The Boston Celtics' ownership change is officially completed with Bill Chisholm as the owner and governor — after purchasing the majority of the team at a $6.1 billion valuation — and Wyc Grousbeck serving as the alternate governor. While ownership has changed, the goals or expectations in Boston have not, Chisholm told Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe.
"We're not playing for second, we're playing for championships and banners," Chisholm said. "We're playing for them in the near term, although we obviously had to do some things to get below the second apron. But we're also playing for them in the medium and long term. The second apron means you can't do it by just throwing money at the problem. You have to do it with talent, you have to do it with leadership, and with Wyc and with (president of basketball operations Brad Stevens) and (president Rich Gotham) and (coach Joe Mazzulla), I feel like we have the best leaders in the league."
This offseason, the Celtics have shed the salaries of Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis, saving the team more than $300 million in salary and luxury tax. All their moves combined got them below the dreaded second apron of the luxury tax, but they are still in the tax. While the sense around the league has been Boston may treat this as a "gap year" due to Jayson Tatum's torn Achilles keeping him out most or all of next season — and some think they may not be done looking for moves to save money — Chisholm said he thought a team based around Jaylen Brown and Derrick White could surprise some people.
He also discussed Grousbeck's role with the team. The plan had been to have Grousbeck stay on as the team's governor, but the league requires the governor to have a 15% stake in the team, and after the sale, the Grousbecks fell slightly below that threshold. That doesn't really change anything, Grousbeck said.
"When it became clear the governor title was not going to be available because of technical reasons, because of math, Bill said, 'Well, then we're just not going to use that word around the office.' So that says a lot about Bill, that he doesn't care," Grousbeck said. "He just wants to do the right thing for the team, and I feel the exact same way. We're shoulder to shoulder."
The real test of ownership and the creativity of management will come next summer as they try to fill out a championship roster around a returned Tatum, plus Brown and company. That's when the spending will matter more.
For now though, Chisholm is singing a song that Celtics fans will like to hear.
Cam Thomas is willing to bet on himself, but how much?
Thomas is a restricted free agent, and there are rumors that he ideally would like a contract close to $40 million a season. That's not happening. League sources not tied to the negotiations told NBC Sports they think an offer closer to what the Warriors reportedly have put in front of Jonathan Kuminga — two years, $45 million — would get a deal done. When The Athletic’s Fred Katz surveyed 16 league executives about Thomas, most said they think he's worth between $20-$30 million a season, but they only wanted to do a two-year deal for the 23 year old.
Brooklyn has all the leverage here and with that has offered just two years at the mid-level exception of $14.1 million, with the second year of that being a team option — a very tradable contract. That leaves Thomas with the choice of taking that offer or playing for the $5.9 million qualifying offer, then being an unrestricted free agent next summer. NBA insider Jake Fischer said in a Bleacher Report livestream that if any restricted free agent would play for the qualifying offer, it would be Thomas.
"Cam Thomas's situation seems to be a decision between taking his qualifying offer or a two-year deal with the team option that is north of the qualifying offer from Brooklyn somewhere around $14 million in average annual value."
Thomas is a bucket getter who averaged 24 points and 3.8 assists per game last season, shooting 34.9% on 3-pointers. Brooklyn will need that scoring next season, paired with Michael Porter Jr., and Terrance Mann, on a rebuilding roster in need of scoring.
It's August, a time with very little pressure to make a decision — training camp doesn't start for more than a month and the decision date on the qualifying offer is Oct. 1 — so it's easy for both sides to dig in and not compromise. That changes as it gets closer to the start of camp and the qualifying offer deadline.
Thomas and his agent, Alex Saratsis, must decide whether the market for Thomas's services will be there next summer and if he is willing to bet on it. Even at the Nets' current offer, he would be leaving $8 million this season on the table (a lot for a player who has yet to make more than $4 million in a season). Is it worth the risk? Do the sides find a better compromise closer to the deadline (a player option rather than a team option for next season, or some guaranteed money on that second season)?
It's something to watch as we move into September. Thomas might be the one guy willing to make that big a bet on himself.
