into some of his business dealings at Guggenheim, his seemingly desperate search for cash as his Delaware Life company attempts to pay down the $16 billion in loans that have made it the second-most exposed life insurance company in America, the involvement of a Kushner brother, and the recent reports that not only did Walter decline to seek other buyers but also decided to sell the team in the span of 72 hours. All of this might be damning, and then again it might not, and at least a few of these facts likely explain some part of his decision to sell what is at worst the fifth-most valuable asset in sports, and the most iconic in the NBA. 

We are not likely to get an especially detailed picture of what happened here: there is enough weirdness to assume that something shady is going on, and men like Walter and Kushner are not usually keen on telling us exactly what they are doing. But even if this sale is the product of the incredibly specific conditions of an FBI investigation, a demand for quick cash, and a potential need to curry favor with a family allied with the Trump administration, this sale sets a new and scary precedent for NBA franchises. Speaking yesterday about the Walter era, ESPN reporter Dave McMenamin said this: “They added two rows of courtside seats. They fired a bunch of folks. They raised season ticket prices 40% for some folks. And they made $2 billion. Like, not a very impressive resume there for his time being the principal owner of the Los Angeles Lakers.” 

.     .     .

In 1973, America had a problem. The golden age of American capitalism had technically begun at the end of the Second World War in 1945 (it’s hard to really wrap your head around how powerful America was in 1945). For example, as Hitler bled out in his bunker, the United States held about half the planet’stotal capital and was the sole nation that could reasonably expect to exit the war intact. But its fundamental precepts—holding, in part, that strong labor protections, the so-called consumer economy, and greater public control over production would fortify the economic base and prevent the kinds of overzealous speculation that created the Great Depression—started gaining purchase in the early ‘20s.

The idea, with roots in the work of John Maynard Keynes, was that long-wave crises in the style of 1929 (and 1905, 1894, and 1877) were endemic to an unrestrained market economy. There would always be too much money going places from which it could not return, and consumer demand that would collapse at the first sign of trouble and banks that could not be trusted to act responsibly. And while some titans of industry had clearly begun to recognize this in the 1910s (on the back of other, smaller crises), the depression of ’29 had kind of sealed the deal. The depression was, of course, the worst in recorded history, and on the ground, many did not think it was actually going to end. Keynes himself, in 1930, in an essay claiming that the storm would pass away in the morning, could not help but notice how “Today we have involved ourselves in a colossal muddle, having blundered in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which we do not understand. The result is that our possibilities of wealth may run to waste for a time—perhaps for a long time.”

And while the conventional narrative generally holds that the Second New Deal rescued the economy, this is not exactly true: as early as 1937-1938, only a few years after its passage, a minor recession had once again cast doubt on the ability of the country to actually figure a way out. It was not until the outbreak of war, and really the stunning wartime mobilization, in which new, highly subsidized factories appeared overnight, production quotas in crucial industries were set, and wages fixed, that the true promise of public control appeared as something other than a fever dream or a corporate specter. It was here, it was effective, and by the war’s end, it seemed a kind of perfect solution. Not only to the problem of waging the most involved and expensive war of all time, but also to mitigating, eliminating, and weathering the myriad crises that just a few years prior had troubled the most basic and fundamental belief in the capital order. 

.     .     .

On April 26, 2023, the National Basketball Association and the National Basketball Players Association came to an accord. To the players, it was supposedly a very good thing: they managed to protect the 49-51 split of basketball-related income, raised contract extension limits for veterans from 120% to 140%, removed cannabis restrictions, and created new eligibility criteria for end-of-season awards tied to contract values (this is how you get at least one of Jamal Murray and Jalen Johnson on all-NBA, instead of Anthony Edwards). And for the owners, it was a coup: the most famous provisions increased luxury-tax payments and created a two-apron system for teams that spent over certain thresholds. Offenders would not only have to pay outlandish tax bills, but they would also lose the ability to aggregate salaries in trades, lose access to draft picks in trades, and lose access to the mid-level exception—a crucial lever for teams in tax trouble to acquire veteran talent at competitive rates. 

What this means, in essence, is that the players got a little more so that the owners could pay a lot less. Owners of small-market teams, owners with small pocketbooks, and owners who, for whatever reason, could not justify the $450 million bill for one year of basketball that Warriors owner Joe Lacob gladly paid in 2017 to build the greatest team ever were not only protected, but also rewarded for their cheapness. The propaganda for these measures has emphasized that they serve to create a parity of competition, in the style of the NFL, that the NBA has never seen before. 

It is very expensive to pay a lot of good players what they deserve now, and because punishments range far beyond money, cheaply is the best way to build a good team. You managed to draft three stars, but you have to give them max deals, or they walk? Well, you better hope your second-rounders and Carter Bryant can give you enough production so you don’t run your max guys into the ground before they get to the playoffs, because we’re not going into the second apron. You just traded for a superstar wing, making 35% of the cap to pair with your up-and-coming 30% wing? You better pray to God Karl-Anthony Towns doesn’t eviscerate Adem Bona in the playoffs, and Labaron Philon can be a good sixth man right away. 

Where the long-established logic of NBA team-building has generally held that veterans are more reliable — and thus a team of veterans is a team ready to compete — these new economics have flipped the math on its head such that only a team of young players, and more specifically, a team of young players whom you do not yet have to pay, has a chance of sticking around. And even then, as borne out by the unique faces of each champion since 2019, the dynasties of old do not have fertile soil from which to spring. 

.     .     .

So let us go back to 1973. the year of the oil crisis in Tehran and a few years after the Europeans had recovered enough to begin competing in the marketplace again and a year before Nixon resigned and two removed from the 25th anniversary of the quasi-Keynesian order of postwar America and nine after Goldwater lost and seven before Reagan won. The crisis began with OPEC’s embargo of oil sales to any nation that’d supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War—raising prices of that most essential material across the Western world. But really the crisis began much earlier. Already, consumer spending, that essential fuel of postwar growth, had reached a plateau near the end of the 1960s, precisely when foreign competition, with which this order had never had to contend, had begun to nip at corporate profits; already direct foreign investment had begun to collapse, most acutely with the collapse of Bretton-Woods in 1971 and the emergence of OPEC at the end of the ‘60s, and also assuredly the wave of independence movements in the global south that defined the ‘60s; and already had cheap and plentiful supplies of skilled foreign labor brought into question the necessity of this enormously expensive american workforce. In fewer and clearer words: the order had already begun to fracture. 

The solution, as written ad nauseam at the time and after the fact, was neoliberalism; the slashing of social welfare programs and the breaking of American labor and the relocation of industry off American soil, and the rapid opening-up of all previously protected corners of the American economy to capital. Conventional narratives will point to the ’81’s failed air traffic control strike and the weakening of Glass-Steagall all throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s as the flashpoints of the new order, and they are not wrong; neither the complete destruction of a worker’s organization representing such a vital segment of the American economy nor the rapid merger of commercial and investment banking would have been conceivable prior to the crisis of ’73. But the real story of ’73 is the story of ’08, with the subprime mortgage crisis that plunged the American economy into the worst recession since ’29. 

It is the “neoliberalism-response-to-crisis-of-accumulation-reagan-trickle-down-economics-offshoring-deregulation-austerity-death-of-the-middle-class-flint-michigan-we-don’t-make-things-anymore” story. Full of neighborhood bankers offering Americans ridiculous loans they knew they couldn’t pay back and selling that debt to other vultures who’d been told that it was safe and the constant gambling with all this debt on hospitals and tech companies and private prisons and oil concerns and a “real economy” that hadn’t actually grown in decades filled with ordinary Americans whose paychecks hadn’t risen either, and so when it crashed to the ground everything fell with it and no one knew if it could get back up, and this time nothing really changed, the banks got their money back and the gamblers were told to be more careful next time because there was sure as shit gonna be a next time because we sure as shit didn’t have any other ideas. 

