Here’s what NBA commissioner Adam Silver said about the Celtics sale
The commissioner briefly touched on the $6.1 billion deal during a news conference.
The Celtics were sold last week to private equity investor William Chisholm for $6.1 billion dollars. However, there are still a number of details to iron out before the transaction becomes official.
The transaction must be approved by the NBA’s Board of Governors. Celtic governor Wyc Grousbeck has plans to stay on in his role for three years, and there are still questions about how that will work. There’s also the topic of expansion, and how the Celtics’ sale for a record price may impact things for cities looking to add an NBA franchise.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver touched on these topics, among others, during a press conference on Thursday.
“I think we are still in the process of digesting the Celtic transaction,” Silver said when asked about expansion. “There’s no question that a major transaction like that becomes relevant to expansion. That deal has just been presented to us, so we’re still analyzing it. My sense is once we have been through that process, we’ll turn to it in a more serious way.”
The NBA has had 30 teams since 2004. Silver said the league has been modeling what expansion could look like over the past year or so. He said there have been no new developments on the topic. He also said that the NBA is focused on a potential return to the Seattle market, but was not ready to announce a timeline for it.
Siilver was asked about Grousbeck’s plan to stay on as governor. He said both sides are still working things out.
“I think the Grousbeck family and the buyer are still working through those arrangements on exactly how that would work in terms of CEO roles and governor roles during some transition. I think the situation was very different in Dallas. I think there was a clear change in control.”
Sometimes it can make sense for continuity during a transition. That’s what Mark Cuban was aiming for when he sold his majority in the Mavericks in 2023. According to the Dallas Morning News, Cuban said in a social media post that he fully expected to run basketball operations, but the NBA wouldn’t let him put it in his contract.
Cuban made it clear that he was not involved in the blockbuster trade that sent Luka Doncic to the Lakers.
Silver said he has not had a chance to dig deep into the specifics of the Celtics deal yet.
“There’s no question that it’s a terrifically managed franchise,” he said.
But there are still questions about whether the new ownership will have an impact on that.
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