Mike Vorkunov
Appearances
Apple News Today
Their travel generates billions for the U.S. They’re rethinking their plans.
So what he did in his January 27, 2024 game is that he claimed he had an eye injury, which allowed him to leave the game early and not come back. And so that the people who are betting on him, if they bet, hey, he'd have fewer than this many points, fewer than this many rebounds, fewer than this many assists, they all won their winnings, right?
Apple News Today
Their travel generates billions for the U.S. They’re rethinking their plans.
And then when he played in the March 20, 2024 game, he told them he would leave the game with an illness.
Apple News Today
Their travel generates billions for the U.S. They’re rethinking their plans.
Getting an NBA player to admit that he was manipulating his own performance to help other people bet on his prop bets a decade ago would have been a tremendous scandal for the NBA, right? Like that eats at the very integrity of sports.
Apple News Today
Their travel generates billions for the U.S. They’re rethinking their plans.
One of the things that everyone is trying to really reckon with is whether this happened because sports gambling is so much more ubiquitous or if this was caught because sports gambling is now legalized. So I'm curious to see where this all ends up. I'm curious to see how high it might go. And I truly don't have a prognostication on that.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
And I think if people watch and they tune in and they give it a chance, it is more likely that they stay and watch a game like that than even if the Knicks had made it, right? The Knicks have a huge audience, but like, Jalen Brunson, foul grifting, not great television. Their pace is a little bit slower. Kat isn't as aesthetically pleasing a type of player.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
But for me, it's Pascal Siakam. Like I know that maybe a cop out, maybe he's not the best player on the Pacers.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
He's the conference finals MVP. He's the conference finals MVP plays, plays you out pretty well. I'd say that mostly because, uh, Er ist nicht so fähig, seinen eigenen Schuss zu bekommen und produziert. Und Indy wird jemanden brauchen, außer Haliburton, um offensiv zu kreieren.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Ob das bedeutet, den Dribble auszumachen, oder ob es bedeutet, seinen Arsch nach dem Tor zu schlagen, wie er es so oft macht, um einfache Buckets zu kreieren. Ich glaube, es gab ein paar Spiele gegen die Knicks, in denen sie wirklich kämpften, weil es niemanden gab, um Haliburton zu helfen.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Und New York hat für Quartiere und vielleicht Haliburton halbzeitig einen guten Job gemacht, Haliburton zu langsamen. Und OKC ist so kaputt, wie jeder, der das tut, weil sie nicht nur einen oder zwei Defender haben, sondern sie haben eine ganze Reihe von Defenders, die sie zwischen Dort, Jalen Williams und Alex Kruse und all that type of stuff throw out. So Siakam muss mehr konsistent sein.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
And if he can be that kind of player, then I think he can be a longer series.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Can I throw one more out there? Yeah, absolutely. Benedict Mather. I think they're going to need a good series from him. He struggled for most of the next series and he got replaced by Ben Shepard at times or he just had his minutes cut down. They need a guy like him Who they can A, use defensively to throw in there and play capably.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
And B, he got to the line pretty frequently in the East Conference Finals. And they're going to need that to get some OKC guys in trouble. And they're going to need another guard to just cause some trouble offensively. Because I... Ich bin gespannt, was ihr denkt. Ich bin ein bisschen fürchtet über die T.J.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Denkst du, dass Indy, und ich möchte hier wieder auf Indy konzentrieren, weil wir alle denken, dass sie hier die Schwachstelle haben. Du denkst also darüber nach, was sie tun müssen, um das Spiel zu gewinnen, oder was ihr Risiko für Fehler ist. Können sie so tief spielen, wie sie es in dieser Serie machen?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Ich weiß, dass es ihre Sache ist, und ich weiß, dass sie es auch brauchen, um ihre Zeit für ein volles Spiel zu behalten. Sie spielen so hart und all das. Aber... OKC ist genauso tief, und ich fühle mich, als wenn du in deinem 8., 9., 10.