.     .     .

On August 13, 2025, on the precipice of a season that would end in their first playoff run in four years, the Portland Trail Blazers announced their sale, for a reported $4.25 billion, to Tom Dundon, a billionaire who made his cash as a subprime auto lender in the early 2000s. Since 2020, an unprecedented 25 percent of NBA franchises have changed ownership in the span of six years, owing in large part to the meteoric rise of franchise valuations; in 2025 alone, the Blazers, Celtics, and Lakers alone combined for an estimated sale price of $20 billion. This is a time of great change for the league, and upon Dundon’s arrival, the dimensions of this change would make themselves clear. 

First was the announcement that Dundon had declined to pay for the travel and accommodations of Blazers support staff and their two-way players for the duration of their 2026 playoff run—a breach of the NBA’s long-established customs. Next were the rumors that interim head coach Tiago Splitter, who’d taken over for Chauncey Billups following his gambling arrest and who’d done a decent job coaxing a winning record out of a mismatched and mercurial roster, would not return to the Blazers the following season. The reason for the divorce, as alleged after the fact, was Splitter’s strange desire for a salary and contract length on the standard of other NBA head coaches. Finally, or at least most recently, are the troubling negotiations between Dundon and the city of Portland over the financing of the construction of a new arena (Dundon, of course, believes that the city should take much of the burden), with some not-so-subtle hints that Dundon aims to relocate the storied, though small-market, franchise. 

I do not get why you would buy an NBA team if you did not want to, you know, run an NBA team, especially one like Portland with a long history of relevance, a legendary title, and a rabid fanbase. But I believe, taken together with the passage of the second apron provisions in the latest CBA, all this actually does make sense. For so long in the NBA, the idea has been that you can and should buy your way into relevance. Most every great and storied team in the league’s history has had an enormous payroll. You spend on talent, and you spend as much as you need to keep that talent around. But the second apron restrictions, with all their far-reaching implications, passed and agreed to precisely when valuations are reaching record highs and teams are being sold all over the damn place, have served to not only protect but also incentivize low spending. Every team certainly must pay at least 90 percent of the salary cap, but the logic of winning has clearly changed: the OKC Thunder won a championship with the 19th-highest payroll in the league; the Spurs and Pacers went to the finals in the last two years, each with the 17th-highest payroll in their respective seasons; and even the Knicks, the most recent champions who won with the seventh-highest payroll in the nba, were only able to secure the cap space necessary to build the team because Jalen Brunson left $113 million on the table. What is more, four of the teams with the 10 highest payrolls did not advance past the first round. For reference, only once during the fabled Bron-Steph years did either of those teams fall outside the top five in spending. 

The problem is not that these owners are slashing budgets to raise profits, nor that the players are bearing the cost. Rather, what is happening is something far more insidious: the speculative turn of NBA team-building. With prices soaring, expansion looming, and more sales than ever before, there is a pretty obvious financial incentive for owners to cut costs where they can, especially owners who might soon put their teams on the market and don’t want to be dragging a $300 million payroll into negotiations. And for new owners, who again account for about 25 percent of league ownership—who bought in at this all-time high, and who, despite their vast individual wealth, have been frequently unable to amass the capital necessary to outright purchase their new teams on their own, some kind of austerity, or at least cost-deflation, probably looks appealing. The franchise is an asset now, and a ridiculously and increasingly valuable one at that. Considering all this, we are left with the big question: if the new logic of winning team-building just so happens to help out new highly leveraged owners, can all this focus on flexibility and cost-deflation really be divorced from the sales of franchises? Put another way, is it even possible to say anymore that these owners care about anything but the check they can get at the next sale?  

.     .     .

This is a story of neoliberalism, but more specifically, it is a story of speculation. Where corporate butchers like Jack Welch began to understand that the numbers on the stock ticker were all that mattered, and the numbers didn’t care much for the reality of what a company was but more so the idea of what a company could be. Companies shrank their productive units or otherwise moved them to places where labor could be bought on the cheap; research and development budgets shrunk as corporations slashed their payroll and expanded to new lines of business, most especially financial. You know this story, but what matters here for our purposes is that this era no longer saw a future for itself. If the quasi-Keynesian tendencies of the old sought to address the root cause of crisis and calamity, the new order simply sought to survive. 

Gone were the days ahead and the backward days behind; all that needed to exist here, in this increasingly wild domain, was increasingly unhinged capital. able to turn a profit in a jail cell and an operating room, and that did not care for the cities of the hungry and the shocked it left behind. And they certainly could not give less of a damn about the human meat it ground to a pulp across the pond. Because these actions looked good in the moment, the same as those piles of shit with the shine of the old-school blue chips that tore everything down in ’08. It didn’t matter if all our roads were so lined with shit that your car could barely move because the gamblers knew that they would be protected in the event of loss. And even if those subprime loans were now illegal, something close to it probably was, and as long as you stayed a few steps ahead of the crisis, you could do pretty well for yourself. 

No longer was the nation willing to offer its citizens anything more than a pittance, and if they got sick or wanted a higher education or just looked a little funny at the powers that be, their lives were subject to complete upheaval. In ’97, just seventeen years after the collapse, 31 percent of Americans had no savings to cover surprise expenses; thirty years later, in 2026, the number of Americans fitting this designation may be as high as 67 percent. We understand that there is no one coming to save us and that if the whole thing falls down again, they’ll find a way to pick it back up and act like nothing ever happened. And all this means that there are no years anymore for millions upon millions of us, at least as we’ve ever been able to understand them; for us the horizon of the foreseeable future has slimmed to the few weeks just down the road.  

.     .     .

We care about sports because the giants can fall down. In a second a man can be made a hero, and in less he can be made a villain, and every night twenty thousand of us gather in one place to yell and drink and boo, and it is all about luck and the gods, and even if these guys are kajillionaires and Adonis, we tell ourselves that they’re still like us, and we care about sports because we can absolutely ruin a billionaire’s night just by screaming. There is no reason I shut down for a couple of hours during Game 6 of the Nuggets-Wolves series last year and took a five-minute break in the middle of a rush at work to cry in the bathroom when my guys lost. We understand that our favorite players might have to leave one day and their bodies will break down, and glory doesn’t last that long. But for so long we understood that when you had a shot, you had to go all in, and if you got mad enough at the owner, you might be able to convince him to pay up.

Growing up, most of the team sales I recall were at least somewhat forced. Donald Sterling had to go, and so did Robert Sarver and so did Dan Snyder. The franchise was as much a public institution as anything else, and its owners were not good or generous people, but they were usually people who cared at least about the team and the city. and the better ones understood the business of sport was different than any other, where operating at a loss for a few years could be justified if you were winning and where there was a built-in consumer base that wasn’t going anywhere. There were easier ways to make a buck, and for many of them the franchise was something closer to a family heirloom than a business and a chance to have your name on a trophy and stand on a big parade float and wave at thousands of adoring lunatics. And so they would usually pay to keep our guys around, and they’d respect our little traditions and superstitions. They would be fixtures in our lives as much as anyone else, and for longer than any of the men they employed.

And of course, of course, of course, there were despots and union-busters and petty tyrants like Sterling and Sarver and Marge Schott. But you don’t have to mourn them to recognize that what they symbolized was a personal commitment to a city and a team with real obligations to both, and to recognize that the anonymous capital currently flooding the NBA does not see the franchise as anything but another asset in a portfolio, subject to the same economic pressures as anything else. Already they have been able to write off contracts and team purchases over 15 years using tax loopholes; already they have managed to squeeze cities for hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds for stadiums; already the franchise is an attractive investment vehicle. 