Here Comes the Boom welcomes back Rivals national basketball analyst Jamie Shaw to break down the latest in Kentucky basketball recruiting. There’s been a lot of movement in the world of recruiting lately. Shaw shares his thoughts on Tyran Stokes and why he’s the No. 1-ranked player in the country. He also shares the latest […]
The Falcons will be without one of their key offensive players for a bit.
Per Jeremy Fowler of ESPN, right tackle Kaleb McGary will miss time with the apparent leg injury he suffered during Wednesday's practice. But at this point, McGary's timeline for recovery is unknown.
McGary, 30, was carted off the field during the midweek session. He was scheduled to have an MRI to determine the extent of his injury.
A first-round pick in 2019, McGary has started 92 of the 93 games played in his career. With Michael Penix Jr. being a lefty quarterback, McGary’s position has that much more importance as he protects Penix’s blindside.
The Golden State Warriors currently have nine guaranteed contracts on the books for next season. While other NBA teams are filling their 14th and 15th roster spots and signing guys up for training camp invites, the Warriors largely remain in a holding pattern while the Jonathan Kuminga restricted free agency plays out — Golden State doesn't know precisely what it has to spend until Kuminga's contract is on the books.
That leaves free agent Al Horford in a holding pattern — he's going to sign with the Warriors for at least the taxpayer midlevel exception ($5.7 million). But, everything is on hold, something NBA insider Jake Fischer talked about at Bleacher Report (hat tip Hoops Rumors). Fischer said the Warriors remain "very confident" they will sign Horford.
"Al Horford's situation is a bit different because, depending on where the Warriors land in a cap/tax situation, I believe he is slated to make upwards of the full taxpayer mid-level exception. There has also been some discussion about whether or not he could potentially be receiving a two-year deal with a player option as well."
Horford would bring the Warriors up to 10 guaranteed contracts, they would need to sign at least four more players, all for the minimum. Players linked to the Warriors include Gary Payton II, Seth Curry, De'Anthony Melton and Malcolm Brogdon, Fischer said.
It all comes back to Kuminga — a situation likely to drag out into next month and closer to the start of training camp at the end of September. If, as expected, he and the Warriors work out some kind of compromise around the two-year, $45 million offer the team has on the table, that would leave the Warriors with enough space below the second apron of the luxury tax to sign Horford to the taxpayer midlevel and sign the other players on minimum deals. However, if Kuminga were to sign the $7.8 million qualifying offer (making him an unrestricted free agent next summer), the Warriors would have more room to maneuver.
As part of The Hoops Classic in Partnership with Care Source multi-team event, Louisville men’s basketball will face three non-conference opponents, the university announced Thursday. Louisville will start the three-game slate, taking on former Big East foe and current Big 12 member, Cincinnati, at Heritage Bank Center — a neutral site in Cincinnati, Ohio — […]
Jrue Holiday is one of the best guard defenders in recent NBA history.
As you could imagine, practices over his two seasons with the Celtics were a welcome challenge.
From All-Star forwards Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown to sharpshooters Derrick White and Sam Hauser, there were plenty of worthy offensive players for Holiday to guard.
But, surprisingly, he said none of those guys were the toughest to defend. Instead, it was Payton Pritchard giving him the most trouble.
“It might be Payton,” Holiday said on FanDuel TV’s “Run It Back” this week. “There’s this drill we had where you have to go up against Payton, full court. Yeah, and he would just be going crazy. Speed, handle, low to the ground so he could body you, stops on a dime and he can shoot it.”
It wasn’t Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown who gave Jrue Holiday the most trouble during practice in Boston 🤯
Pritchard was tough for all opponents last season, posting career-highs in points (14.3), rebounds (3.8), assists (3.5) and shooting percentage (47.2%). The fifth-year guard was named Sixth Man of the Year, and he’s now in line to potentially start for Boston next season.
He told Chris Forsberg on the Celtics Talk Podcastearlier this month that “everybody in that locker room will have the goal of competing for a championship.”