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Bestplayer für wichtige Minuten in einer Finale gegen ein Team wie OKC, das kann dich ein bisschen mehr schaden, als es könnte gegen die Knicks oder die Bucks, weil sie nicht die gleiche Dämpfung haben.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Ja, ich glaube, das ist recht. Und ich habe noch mehr Fragen. Ja, ich glaube, das ist ein guter Punkt, weil ich gesagt habe, ich habe noch mehr Fragen über OKC, ob sie beliebig scoren können. Wie können sie mit Indy scoren? Ich glaube, das ist, du weißt, sie haben wirklich versucht, das gegen Denver zu tun, wie du gesagt hast, und Denver ist nicht ein tolles defensives Team.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Ja, aber sie haben einen Weg gefunden. Ja.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
I just struggle to see the way that Indy takes this. I don't know what you guys think.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
I guess maybe if they just turn up the three-point volume so much, like they start to math their way to a win, maybe, I don't know.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Weißt du, was mit J.J. Barea passt? T.J. McConnell.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Ich sage dir was, die Ratings-Apokalypse, wenn es schießt, wird die NBA nicht auslösen. Sie werden überleben, verspreche ich dir. Ich denke, vieles davon basiert darauf, dass wir alle Sportmedien-Aufsichtspersonen und Konsumenten und Kritiker werden.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Ich würde das gerne machen. Vielen Dank. Niemand würde mit diesem Podcast reden. Wir könnten ein paar, was auch immer. Also ja, ich meine, jeder kümmert sich um Ratings. Ein Teil davon ist, dass manche Leute echte Sorgen haben, manche Leute kümmern sich darum, weil sie sich um das Sport-Business kümmern.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Manche Leute benutzen es als Sorgen-Trolling, wo sie es nicht wirklich kümmern und es benutzen, um Missinformationen oder Gründe zu kritisieren, die NBA und andere Sportarten wie die WNBA, all diese Art von Sachen. Look, OKC, 47th biggest media market in the NBA, sorry, in the country, 3rd smallest in the NBA, Indy has the 9th smallest media market in the NBA, will probably get low ratings?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Yeah, probably. Does it matter for the league? No, it doesn't. They're getting the same amount of money either way. They're in the last year of their current media deal. They're Das nächste ist bereits veröffentlicht worden. Wer weiß, ob die TV-Ratings wirklich so viel von 2036 zählen werden. Wir haben vielleicht Abonnenten, wir haben vielleicht Orbitallichter. Ich weiß nicht.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Ich weiß nicht, was wir bei dieser Zeit tun werden. Aber die NBA hätte wahrscheinlich mehr Geld verdient, wenn es Nix oder Minnesota wäre. Oder wenn die Warriors einen Rennen gemacht hätten oder so etwas. Ticketrevenue, Gate, all that stuff matters, right? That money teams get, they split it with the league, they split it with the NBPA. Merchandise sales. Das zählt.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Das ist alles Geld, das sie machen können, das sie wahrscheinlich mehr machen würden. Okay, seht ihr, so stark ist die Fanbase, wie sie es haben könnten, hat es die Hälfte der Menschen in der ganzen Stadt, als die Stadt New York, richtig? Das zählt.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Aber es wird nicht der Typ sein, der einen wirklich großen Einfluss auf die NBA hat, weil die NBA, wie alle anderen professionellen Sportarten, die wir jetzt haben, so auf Medienrechte abhängt.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
To back that up, when Cleveland was in the finals, nobody complained because they had LeBron, right? And so how do you get... Not the next LeBron, but someone who might potentially get to his level. It's for someone like SGA to get to the finals year after year after year, win MVP after MVP after MVP. So this is the first step in something like that potentially happening.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
And for OKC, it might actually happen. We don't know. They're pretty well positioned to get here in 2, 3, 4, 8 million years in a row. I don't know. And I think that's how some around the NBA view it too. The ratings this year will... probably be suboptimal. I'll use that word. It won't be great, right?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
But it might be an investment in the future in the sense that now you expose Tyrese Halliburton to a different kind of audience than people who are watching the finals of the NBA Cup or even the Eastern Conference Finals, right? Now he gets exposed to a much larger audience and that makes people watch next year, the year after. Like I had that stat in my story, which is the Denver-Miami Finals