Like any good investment vehicle in 2026, this one will hurt the masses hard. Our teams will be subject to complete upheaval the minute payroll sniffs the second apron. Our owners will jack up ticket prices, cheap out on contracts, and threaten their city with relocation for more favorable terms on arena funding, only to sell off for a tidy two billion in profit a year later to the highest bidder. All that we considered so fundamental to sports—all that we believed about the need to keep your guys around and to chase glory at all costs and to pay more than you should to get what you need—has been eaten alive by capital and its logic of speculation. And that just sucks.  

Welcome to Volume III of our “Choose Your Own Adventure” starter series, where we explore the Milwaukee Bucks’ options at each position. Read along, make your choice, and share your pick in the comments—if you dare!

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We’ve covered the point and shooting guard too, now it’s time for the wing—at small forward, start who? Awkward rhyme aside, the question is valid and just perhaps the most difficult one. After all, the Bucks don’t have a single player on their roster who was a full-time starter at the three last year. No, AJ Green does should not count, that much has proven itself (sorry, AJ—I still love ya!).

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To find out who does count as a potential starter, go on to OPTION 1.

1. The not so sixth man: Jaime Jaquez Jr.

Oxymoronically, last year’s runner-up in Sixth Man of the Year voting, Jaime Jaquez Jr., likely has first dibs on the starting spot. A Jack of all trades, master of none, Jaquez fits as a starter because of his complementary skills. 

First, he’s terrific in a playmaking role (4.7 APG, 24% assist percentage), which bodes well for pairing with natural born scorers—and likely starting backcourt—Ryan Rollins and Tyler Herro, who are both effective playmakers for others but not first-rate distributors, not to mention bigs Myles Turner and Kel’el Ware, who both rely on others to set them up (87.3% and 76.2% of their made field goals were assisted, respectively). 

Second, he thrives in the paint. With shooters likely all around in the starting lineup, someone has to collapse the defence—and there’s a massive, Giannis-sized hole to fill in that regard. While Jaquez can’t do that alone, he did lead the Heat in points in the paint last season (9.9 per game), a number that’s more than two points higher than any non-Giannis Buck (Kevin Porter Jr. ranked second for the Bucks last year at 7.6 per game).

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If you need an action hero, Juan Wick is your guy. If not, go on to OPTION 2.

2. The trade deadline darling: Ousmane Dieng 

Prior to the offseason, Ousmane Dieng was the young piece the Bucks were hitching their wagon to. Okay, maybe that’s hyperbole, but at the very least he was an intriguing option who, down the stretch, showed promise of something more. He twice hit five threes in a game, twice dished out double-digit assists, and thrice collected double-digit rebounds. At his best—think his showings against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, and even the Phoenix Suns—Dieng showcased a versatility not too dissimilar to Jaquez.

In his first 17 games as a Buck, Dieng shot 43% from downtown (on 4.4 attempts per game). In his last 13 games, he averaged 5.5 APG as a primary playmaker. Against the Rockets, he dominated in downhill action as a pick and roll ballhandler, getting into and finishing in the paint. Against the Suns, he guarded down, playing the type of wing defence that wins in the postseason, locking up perennial All-Star Devin Booker. In all, Dieng can do it all, but so far it’s mostly been in snippets. Is he ready to take the next step?

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If you want your Ous to really be loose, choose Dieng. If not, run to OPTION 3.

3. The force-feed me neophyte: Nate Ament 

Ament is still super early in his narrative arc, so it’s highly unlikely he starts this season, let alone from the jump. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t—or shouldn’t. For one, Ament has the size height no one else can offer at the position. At 6’10” he towers over Jaquez, let alone the guys below him on this list. In fact, he’s the equal fourth-tallest Buck, shorter than only Kel’el Ware, Myles Turner, and Bogoljub Markovic. This height and length—his wingspan is 7-foot—makes him an ideal cog in a Taylor Jenkins machine that figures to get after it defensively. But it will also prove useful on the offensive end too, whether that’s by getting to (and hopefully finishing at) the rim, or by augmenting the horizontal spacing his shooting provides with vertical spacing too (i.e., it’s harder to close out on taller shooters).

Of course, the real argument for Ament as a starter is to try and accelerate his development; forget the narrative exposition, begin in medias res. In addition to force-feeding him calories in the kitchen and weights in the gym, force-feeding him minutes on the court is pivotal if he has any chance at becoming the player his potential teases. Plus, as a starter he’d be better insulated by the best the Bucks have to offer, enabling him to focus on a narrowed set of responsibilities. Think of it as a JOB start—that’s Johnny O’Bryant for those who forgot—only on steroids (not literally).

---

If starting Ament doesn’traise your eyebrows, choose him. If it does, turn to OPTION 4.

4. The too small small forwards: Tyler Herro, Brayden Burries, or Gary Trent Jr.  

Natural threes aside, there is the potential the Bucks roll with the dreaded three-guard lineup. “Why!?” you may be asking screaming. Well, unlike last year, when the Bucks simply didn’t have enough options to play a traditional small forward, this year it comes down to math: too many quality guards and not enough minutes to go around. So, in the event that all the guards remain on the roster and show out in training camp, Jenkins might have his hand forced.

As I wrote in the shooting guard chapter of this series, Tyler Herro played a not-so-insignificant 20% of his minutes at small forward last season. And in lineups that featured Bam Adebayo, Andrew Wiggins, Herro, Norman Powell, and Davion Mitchell, where Herro was the nominal three—Powell recorded just 4% of his playing time at small forward; Mitchell had 0%—the Heat achieved a net rating of +5.2.

Should Herro remain in the backcourt, Brayden Burries could even slot in as a small-ball three. Yes, he’s short for the position, but at 215 lbs he’s already heavier than every non-big on the roster (besides Jaquez)—and, for that matter, Nate Ament and Bogoljub Markovic, too. Built like a brick sh*thouse, Burries is certainly strong enough to guard up and this would be the easiest way to solve his minutes paradox while still playing the veteran guards (or even Kasparas Jakučionis).

Before I close, Gary Trent Jr. could fill this spot too (yes, you read that right). After all, he played 61% of his minutes at small forward last season and 47% the year prior. And, yes, I am aware of all the free throw rate and rebounding graphics going around that highlight the ineptitude of such lineups. Still, Trent is back for a the foreseeable future and who knows what else that handshake meant he can be a positively impactful player. Can’t he?

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QUICK! Make a decision,or you’ll be trapped in small forward purgatory! Choose Herro, Burries, or Trent if your name is Doc and/or you’re a sucker for a three-guard lineup. Otherwise, pull a rabbit out of your hat and tell us who it is in the comments.

THE END

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File this the “ah-doy” column, but CBS Sports posted a list of the top NBA duos going into the 2026-2027 season, and the San Antonio Spurs earned themselves the top spot.

.@CBSSports ranks the top-10 NBA duos 👀

10. Donovan Mitchell +Evan Mobley
9. Anthony Edwards + LaMelo Ball
8. Jayson Tatum + Derrick White
7. Giannis Antetokounmpo + Bam Adebayo
6. Luka Doncic + Austin Reaves
5. Tyrese Maxey + Jaylen Brown
4. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander + Jalen… pic.twitter.com/ugnhkpZkBu

— SleeperHoops (@Sleeper_Hoops) August 23, 2026

The above post is not 100% accurate. For one, it is a Top 12 list, not a Top 10. But #12 are Golden State Warriors legends Stephen Curry and Draymond Green. #11 is Cade Cunnigham and Jalen Duren.

Though the actual article list the Philadelphia 76ers at #5, it says “Sixers choose your own adventure” meaning that on any given night, their best two players may fluctuate. Between Jaylen Brown, LeBron James, Tyrese Maxey, V. J. Edgecombe, and Joel Embiid, there is a lot of firepower coming out of the City of Brotherly Love.

And at #1, the Spurs list Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle/Dylan Harper.

For so many years now, the Spurs flew under the radar of national attention. Even back in the days of Timmy, Tony, and Manu, there never seemed to be recognition at the national level of just what was transpiring in San Antonio.