Holiday is now with the Portland Trail Blazers after a trade that sent Anfernee Simons to Boston. Pritchard will presumably be competing with the former Blazer for a starting guard role alongside White.
Jayson Tatum is making progress on his injury recovery.
The Celtics star shared an update Wednesday, more than three months after he went down with a ruptured Achilles in mid-May.
“Rehab is tedious, man,” Tatum said. “It’s six days a week. It’s starting to get a little bit better, I’m out of the boot now. Better days ahead, but just trying to take it one day at a time.
“You got to be resilient. That first six weeks of this was probably the toughest six weeks of any point in my life. Just had to accept it and realized it happened and now I have to do everything in my power to get back to who I was and get back to playing.”
The boot being removed is a positive step in Tatum’s recovery, but he’s still nowhere near returning to the court.
Typically, Achilles injuries like his take at least nine months before a player returns to action — and that’s on the fast track. The overwhelming likelihood is still that Tatum misses the entire 2025-26 season, but it hasn’t been ruled out yet. Scouts have said he “looks great” as he continues ramping up this summer.
In the meantime, Tatum has been keeping himself busy in recent weeks. He attended Patriots practice on Aug. 6, chatting it up with Drake Maye and others. Tatum then took a trip to Rhode Island, attending a groundbreaking event for an early childhood education center in Providence on Aug. 7.
The Celtics’ revamped roster will open training camp on Sept. 29, with their first preseason game set for Oct. 8 in Memphis against the Grizzlies. The 2025-26 regular season tips off for Boston on Oct. 22 against the Philadelphia 76ers at TD Garden.
In response to a federal judge’s ruling granting four West Virginia football players eligibility this season, the NCAA issued a statement Wednesday criticizing the decision. The organization argued the ruling could weaken academic standards and once again called on Congress to step in with legislation to bring consistency to eligibility rules. “This ruling will lead […]
Basketball is going to get a head start at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
FIBA — the international basketball governing body that oversees Olympic basketball — announced this week that the revised schedule for the event has the first games on July 12, two days before the July 14 Opening Ceremonies.
"This adjustment allows the Quarter-Finals to be played over two days and will also ensure that no game will start earlier than 12:00 PM, enhancing the overall experience for players, teams, fans and broadcasters," FIBA said in a statement announcing the change.
What was not announced is whether this change impacts the men's or women's tournaments, or both. Those tournaments are made up of a dozen men's and women's teams — who qualify for the Olympics via results at the World Cup as well as qualifying tournaments — and those tournaments will run through the gold medal games on July 29 and 30 (July 30 is the final day of the Los Angeles Olympics). All the basketball games are scheduled to be played at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, the home of the Los Angeles Clippers.
The USA is the defending gold medalists for both the men (who have won five Olympic golds in a row) and women (the eight-time Olympic defending champions).
LeBron James of the Miami Heat boxes out Danny Green of the San Antonio Spurs during Game 7 of the 2013 NBA Finals. A former Heat employee is said to have admitted in federal court to stealing a jersey worn by James in that game and many other valuable items from the team. (Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images)
Retired Miami police officer Marcos Tomas Perez appeared Tuesday at U.S. Superior Court for the Southern District of Florida and issued a guilty plea to transporting and transferring stolen goods in interstate commerce, after pleading not guilty to the felony count at an initial hearing earlier this month.
Perez's attorney, Robert Buschel, told NBC6 in Florida after Tuesday's hearing that Perez is "depressed, naturally, but he accepts responsibility for his behavior and we're gonna work through this issue in his life."
Perez, 62, faces up to 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 31.
"I hope that the judge will consider all factors in his life and his history as a good person," Buschel said. "He was an exemplary police officer in the city of Miami, he's been retired for close to 10 years. This was an unfortunate set of decisions that he made and he's going to accept responsibility for that."
Buschel declined to comment any further when reached by The Times via email Wednesday.
According to a news release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida and the Miami field office of the FBI, Perez has admitted to stealing hundreds of game-worn jerseys and other memorabilia worth millions of dollars belonging to the Heat and selling them to online brokers.