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Sie hatten nicht großartige Ratinge, aber die NBA sah ein 32-prozentiges Vergrößerungsjahr nach Jahr nach Jahr in der National-Televised-Game-Ansicht für Spiele, die die Nuggets hatten. Ich vermute, dass das gleiche mit Giannis angeht, oder? Ja, und ich glaube, sie hatten 21 Prozent für die Bucks-Spiele im Jahr, nachdem sie den Titel gewonnen haben.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Also, ich meine, es gibt verschiedene Wege, wie das alles geht, und man muss die nächste Generation der Star bewegen. Die NBA muss einen Weg finden, oder? Wir sehen immer noch LeBron vs. Stephans auf Weihnachtsabend. And that has an end point. So you have to, you know, like Dave and I talk about wrestling a lot. We're big wrestling fans. You got to start building up like the next star.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
Ich freue mich auf den Zeitpunkt des Spiels. Ich denke, es wird elektrisch sein, wie du gesagt hast. Indy, jeder spricht davon, wie schnell Indy gegen die Knicks gespielt hat, richtig? Sie konnten ihren Zeitpunkt nicht enthalten, sie konnten nicht auf ihre Geschwindigkeit aufhören und sie konnten nicht mit Pascal Siakam aufhören, nachdem er sogar Basketball gemacht hat. Indy spielt super schnell.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Is SGA having one of the best seasons ever?
OKC hat in der normalen Saison und in den Playoffs schneller gespielt. Sie sind ein schneller Team. I think back to, I think it was the first OKC Cleveland matchup this season. Awesome game. The pace was great. The offense was great. We could see that for X amount of games in this finals. And as a product, that matters for the NBA.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. All right, Andrew.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
Give me Denver, Boston. Really? Wow.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
You know, I'm just going with my gut, I guess. I have no idea. I have nothing to back any of this up with.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
Part of it is I just wanted to put you in a weird spot. It's really my only mission within all of this.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
Yeah. I have nothing insightful to say except for I cannot wait to watch these basketball games.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
To live a normal life. And then you get to experience game seven. Hey, go read Mike Borgen off at the athletic. Thanks so much for coming on, man. Thank you guys. Thanks for having me.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
All right, Al, it's time to bring on somebody that every time I talk to her, I feel like I learned something and I'll simultaneously feel like I don't know that much about basketball and it excites me to bring Caitlin Cooper back on the pod. Basketball, she wrote, is her blog and she is just a gift to the NBA community. Caitlin, welcome back to the show.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
I mean, whatever. It's true. It's true. We love hearing your insights about the Pacers. So let's start by going back to mid-December when everything started clicking for this Pacers team. From December 13th, Indiana won 70% of its games and had a top eight offense and defense per clean the glass. What were some of the major factors that led to the second half success that we saw for the Pacers?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
The Pacers offense was incredibly efficient in the Cavs series, posting the best offensive rating for any team in the second round. While it's understandable how the Cavs injuries affected their offense, why weren't they more successful defensively against Indiana and what didn't work about their approach?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
We're recording on Friday morning prior to game six of Celtics-Knicks. If it ends up being the Knicks, it would be a rematch of last year's second round series, which went seven games. The Knicks have made significant roster changes since that series. I'm interested in your thoughts on the Knicks defense, which has been pretty improved since the start of the playoffs.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
How real do you think that improvement is and how might the Pacers try to break that down?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
I had a little bit of doubt about them, but like everybody else that we ran through, like makes sense.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