The Spurs 2026 Final appearance has garnered them plenty of attention as well as an increase in nationally televised games. Victor Wembanyama, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, made the NBA2K27 cover.

It should come as no surprise that the 2023 and 2024 back-to-back Rookies of the Year are a tandem to be reckoned with considering the advances they have made since their respective rookie seasons. The addition of Harper just underscores (a) how well the Spurs have drafted over the last three years, (b) how great these players are, and (c) how great they are together.

A few opinions (through Silver & Black colored glasses):

1. Out of eighteen teams, there has to be a better duo than Curry and Green. Thoughts?
2. I love me some Derrick White, but is Jayson Tatum and Derrick White a better duo than Tatum and Jaylen Brown?
3. Luka Doncic and Austin Reeves sounds like step down from Luka Doncic and LeBron James. Does Reeves truly have what is takes to be Robin to Doncic’s Batman?
4. 2025 NBA Champions Shai Gilgeous -Alexander and Jalen Williams in the fourth spot seems to make a statement about where they were and where they are going.

Two of these duos have yet to play together. After being kicked out of the playoffs in the Western Conference Finals for two years, the Minnesota Timberwolves decided to shake things up. The last time the Timberwolves shook things up, they traded KAT to the Knicks. Worked out well for the Knicks (s0rt of, more on that below). They have paired their generational superstar Anthony Edwards with LaMelo Ball. Ball and Edwards have the most anticipated pairing this season, so there will be eyes on them throughout.

Meanwhile in the East, Giannis Antetokounmpo has moved to South Beach to give the Miami Heat another star player. Paired with Bam Adebayo, these two will be a menace in the paint and on the boards.

As for Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns in the third spot, it’s difficult to think of KAT as a top tier player based on his fourth quarter scoring in the Finals (he scored five points in total for all five games). While that’s a a small sample size, it’s the Finals, the highest stakes version of a small sample size.

What else stuck out to you all on the list?

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The Cleveland Cavaliersfinally made their move of the summer. A multi-team trade that ultimately landed Peyton Watson in the Wine and Gold.

So what’s the big deal?

Watson, on paper, fills the biggest hole this roster has had throughout the decade. A 6’8” wing with plus athleticism and legit upside on both offense and defense.

Today, we discuss three reasons why Watson can be the missing piece.

Defensive Versatility

It’s not an exaggeration to say the Cavs were the least athletic team that reached the conference finals last season. The Thunder, Spurs, and Knicks all ran laps around them in that regard. Cleveland wasn’t going to advance any further without addressing this.

Watson immediately steps in as the best athlete on the roster. His long frame and dexterity give Cleveland the versatility they need.

This will be most evident on defense, where Watson’s agility allows him to defend multiple positions and offer resistance to transition attacks. The Cavs ranked 17th in transition defense last season, according to Cleaning the Glass. Watson can bolster this aspect of their defense by being the most capable of getting back on D.

Welcome to Cleveland, Peyton Watson!
4 minutes of him blocking shots

(via @pitlessball) pic.twitter.com/mdO8d4Z64p

— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) August 20, 2026

Watson’s speed also allows him to recover and track down shots from behind. He ranked in the 99th percentile as a shot blocker from the forward position last season. Downhill drives will be more difficult than ever for opponents as Watson joins an elite rim-protecting frontcourt with Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen.

Cleveland will always be vulnerable defensively with James Harden and Donovan Mitchell in the backcourt. But Watson gives them an option to defend the opposing team’s best player. Watson is proficient at defending the point of attack and contesting perimeter shots. This is something the Cavs needed almost more than anything.

You might be thinking to yourself: didn’t Dean Wade provide most of the same defensive skills that I just listed as positives for Watson? And you’d be correct. Wade already filled some of those gaps for Cleveland — and with him gone, Watson is simply trying to replace what is lost without Wade.

That might feel like this is all a lateral move. But there is, however, one difference that makes Watson a more viable two-way option for the Cavs. It’s the other side of the floor.

Three-Point Shooting

This is in no way meant as disrespect towards Wade (who Fear the Sword has always been fond of). But having a wing who can check all of the boxes defensively while being a real threat to shoot the ball is something that Cleveland hasn’t had.

Watson hasn’t always been considered a shooter. Even now, this skill is an x-factor for his development. But Watson made a leap last season, ranking in the 97th percentile as a corner shooter. He shot 52% from the corner, which was 11% higher than Wade in each of his last three seasons.

There are two components to this:

First, Watson gets the benefit of projected development. He’s only 23, meaning this could be the tip of the iceberg in terms of his shooting potential. There’s no guarantee that he continues to improve, or even maintains the growth he showed last year. But if he does? The Cavs have a winning lottery ticket.

More importantly, confidence is key.

One of the long-standing criticisms of Wade was his fear of shooting the ball. Everyone watching could tell that Wade wanted nothing to do with scoring the rock. His lack of confidence was undeniable. And once you build that reputation for yourself, it’s nearly impossible to erase. Opponents no longer respect you.

Watson doesn’t have that issue just yet.

His volume isn’t much higher than Wade’s — but his progress from last season is fresh in our minds. He doesn’t have a track record for being hesitant. Teams haven’t watched him suffer from record scratches like Wade.

Watson is a more willing and able shooter who made the most of his opportunities in Denver. That will cause the defense to respect him more than they did Wade.

We understand that playing next to Nikola Jokic means you’ll reap the rewards. Watson was given high-quality shots on a nightly basis. While the Cavs don’t have a singular force as powerful as Jokic — the rim pressure provided by Allen and Mobley has proven to be enough to collapse the defense. I think Watson will receive similar shots in Cleveland, as a result.

From there, all he has to do is shoot with confidence. Watson can stamp himself as a premier 3-and-D wing with one more solid season.

On-Ball Flashes

It’s one thing to be a defensive stopper. It’s another to add three-point shooting to the mix. But completing it all by being a competent on-ball creator is the type of stuff that makes you a star.

Does Watson have All-Star potential?

I want to refrain from getting too carried away. At the same time, what else is summer for if we can’t get overexcited about Cleveland’s newest additions?

Watson flashed some important skills last year. Particularly when Jokic was on the sidelines. Watson averaged 23.1 points per game on above 50% shooting as Denver leaned on his shot creation to carry them during this difficult stretch of the season.

Peyton Watson self-creation leap pic.twitter.com/6oKZwf5eIr

— Brett Usher (@UsherNBA) January 23, 2026

Some highlights include his pull-up jumper from the mid-range, where Watson shot 50% during the season. He also showed some budding skills for attacking the basket, euro-stepping and spinning to quality looks at the rim. This is a work in progress, but a flash in the pan nonetheless.

Watson’s handle is encouraging. He’s a confident dribbler who looks comfortable navigating the floor. He utilizes a variety of moves from hesitations to crossovers to create space for himself.

Playing in Cleveland will push Watson to step deeper into that role. He no longer has to fit around an otherworldly offensive hub like Jokic. Instead, he’ll be asked to create more for himself as a tertiary option. It will be sink or swim. The potential rewards of that ultimatum are what make this addition so exciting.

Why Warriors adding guard Brandon Williams in NBA free agency is a wise move originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Finally, the Warriors on Tuesday made an external move to their roster. 

Point guard Brandon Williams agreed to a one-year, $2.6 million contract with the Warriors in unrestricted free agency, his agents Derek Layafette and Curtis Lawrence told ESPN’s Shams Charania. 

Williams brings more guard depth to the Warriors after enjoying a career year in Dallas. The 26-year-old who turns 27 in late November played a career-high 66 games last season for the Mavericks, starting 15 and averaging a career-high 13.0 points per game, while tying his career high of 3.9 assists per game. He’s a young guard with experience who brings a different element the Warriors certainly needed. 