One such item was a jersey that LeBron James wore in Game 7 of the 2013 NBA Finals, during which James and the Heat defeated the San Antonio Spurs 95-88 to win their second consecutive championship. After Perez allegedly sold the jersey for around $100,000, it was sold in an online auction for $3.7 million in 2023.
Clippers guard John Wall shoots against Washington Wizards Corey Kispert, center, and Kristaps Porzingis during a game on Dec. 10, 2022, in Washington. (Nick Wass / Associated Press)
In his prime, John Wall was a rocket, a supremely talented point guard whose speed, explosiveness and star power made him the first pick in the NBA draft, a five-time All-Star and a fan favorite of the Washington Wizards, the team for which he delivered nearly all his heroics and highlight reels.
At the end, Wall was in uniform and running the court — that in itself a sight to see — but the uniform was the Clippers and his game had been reduced to eye-blink spurts of greatness.
The Clippers visited Washington's Capital One Arena on Dec. 10, 2022, Wall in the midst of a 34-game slog that would be his last in the NBA. Wizards fans cheered his introduction and the 90-second tribute video that Wall was too emotional to even watch.
When the Clippers were off to a disastrous second-quarter start, Wall answered with six consecutive points, the last two swishing on his step-back 13-foot jumper. He spun toward the crowd, pointed both index fingers toward the court, and shouted, "Still my city!"
Wall was so overcome by the cheering crowd that he started walking to the wrong bench. “I kind of flashed back and forgot like, I’m in a different jersey,” he said. "Just being in that moment and electrifying the crowd, that’s what I’ve been doing for a lot of years in my career when I was here.”
Wall announced his retirement on Tuesday, although most fans probably figured he had retired already. His Clippers stint ended Jan. 13, 2022, and he never played again. His slide began in 2020 when Washington did the unfathomable, trading the most popular Wizard since Wes Unseld to the Houston Rockets for Russell Westbrook.
Wall had suffered a succession of leg injuries and he would suffer some more. The loss of his signature speed, coupled with the death of his mother, sent Wall into a depression that eventually had him contemplating suicide.
"For me, it all happened really fast," he wrote in a first-person Players Tribune story. "In the span of three years, I went from being on top of the world to losing damn near everything I ever cared about.
"In 2017, I’m jumping up on the announcer’s table in D.C. after forcing Game 7 against Boston, and I’m the king of the city. I’m getting a max extension, thinking I’m a Wizard for life. A year later, I tore my Achilles and lost the only sanctuary I’ve ever known — the game of basketball. I ended up with such a bad infection from the surgeries that I nearly had to have my foot amputated. A year later, I lost my best friend in the whole world, my mom, to breast cancer.
“My best friend is gone. I can’t play the game I love. Everybody just got their hand out. Nobody is checking on me for me. It’s always coming with something attached. Who’s there to hold me down now? What’s the point of being here?”
Never mind that the Rockets gave him $172 million over four years, and that he gave them only 40 games in 2020-2021 in return. The next season, he agreed to the Rockets' request that he not play, that he sit out and become a glorified assistant coach while the team tanked.
Wall agreed to forfeit a slice of his salary — his career earnings were $276 million — to get a fresh start with the Clippers, but it was soon clear he had little to offer, averaging 11.3 points and shooting 40.3%.
“That’s the most frustrating part because people think, ‘Oh, he got the money, he’s set for life, he don’t care,'" Wall recently told the Washington Post. "No, I would give up all the money to play basketball and never deal with none of those injuries. I didn’t play the game of basketball for money. I played the game of basketball because I love it,”
It took him two more years to reconcile that he was through, and his retirement announcement Tuesday was timed with another that he will join Prime Video for its studio show in its inaugural season broadcasting the NBA in 2025-2026.
Prime Video will broadcast 67 regular-season games, the play-in tournament and some playoff games. Wall called the G League Winter Showcase in January, which led to appearances on NBA TV. Now he’ll join the "NBA on Prime" team along with Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, Dwyane Wade, Blake Griffin, Udonis Haslem and Candace Parker.