It's probably such a cool environment, too, because it... because you don't have your phones, like that's probably the first thing that people go to after like an event like that. And you not having that forces you to like actually interact with people. I'm sure it just creates like one of the more like unique environments that you can be in right now in sports.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
It feels like it would be one of the last two guys that we mentioned, Dale Davis or Rick Smith.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
Raptors, he played for Dallas for a hot minute.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
Danny Granger? Yeah. Danny Granger did it. Sure. Okay. Okay.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
I was going to guess Miles Turner, but man.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
Wow. Everybody go. Everybody go subscribe to basketball. She wrote anything else that you'd like to share. Caitlin, before we go.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
more so vodcasts on youtube after these games yeah well thank you so much for listening to today's episode of the saturday slam jam be sure to leave us a five-star review on apple podcast we will read it on the show hope you guys enjoy your weekend and the basketball and we'll talk to you guys again next week
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
Man. I need to go at some point because it's just like it's so fascinating to me. You know, I think it's just it is one of the cooler days. It's it's just hard whenever the conspiracies just make more sense in your brain than like the actual results, especially when it's tied to like it's not tied to, but it feels like it's tied to the Luca trade.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
Just like it just gets more muddy and more messy, you know, for the league itself. But yeah. I don't know. It's been such a wild week. I just can't believe it.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
Looking forward to that. So Mike, this week you got to witness one of the most dramatic and bizarre draft lotteries in NBA history. You're one of the media members invited to the lottery drawing room where the actual draft order is determined in front of team officials and other media members. What were some of the highlights from that overall experience for you?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
Yeah, I think even in the future, this may all get lost and you're like, wait, how did they get this team? It's like, well, they traded Luka and then they ended up getting this team. Yeah, it's crazy. So let's keep talking about the Mavericks a little bit. The Mavs won. The Mavs win also had a lot of NBA people talking about whether they need to be any changes made.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
about flattening the lottery odds to make this kind of scenario even less likely. In your conversations around the league, what is your impression of how teams feel about flattened lottery odds and whether there would be a push to revisit the draft lottery reform?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
Welcome to the Saturday Slammin' Jam here on the Athletic NBA Daily. On today's show, we're talking to Mike Vorkanoff about the NBA lottery, and then Kaitlin Cooper stops by to talk about the Indiana Pacers, and then we'll do some Pacers trivia. I'm your host, Andrew Schleich. With me, I have Alex Spears and our buddy, Mike Vorkanoff from The Athletic. Mike, what's up?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's been fascinating. It's been totally unpredictable. I feel like as the playoffs go on, I feel like I just know less and less about what's going to happen or what these teams are going to do. It's kind of great to cover. It makes it kind of a lot more fun. Last question, Mike. You cover the business of basketball for us here at The Athletic.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Pacers Rising + Lottery Madness | Slam N Jam
Looking ahead to this summer, what are some stories that you expect to be following? Expansion? Maybe the Blazers sale? What are some other things?
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
And so I think the Celtics will go above that. They'll set a record for the NBA. Where it lands exactly, I don't know. You talk to smart people, they're like, hey, maybe it lands $4.75 billion, $5 billion. I talked to an NBA owner who thought it might land close to $6 billion. If it gets that high, then maybe the NBA starts asking for $7 billion when it goes to expand in Vegas, which...