They themselves should know all about how Williams can impact a game, as he showed against the Warriors in two games last season. Williams averaged 22.5 points in two games against the Warriors last season, his most against any team playing multiple games, and shot 72.7 percent from the field (16 of 22). He also went 12 of 15 from the free-throw line (80 percent) in those two games. 

First, Williams was his own best gift against the Warriors on Christmas, popping for a season-high 26 points off the bench. He never cleared that mark again last season, and his 26 points against the Warriors were the third-most of his career. 

The Los Angeles native had the ball on a string at Chase Center on Christmas. Williams was under control and got to the rim with ease. He was confident to take jump shots when given space, and he even banked in the one 3-point attempt he made. His former high school teammate, Warriors guard De’Anthony Melton, couldn’t help but show him love after Golden State downed Dallas on Christmas. 

“That’s my dog too, Brandon Williams,” Melton said. “I never really congratulate someone on the other team, but you love to see him go out there and play, do his thing and find his way in this league.” 

Despite Steph Curry’s 38 points and Melton’s 22 off the bench, Williams and the Mavs got the best of the Warriors the second time they played one another last season. Williams again shined off the bench, too. A few weeks after Christmas, Williams went for 19 points on 7-of-10 shooting and was 5 of 6 at the free-throw line, plus five rebounds and four assists in 26-plus minutes.  

In Williams’ two games against the Warriors last season, the 6-foot-1 guard was 15 of 19 on 2-point shots (78.9 percent) and 1 of 3 (33.3 percent) beyond the arc. That’s who Williams is, and it’s a welcome winkle for the Warriors. 

Williams isn’t going to help the Warriors climb the ladder of ranking 20th in 3-point percentage. He shot a lowly 23.2 percent from 3-point range last season and has a 28.0 3-point percentage for his career. But Williams did shoot 55.2 percent on 2-point shots and was even better the season before, making 57.8 percent of his twos. 

Relying on speed and handles to get to the basket, Williams took more shots at the rim than he did behind the 3-point line. And with a lot of success as well. Williams shot 71.3 percent (134 of 188) at the rim and 58.3 percent in the paint (210 of 360). 

The Warriors as a team last season ranked 26th in points in the paint per game (45).

Williams joins a group of ball-handling guards in Golden State that includes Curry and Melton, Brandin Podziemski and also LJ Cryer on a two-way contract. Checking multiple boxes, Williams can be a microwave scorer off the bench after a season where he scored at least 20 points in eight games, he can break down a defense as a playmaker and also find his way to the charity stripe as a trusted free throw shooter.

Every ounce of juice the Warriors can bring off the bench is a bonus for a team that will be without Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody to start the season. 

After seeing firsthand how Williams is ascending, the Warriors were wise to bring him in on a cheap deal. Adding Williams gives the Warriors one open spot on their 15-man roster, and they also still have one vacant two-way contract. Second-round draft pick Lajae Jones has not been designated a roster spot yet.

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Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger, successful businessmen by any measure, paid $12.5 billion for the Lakers, easily the highest price ever for a sports franchise.

It was a rare chance to acquire an iconic sports brand, and by all accounts, timing was everything.

The enormous sale price has implications for the rest of the NBA and raises a basic question: Did Kushner and Iger get a great deal or did they overpay?

Business titan Mark Walter owned the NBA franchise for only a year. Federal regulators are investigating Walter’s financial empire, and he reportedly felt compelled to sell as he moves billions to help unravel undisclosed related-party loans from two of his insurance companies to multinational holding company TWG Global — an abbreviation for The Walter Group, where he serves as chief executive.

Before many learned Walter might be interested in selling the team quickly, Kushner and Iger, already pining for an NBA franchise, jumped at the opportunity.

The haste of the transaction would seem to have given the buyers superior leverage, yet Walter negotiated a 25% increase on the $10 billion he spent on the team last October.

Some experts argue the Lakers are worth every penny. A deep dive into the market for legacy sports franchises indicates to Sports Value Consulting co-founder and chief executive Michael Rapkoch that the investment is sound.

“How often do the Lakers come up for sale? Why wouldn’t someone pay that amount if they were able?” Rapkoch said. “Are you going to be the person who says at a cocktail party that you could have bought the team but turned it down because you wouldn’t pay more than $11 billion? This is likely your one and only chance. It’s do it or lose it.”

Read more:The Dodgers are Mark Walter's crown jewel. Can he hold on to it amid federal probe?

Twelve years ago, Steve Ballmer bought the Clippers for $2 billion and admitted he willingly overpaid. In 2025, the Boston Celtics — like the Lakers, an illustrious legacy franchise — were sold for $6.1 billion, which closely matched Forbes market estimates.

Less than a year later, the Lakers sold for more than twice that amount. Some experts were astonished by the price tag.

“You’ve got to buy things with some discipline based on the revenue potential, the cost takeouts, what does the P&L [Profit and Loss] look like,” bestselling business author William D. Cohan said on a podcast. “You’ve got to believe that Iger and Kushner got caught up in wanting to own this thing.

“As usual with these kind of assets, you have to buy it smart, buy it right or else you overpay. If you get into ‘deal heat,’ which I have a feeling Bob Iger did ... it’s hard to get a return when you way overpay.”

Premium sports franchises have spiked in value so rapidly that sticker shock is nil. Shortly after Walter purchased the Lakers, sports business website Sportico determined that the average NBA team was worth $5.51 billion, a 20% increase in one year and a 113% surge since 2022.

Read more:Inside Lakers mega-deal: Mark Walter made a shocking decision. Bob Iger, Joshua Kushner jumped at the chance

The Golden State Warriors ranked first at $11.33 billion, the Lakers were second at $10 billion — reflecting what Walter paid for the team — and the Memphis Grizzlies ranked last at $4 billion. Collectively, the 30 NBA franchises were worth $165 billion.

Record-breaking purchases of NBA, NFL and MLB teams are often initially considered overpays, yet soon are deemed bargains.

Ballmer, like Iger, had come up short in earlier bids for teams, and wasn’t going to let it happen again with the Clippers. He acknowledged succumbing to the “deal heat” Cohan mentioned, but never regretted it. Forbes estimates the Clippers are worth $7.5 billion today.

“I was all in, but then it got into the bid process. And I was still all in, and I just said, ‘I’m gonna get this team,’” Ballmer said on a podcast in 2023. “People thought I way overpaid, but I got the team.”

Experts say the value of top-tier sports franchises involves three factors that differ from most other companies: guaranteed revenue through long-term league media rights deals; regional and global branding that fuels steady ancillary revenue from sponsorships and team merchandise; and extreme scarcity that fosters deep fan allegiances.

Read more:Why have private equity firms taken an interest in buying professional sports teams?

Major franchises — the Lakers, Dodgers, Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees, to name a few — don’t change hands often. Kushner and Iger were mired in a lengthy battle to gain approval for an NBA expansion franchise Las Vegas and clearly viewed the Lakers as a better opportunity.

Recently approved NBA media rights deals are worth $6.9 billion a year from 2025 through 2036. They include the renewal of the league’s partnership with Disney — which owns ESPN — and new agreements with NBCUniversal and Amazon under which ABC/ESPN, NBC/Peacock and Prime Video will telecast games.

Some financial experts consider the Lakers a less risky investment than, say, OpenAI, into which Kushner invested a billion dollars through his venture capital firm, Thrive Capital. That investment and others in the AI and tech sectors have paid off handsomely, but pivoting to a legacy NBA team with a locked-in elevated financial floor could be prudent. Iger just stepped down after two runs heading the Walt Disney Co.

“The NBA has more secured, annual retention revenue than most other investments,” Rapkoch said. “You are buying into something stable. In 15 to 20 years the Lakers are going to be here. Will an AI company be here? Maybe so. But lots of companies have come and gone. We know with a high level of certainty the Lakers will be here.”

Some who believe Kushner and Iger got caught up in the moment and overpaid point to the bidding war with Comcast for 21st Century Fox that Iger won for Disney in 2019. The price escalated from $54 billion to $72 billion and Disney was left with a debt load of $25 billion and mixed returns.