For Wall, it will be an opportunity to revisit his prime, sharing the basketball knowledge he accumulated through a difficult upbringing in North Carolina, an All-American one-and-done season at Kentucky and an 11-year NBA career in which he averaged 18.7 points and 8.9 assists a game.
“If you never really had the opportunity to sit down and talk to me, you won’t really understand how much I love basketball, where my basketball mind is at, where my IQ is," Wall said. "I can basically tell you the best player in the country — from girls to boys, high school, to the players that’s in college, to the people that’s at the NBA and WNBA."
In a couple of weeks, when Dwight Howard is inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, Shaquille O'Neal will be by his side as one of his presenters. Shaq's addition to the list of Patrick Ewing, Robert Parish, Dennis Rodman, and Dominique Wilkins was announced by the Hall.
It's an interesting choice, given that Shaq and Howard have had a public feud that goes back more than 17 years. It was an inevitable tension as Shaq was not willing to cede his spot among the best centers in the game to another player, especially one Shaq saw as appropriating his "Superman" image.
So u wear a cape and win a dunk contest and they call u superman So
This feud continued after Shaq's playing days, with him once suggesting Brook Lopez was a better center than Howard (who had been named First Team All-NBA for five straight years at that point). Howard said Shaq was retired and needed to let it go. Shaq later said all this was a motivational tactic to fire up Howard, but it continued even a year ago when both were out of the game (Howard was inspired by the Mike Tyson/Jake Paul "fight").
Gotta have more than one ring to get in the ring with me, I’ll stick with a real champion like @RobGronkowski, and you can have the Superman belt, all yours buddy,
Now, though, it's apparently all good. The two men have a lot in common, including both being the No. 1 pick of the Orlando Magic and leading that franchise to the NBA Finals, and both were dominant at their peak.
hen Dwight Howard deservedly enters the Hall of Fame next month, Shaq will be there to present him and welcome him to the club.
He was linked to the Lakers. He was linked to the Warriors. He was linked to pretty much any team in need of a solid center. Then, there were rumors that the Chicago Bulls would buy out the final year of his $21.5 million contract, allowing him to sign elsewhere as a free agent.
Nikola Vucevic brushed them all off. The 14-year NBA veteran has been dealing with rumors his entire career, and he has been traded a couple times, he knows what that experience was like. What was happening this summer was nothing like that, he told BasketUSA in an interview as he practices with Montenegro for the EuroBasket championships starting in a week (hat tip to Real GM for the translation).
"The Bulls' GM [Marc Eversley] had contacted me after all the rumors about me, confirmed that nothing was true and that everything we had said to each other after the season was still relevant. I knew it but it's always nice when your GM contacts you to tell you...
"There are always rumors. Most of them are false. It's a bit of nonsense. For example, the buy-out was misinterpreted in Europe: the journalist wrote that if there was no 'trade' during the season, there might be a 'buy-out' option before the 'deadline.' I know how the business works, in the last year of a contract, there is always speculation. Since I can't control anything, I try not to worry about it."
Last season, Vucevic averaged 18.5 points and 10.1 rebounds a game, shooting 40.2% from 3-point range on 4.4 attempts a game. He is a high-quality offensive center who could help a lot of teams and has become a key part of the Bulls' attack, but is not the defensive anchor at the position that a lot of teams are seeking in the modern game.
Vucevic added in the interview that he is "almost certain" he will be with the Bulls when the season opens, which makes sense as he is clearly the starter at the five and one of only two true centers on the 15-man roster (Zach Collins is the other).
Whether he is in Chicago when the season ends is another question. He's a 34-year-old center in the final year of his contract — players in that situation are often available in trades, and can be bought out to save money after the trade deadline. That is possible here, depending on what other moves Chicago makes. The Bulls front office has to be thinking about what comes next at the five, although figuring out the Bulls front office's long-term vision is a challenge in and of itself.
Whatever that plan is, it includes Vucevic at the five to start the season.