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
A lot of money, again.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
People keep betting parlays on FanDuel. I'm sure FanDuel will do very well. The big thing, though, is
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
the celtics are also an odd case right they don't own their own arena now real estate is a big proposition part of the value prop when you buy an nba team you want to own like essentially all of the revenue that comes with the team from tickets to gate to uh to media rights to all of it the other part it's a weird ownership structure like the grosbecks own 30 roughly according to my sources with grosbeck who's the controlling um owner right now owns about two percent his dad irv grosbeck who's uh
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
You know, 90 and they said the part of his estate planning owns about 28 percent there. And you've got a bunch of minority owners who have to kind of be dragged along in case of a sale. So this is this is a weird one, right? It might not be the perfect test case to see where everything goes.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
And if you talk to people who are interested in investing in NBA teams and sports teams altogether, they think prices are going to keep going up, but maybe not like hockey stick prices. Up and to the right as it's been, but just maybe like a little bit slower. And so if you see some slower growth, what does that mean? The new media rights deal should really help.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
But I think that's been baked into prices the last few years. People have been expecting it. Although, from what I understand, if I think it came in a little bit higher than maybe, you know, some people are expecting it. And the big question, really, and this goes back to what we were talking about with the tax rates and how much you want to pay for this.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
If you are paying for a team to be really good and you're paying a lot. Right. That means you're over the first April and you're over the second April. That's around generally the point where it's actually maybe not even profitable to own a team anymore. Again, if you're losing a few mil and the valuation of your team goes up by like three billion dollars over the course of your ownership.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
you know, small potatoes type of thing. But to some people that matters, right? And it gets into what and how you want to run your team. The Celtics and the Grasbeck family and this entire investor group bought them for $360 million 22 years ago. They're going to make, I don't know, 15, 18 times that, right? When they eventually sell, depending on where this all lands.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
But they also, you know, they're in that place where they're paying so much into the luxury tax where they might not be able to turn a profit year after year, year over year, just like when you're taking all that into consideration.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
I think you're going to have people begging to pay $150 a month for their old cable service. Like, it's going to be super annoying. You're going to have to have... You know, Amazon, you're going to have NBC, Peacock, ESPN, ABC, depending on the night of the week. Right.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
Like League Pass, as you mentioned, you know, there will be more games on national TV, which will, you know, I guess help things in this in one sense. But also it just means you're going to have to subscribe to more different services to be able to watch those games. Right. And not to mention whatever happens with local TV, which at this point really is just super hard to predict.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
I don't know where that's going to end up. I, you know, the Celtics are on NBC, a regional NBC network. Diamond sports has, I think 15 teams, 14 teams that has contracts with, and they're still in bankruptcy court. And they've been there for, I think two years now or something like that. So like, Where this all ends up is really hard to predict.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
But I think as of right now, you're basically saying like, hey, I'm going to have to subscribe to all these things if I'm a big NBA fan who wants to watch my team every night. And that's going to be annoying. And I think people have subscription fatigue.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
Uh, what it says is that it's a, and this is gonna be shocking. It's a damn good time to be a person who owns an NBA team. Um, And, you know, there's been a lot of them since 2019. In the last five years, no league has had as much ownership turnover like the NBA has. I think this will be the ninth team that will change hands since 2019. The NFL, baseball and hockey have not have 10 combined.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
Right. So like that's the pace that this is going at. The Bucs and Mark Lazarus sold his controlling stake, I think about like a year and a half after they won the title. But this one on the market two weeks after they got that ring title number 18 time to cash out.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
So you guys are just like, hey, trying to drive this price down, basically. Basically, yes. Well, it's actually a twofold problem, right? You're going to have to pay a very large tax bill if you keep this team together. And next season, 25-26, the tax rates, whether you're a repeater team or a team who hasn't repeated in the luxury tax, jump up a lot if you're 20 mil over the luxury tax line.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
And you have a choice then. Are you going to pay these exorbitant tax rates? And the Celtics will be repeaters. And I think it's like becomes seven dollars and twenty five cents for every dollar that you're over. Right. So you're talking about like a little more than seven X for every mil that you're over there, which someone can do the math on me. But I.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
believe generally translates to a lot of money. And then the other question is like, all right, if you don't want to pay this money in the Celtics right now projected for over $200 million payrolls each of the next few years, because all those signings you guys mentioned, are you going to be the person who buys the Celtics and breaks up a title team? Right.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
Like Derek White, Kristaps Porzingis, Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, all under contract for the next few years. I think I'm forgetting someone else on top of that. But you're going to have to make a decision whether you want to pay those pay those taxes or whether you want to deal with the second apron restrictions, which might include a frozen pick.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
Or you're going to be the one who says, hey, we got to start over and dip under.
The Athletic NBA Daily
Why the Clippers didn’t want Paul George | Celtics potential sale
Yeah, this this is going to be an interesting one. It might be have an impact on the expansion prices. It might also be kind of like the final capstone to this last decade or so of, you know, titanic valuations across the NBA. Right. The Suns. were valued at $4 billion when Matt Ishby had bought them last year. That's the most that an NBA team has been valued at when sold for a control sale.