Read more:Plaschke: Beneath the Dodgers' latest sweep, the scary rumblings of a team sale persist

Iger rejected the notion that he experienced “buyer’s remorse,” maintaining on a November 2024 call with analysts that the deal was made “through the lens of streaming.” He asserted that Disney would not have successfully launched and scaled Disney+ without Fox’s immense content catalog, which included the “Avatar” franchise, “The Simpsons,” FX and National Geographic.

NBA franchise revenue is not as diversified as Disney‘s, yet the league generated $12.25 billion in revenue — an average of $408 million per team — during the 2024-25 season, including events such as concerts at arenas owned or operated by teams. These earnings ranged from the Warriors’ $833 million to the Grizzlies’ $301 million.

But NBA teams also do not have some of the business challenges movie studios face in the streaming era.

Rapkoch pointed out that it is unclear precisely how much of the Lakers will be owned by Kushner and Iger. Walter’s majority ownership share has not been publicly divulged. It has been widely reported that among minority owners, the Buss family owns 17.8%, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong 4% and Edward P. Roski Jr. 3%.

Jeanie Buss, the current governor of the Lakers and one of six children of the late longtime owner Jerry Buss, is fighting with her siblings, who voted to sell the family’s remaining stake to Iger and Kushner. Buss said any such vote is void because the sale cannot be completed without her approval.

Soon-Shiong, a biotech billionaire and owner of The Times, said through his attorney that he is not interested in selling his stake, which he purchased from Magic Johnson in 2010 for an undisclosed amount.

What is it worth today? Four percent of $12.5 billion is $500 million. Roski, whose stake is worth $375 million, has not disclosed his intentions.

Whatever the minority owners decide should not impact the sale of Walter’s majority stake, said Rapkoch, whose firm has provided valuation services and operational consulting to more than 50 professional sports franchises. Assuming they get the blessing of the NBA board of governors, Iger and Kushner will own the Lakers.

“Bob and Josh are going to do an amazing job,” Rapkoch said. “They know L.A., and they will bring a fresh look to the franchise.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

It’s History Month at CelticsBlog, celebrating all 18 banners hanging in the rafters. Today we look back at the team to bring the water back to the Garden, the utterly dominant yet humanely vulnerable 2008 Boston Celtics.

NBA history spans 80 seasons, and as CelticsBlog readers well know, the Boston Celtics have won a league-high 18 championships. This month, we are recapping each of those title years.

Five Olympics, five World Cups, 8,000 sleepless nights. A lot can happen in 22 years. For many a Celtics fan, the gap between 1986 and 2008 felt like an eternity. A franchise so renowned for its pedigree, with a fanbase so addicted to victory, had been starved of it for over two decades. It seemed that Bostonians, local and spiritual, had spent all their basketball capital to watch the most beautiful basketball ever put to the hardwood in 1986; what awaited was tragedy, disappointment and the feeling that Lucky the Leprechaun was never to witness the Green lifting the gold at the end of the rainbow again.

In 2007, spectators at TD Garden were subjected to the second-worst season in the history of the franchise at 24-58, all in the hopes of landing a top-two pick in the draft. Boston had been rescued by an ascendant rookie talent 28 years prior. Wyc Grousbeck, Paul Pierce, and anyone else who bled green hoped that one of Kevin Durant or Greg Oden would don the shamrocks to do the same once more.

It wasn’t to be.

Despite having the second-best odds at the number one pick, the Celtics slipped to fifth when the lottery balls fell as they did. It seemed purgatory wasn’t ready to let go of the Celtics just yet. Danny Ainge, former Celtics player and now GM, had to take matters into his own hands.

Assembling the Big Three:

June 28th, 2007. Draft Night.

“And with the 5th pick, in the 2007 NBA Draft, the Boston Celtics select… Jeff Green, from Georgetown University!” And immediately traded both him and Wally Szczerbiak to the Seattle SuperSonics for Ray Allen and Glen Davis.

Purgatory no more, the Boston front office made a declaration that they were not content to languish in the doldrums of the Eastern Conference. Commentators, analysts and fans at the time were confused. Allen was coming off a 26.4 PPG season and his fourth consecutive All-Star selection — Ray could play. But Allen had just undergone surgery on both ankles. 2008 would be his age-32 season. Had Boston given up the 5th pick simply to become respectable, not revered?

Adrian Wojnarowski chastised the front office. “No vision, no plan.” Michael Wilbon described the Celtics as “wandering aimlessly philosophically.” For many, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Al Jefferson looked more like a playoff team than a championship one. If only they could acquire a “Big Ticket” item…

A month later, with the help of franchise legend and Minnesota Timberwolves GM Kevin McHale, Boston landed former MVP and NBA superstar Kevin Garnett. The skies had cleared. Over the course of a summer, Danny Ainge turned lottery heartbreak into perhaps the most formidable big three of the 2000s.

A Regular Season for the Record Books:

Accompanied by sophomore starting point guard Rajon Rondo and a supporting cast featuring James Posey, Kendrick Perkins, Eddie House and Tony Allen, Boston had already surpassed its previous season’s win total by New Year’s Day. Through 30 games, the Celtics sat at 27-3, tied for the best 30-game start to an NBA season in history.

Pierce, Allen and Garnett blended seamlessly, each sacrificing shots and touches in pursuit of Banner 17. Highlights included a 16-0 start against the Western Conference, a 6-0 sweep of the Texas Triangle and a near-franchise record dismantling of the Knicks, 104-59! No, they didn’t turn the shot clock off for this game; this is what happens when Nate Robinson leads you into battle against KG & Co.

The individual accolades followed. Kevin Garnett won the only Defensive Player of the Year award of his career after spearheading a Celtics defense that posted a league-best 98.9 defensive rating. His willingness to sacrifice offensive production for the good of the team may have hurt his MVP case, but he still finished third in a fiercely contested race behind Chris Paul and eventual winner and future Finals rival, Kobe Bryant. Paul Pierce made All-NBA Third Team, while all three members of the Big Three were selected as All-Stars. Even Doc Rivers got in on the act, coaching the Eastern Conference All-Stars 20 years after appearing in the game as a player in 1988.

By season’s end, the Celtics had completed the largest single-season turnaround in NBA history: 24-58 in 2006-07 to 66-16 in 2007-08. A 42-win improvement transformed Boston from lottery hopefuls into championship favorites in the space of a year.

A Homesick Post-Season?

Let’s be clear. Boston went 31-10 on the road during the regular season. A tour of terror; no other franchise touched thirty plus wins away from home. Then something very strange happened. The best road team in basketball underwent mitosis, splitting into a swaggering, confident and imperious home team and a cursed, nervous and jumpy away team.

Their first-round opponent was Atlanta, a 37-45 Hawks team making its first postseason appearance in nine years. Boston had swept the regular-season series and wasted little time asserting itself at home, winning Games 1 and 2 by 23 and 19 points respectively. Then the series travelled south.

Atlanta won Game 3. Then Game 4. Boston returned home and comfortably won Game 5, only to lose again in Atlanta three nights later. Through six games, neither team had won on the road. A Celtics team that had lost just ten times away from home across the entire regular season had now lost three times in six days to an Atlanta team starring Joe Johnson, Josh Smith and a rookie Al Horford. I haven’t checked, but something tells me SI’s writers at the time didn’t have the two Big Threes ranked particularly close.

Fortunately, Game 7 was back in Boston. That swaggering buzzsaw from the regular season returned and any possibility of drama was quickly curtailed. All season long, Kevin Garnett had been the centerpiece of a progressive defensive scheme concocted by assistant coach Tom Thibodeau (whatever happened to him?). No game serves as a better microcosm for the C’s defensive dominance. They held Atlanta to just 26 first-half points. A second-half procession ensued and Boston escaped the first round having beaten Atlanta 99-65. The defending Eastern Conference champions and LeBron James were up next.

Remarkably, the pattern continued.

Boston won Games 1 and 2 at home, limiting Cleveland to 72 and 73 points. The Cavaliers responded with two victories in Ohio. Boston took Game 5 at the Garden; Cleveland answered in Game 6. Twelve playoff games had been played and the Celtics were now a perfect 6-0 at home and an inexplicable 0-6 on the road. Once again, their season would be decided by a Game 7 in Boston.

The Atlanta Hawks were a distant memory. Boston had done well throughout the second-round series to hold LeBron to 23.7 PPG through the first six games, but tension was palpable. Having seen James carry Cleveland past Detroit the season prior with a heroic 48-point Game 5 performance, including the Cavaliers’ final 25 points and 29 of their final 30, staff and squad alike knew that he was capable of ending their season.

Cue Paul Pierce and LeBron James in one of the great Game 7 duels in NBA history. James scored 45 points; Pierce answered with 41. Together they accounted for 86 of the 189 points scored in the game. Every time Boston threatened to pull away, LeBron dragged Cleveland back into contention. Every time Cleveland closed the gap, Pierce had an answer. With Boston nursing a three-point lead in the final seconds, Pierce even received a little help from the Garden rims, watching his first free throw bounce high off the iron before eventually dropping through. Pierce’s heroics saw Boston emerge winners, 97-92.

The game, and this series, should serve as a reminder of how blessed Bostonians were to watch Paul Pierce for 15 seasons. Nowadays, he’s a colorful character on broadcasts and whose social media posts are at times as embarrassing as the 2007 season, but KG summed up that night perfectly: “Tonight was basically get the ball to Paul Pierce and get the hell out of the way. Ain’t no need to ask me no questions.”

Somewhat ironically, the Eastern Conference Finals matchup against the Detroit Pistons, the yardstick by which all Eastern Conference contenders were measured in the 2000s, was the shortest of Boston’s playoff series in the lead-up to the 2008 Finals.

We often talk about teams built to take down champions in the league today. Daryl Morey’s Rockets in the late 2010s were constructed with Golden State specifically in mind. Tim Connelly’s double-big Timberwolves were built to combat the Denver starting five that looked set to control the 2020s after their title win in 2023.

Looking back, it seems Boston took Detroit’s formula and improved upon it. Both teams could field starting fives without a defensive weak link, allowing them to dominate on that side of the ball. A team-first, as opposed to star-first, mentality saw the scoring burden shared amongst stars rather than the offense relying upon one savior. Both franchises had incredible movement shooters in Ray Allen and Rip Hamilton. Paul Pierce and former Celtic draftee Chauncey Billups thrived as each team’s de facto closer. The difference between the two was found in the frontcourt.

Detroit’s trade for Rasheed Wallace in 2004 was one of the best of the 2000s. A versatile big man who could stretch the floor, guard one-on-one and pair with a bruising defensive savant in the paint in Ben Wallace. The Wallaces walled off the paint together and had just enough on offense to hold it down. In Kevin Garnett, rather fittingly, Boston had acquired a player who could replicate the impact of each of Detroit’s frontcourt stars all in one.

The game to remember from the series was undoubtedly Game 6. Having split the first four, with each team winning once on the road, Boston grabbed Game 5 to set up a closeout game in Motor City. Three quarters in, it seemed as though another Game 7 was in the offing as Detroit carried a 68-60 advantage into the fourth at The Palace of Auburn Hills. Then Boston’s season-long identity finally travelled with them.

The start of the fourth saw Detroit increase its lead to double digits before Boston finally recaptured the defensive form it had shown throughout the regular season. The Celtics erased the deficit with an 18-4 run, turning a 70-60 Detroit lead into a 78-74 Boston advantage. Pierce took control, scoring 12 of his team-high 27 points over the final 7:35, dragging himself to the charity stripe repeatedly down the stretch. On the other side of the ball, defensive specialist James Posey took on an expanded role in place of Ray Allen as Boston held Detroit to a measly 13 points in the fourth, emerging victorious, 89-81.

During the Detroit series, Garnett shone for Boston. Taking on a greater offensive burden than he had during the regular season, KG scored a series-high 22.8 PPG against the Pistons whilst continuing to captain that incredible defence. Garnett was the cheat code that helped close the book on Detroit’s reign as the East’s defining contender, preceding a marked decline in Motor City hoops that would last until Cade Cunningham arrived well over a decade later.

After needing 14 games to escape the first two rounds, Boston had finally learned how to win away from the Garden when it mattered most. The Celtics were Eastern Conference champions for the first time since 1987.

And waiting for them on the other side was Los Angeles.

The Finals and the return of the glory days

By the time the Finals rolled around, the odds had flipped. A team that had looked so dominant during the regular season had shown real vulnerability navigating the East. Boston had taken twenty games to reach the Finals, whereas Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol’s Lakers had blitzed the West, dropping only three on their journey to the ultimate showdown. The mood around the matchup reflected it. Bill Simmons admitted, “We’ve never battled anyone quite like Kobe in his prime.” Sporting News’ Stan McNeal cut to the heart of the national consensus: “Team with the best player wins.” Nine out of ten ESPN experts picked Los Angeles.

Coming into the playoffs, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen hadn’t made a postseason appearance since 2005, whilst KG had sat out since his MVP season in 2004. Perhaps there were fears that Boston’s star trio no longer had the legs for a hundred-game season. Bryant, meanwhile, was the league’s MVP and had just dismantled the defending champion Spurs in the Western Conference Finals. San Antonio possessed the third-best defense in basketball that season; Kobe still averaged an efficient 29.2 PPG to send them home in five.

Parity has defined much of the NBA since Kevin Durant left Golden State, but back then Jordan’s specter still loomed large over the league. More often than not, the best player eventually separated himself from the pack and ended the season with the Larry O’Brien Trophy in hand. Bryant, Gasol, Pierce, Garnett and Allen all entered the series chasing something different, but for Boston the stakes felt especially personal. Simmons argued that three players had the most to gain historically from a title: Kobe, Pierce and Garnett, with KG facing the greatest scrutiny if Boston fell short.

There was still a compelling case for the Celtics. Bob Ryan picked Boston in six, arguing that the series would be decided by which team imposed its identity more forcefully: Los Angeles with its pace and scoring, or Boston with a defense comfortable dragging games into the 80s. As Ryan later put it when explaining why so much of the national media favored LA: “They have the best player.” Boston’s answer was that it might have the better team.

Game 1:

Boston dominated the possession game in the opener, killing LA on the glass and drawing fouls at will. In a game that ended 98-88 in Boston’s favor, all three of the Big Three showed up, with Allen scoring 19, Pierce 22 and Garnett 24. Ticket grabbed thirteen rebounds, four offensive, setting a trend that would hold throughout the Finals. The Lakers defended with a lack of finesse, allowing Boston thirty-five attempts at the line. Meanwhile, Kobe’s long-awaited return to the Finals was a disappointment. He shot LA out of the game, going 9-for-26 and ending the night with 24. Perhaps Bob Ryan knew what he was talking about.

Game 2:

The Lakers’ starting five returned to form in their second TD Garden game. Kobe scored an efficient 30, laying on eight assists in the process, while Pau Gasol scored an efficient seventeen and held his own on the glass against Garnett and Perkins. This one was decided by the benches.

Boston went into maximum Powe-verdrive…

Leon Powe had the game of his life on the largest of stages. A fifteen-minute blur comprised of thirteen, yes, thirteen, trips to the free-throw line, as well as six of Powe’s seven shot attempts dropping. Rack attack after rack attack set the Garden alight, and rewatching the highlights, it’s clear to see Leon trying to keep his cool for the cameras whilst knowing he was on fire. One man with split allegiances on the night was Bill Walton. The legendary Celtic got to watch Boston emerge victorious at the expense of his son Luke, who was manhandled by Powe on the night. The Lakers’ bench failed to show up and, heading back to LA, Boston found themselves in a familiar spot.

Treat yourself to four minutes of a man on fire.

Game 3:

Probably the low point of the series. The Lakers captured their first win of the Finals, 87-81, and Boston couldn’t get anything going on offence. Pierce failed the proverbial polygraph, leaving the Truth at home for the night. His worst game of the postseason saw him go 2-for-14 from the field. KG wasn’t much better, shooting 26% from the field, meaning Ray Allen’s efficient twenty-five was lost to time without the support of his co-stars.

Kobe had the quintessential Kobe game: 36 points, 60% from the field, one assist. It was Sasha Vujacic’s turn to play bench hero, scoring twenty as a reserve.

Was momentum about to shift?

Game 4:

Game Four is often where series are won and lost. If LA were to tie the series, they’d have another game at Staples Center and, knowing the Celtics’ struggles on the road, there’d be a good chance they could carry a 3-2 lead back to the East Coast, giving the Lakers two chances to close out what would be a famous triumph over their bitterest of rivals. Boston had to get over its away-from-home struggles once and for all.

An eighteen-point deficit at the end of the second quarter was not what the doctor ordered. For the first time in the series, the Lakers gained the upper hand on the interior. Lamar Odom went a perfect 7-for-7 from the field. Odom and Pau were the driving force behind the Lakers’ ten-rebound advantage at halftime.

With the series and season hanging in the balance, a halftime demand was made. We hunger for star-on-star matchups these days; they’ve become rarer with the heavy-switching nature of modern NBA defence. Paul Pierce reportedly demanded to guard Kobe Bryant. Determination coursed through the Celtics dressing room and they emerged from the depths of Staples ready for war in the second half.

Doc Rivers granted Pierce’s request. He picked up Kobe in the second half. James Posey and Eddie House were huge in the third and the Celtics ripped off a 21-3 run to drag themselves back into the game. After scoring 35 points in the first quarter, the Lakers managed just 15 in the third. By the start of the fourth, Boston had cut an eighteen-point halftime deficit to two.

The comeback was completed in the fourth. Pierce’s halftime demand to Rivers, “I’m going to guard Kobe. Let me guard him,” proved prophetic; Bryant finished just 6-for-19 as Boston took its first lead of the night with under four minutes remaining. Rivers stuck with House and Posey, spreading the floor and trusting a smaller lineup. Boston wrestled control away from LA, flipping the first-half script and finally taking the lead with 3:48 to go.

Pierce had been Boston’s closer throughout the postseason, but Ray Allen, who played all forty-eight minutes on the night, took the reins to finish the Lakers. Sports Illustrated’s Ian Thomsen described Allen making “three sensational drives to puncture Bryant’s hopes,” the last of which saw him blow past Sasha Vujacic along the baseline for a left-handed layup that effectively ended the contest. Bill Simmons struggled to decide whether he had witnessed “the greatest comeback in Celtics history or the greatest collapse in Lakers history. Maybe a little of both.”

Boston had trailed by 24. They won 97-91.

A series that looked destined to be tied at two was suddenly 3-1 Celtics.

Game 5:

A 38-point eruption from Los Angeles native Pierce wasn’t enough to secure Banner 17 at Staples Center, as the Lakers took Game 5 103-98. Pierce had spoken at length about his desperation to win a championship in the city that raised him but, on the night, LA prevailed. Boston repeatedly threatened in the fourth, but the Lakers held on to send the series back east.

Game 6:

Game 6 was less a contest than a coronation. Kobe Bryant opened with eleven first-quarter points, but Boston still led 24-20 before the defense swallowed Los Angeles whole. The Celtics won the second quarter 34-15, held the Lakers to 29% shooting in the first half and carried a 58-35 lead into the break. Paul Pierce had already dished nine assists. Kevin Garnett was bullying Pau Gasol inside. Rajon Rondo was everywhere. Phil Jackson admitted afterwards that Boston had simply “overran us.” The tone, he said, had been established when Garnett knocked Gasol down in the lane early. There would be no coming back this time.

The beating only worsened. Rondo produced the finest game of his young career, finishing with 21 points, eight assists and six of Boston’s Finals-record 18 steals. Ray Allen buried seven threes on his way to 26 points; Garnett matched him with 26 and fourteen rebounds. Pierce added seventeen points and ten assists. Chad Finn of Boston.com called it a “public evisceration,” and there was little hyperbole involved. With 4:01 remaining, Pierce, Allen and Garnett checked out together, embracing Doc Rivers before taking their seats and watching the final minutes of a journey they had begun less than a year earlier.

131-92.

The 39-point margin was the largest ever in a championship-clinching game. Twenty-two years after Boston last reached the summit, Pierce was Finals MVP, Ray and KG were champions and Banner 17 was heading for the rafters. Garnett, almost incoherent with emotion in the aftermath, screamed three words that would follow this team forever:

“Anything is possible!”

Legacies and what could have been:

The final game of the season reflected the regular-season dominance while masking the postseason struggle. As banners were hung and songs were sung on the streets of Boston, fans let out a collective sigh of relief. The longest championship wait in the history of the NBA’s most successful franchise had come to an end.

Danny Ainge had further cemented his place in Celtics history. Two years after the passing of Red Auerbach, Ainge had assembled a team capable of standing alongside some of the very best Red had ever built. At +11.4, the 2008 Celtics have the seventh-best regular-season net rating of all time. Only Jordan’s 1996 and 1997 Bulls had posted a better mark prior to 2008, making the immediate success of Boston’s newly assembled Big Three somewhat unprecedented.

Contrastingly, the Celtics endured the longest route to a championship in NBA history. No champion has ever played more postseason games: 26 of a possible 28 en route to glory. We know about the team’s road struggles and the pressure that came with restoring a great franchise to its former glory. With the weight of expectation finally lifted and Rajon Rondo blossoming into a star in his own right, Celtics fans couldn’t have been blamed for expecting a run that might rank alongside the teams of the 1980s.

That wasn’t to be.

With a 27-2 start in 2008-09, it seemed Boston had solved basketball. The champions had somehow bettered their incredible opening from the season prior, but Kevin Garnett’s knee injury derailed their repeat hopes. Boston would return to the Finals in 2010 and come agonisingly close to Banner 18, but this group would never again recapture the overwhelming regular-season dominance of its first year together.

As we know, Garnett and Pierce eventually played their part in Banner 18 after all. Their trade to the Brooklyn Nets became pivotal in creating Boston’s next great team. So, when you’re watching Jayson Tatum this year; when we draft the next great Celtic with one of those Philadelphia picks acquired in the Jaylen Brown trade… remember the Big Three, and remember the sweet satisfaction that came with climbing the mountain once more.

Over the last few years, a lot of things have changed in college basketball. Not all that long ago, between the influence of the Golden State Warriors and the endless defection of young college post players to the NBA, SmallBall was very much in vogue.

More recently, with teams like Duke and Michigan building much taller rosters, college has left that era behind (it’s happening in the NBA as well).

The truth is that basketball always has been, and always will be, a big man’s game. If you are 6-9 and can do things that a 6-2 player can do, well, that 6-2 guy can’t flip the script and overpower you inside.

Some big men are more skilled than others. Hakeem Olajuwon had the Dream Shake and could get loose on anyone. The other guy who really mastered post play was Kevin McHale.

McHale was a master of post moves. The Up-and-Under, the Drop Step, the Uptake, and, when all else failed, a very accurate fall-away jumper, McHale was so difficult to guard inside that he gained a unique nickname: The Torture Chamber.

Having a 7-10 wingspan when you’re 6-10 made life much more difficult for people who had to guard McHale.

Of course, having Dennis Johnson and Larry Bird get you the ball made your life that much easier, too.

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