Exclusive: The Invisible NBA Owner and "Crimes Against Humanity"
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.
On this one, we actually got one of the f***ing craziest smoking guns I've ever seen.
Right after this ad.
Look, this is going to be an episode about weapons, about the NBA, about money and the internet. And so I do feel obliged. Sam Koppelman, thank you for being here, as always. Honored. We should start with John Moran. Start with the young star of the Memphis Grizzlies, who personally might be very interested in what we're going to talk about here today, ahead of next week's trade deadline. Because whether or not the Grizzlies find a stable alternative for his services, I do want to catch people up on what he, in fact, has been going through.
Yeah, it's been an interesting couple of years for John Morant. He was recently put on the trading block for the first time. Because for the first time since drafting him number two overall in 2019, sources tell me the Grizzlies are open and listening to offers on John Morant. And this comes after multiple NBA suspensions.
Breaking news on Memphis star John Morant, who will be suspended for eight games.
Gun-related incidents.
Yes. Which also led to him being fined for his signature celebration.
Pantomiming shooting guns.
Which then led to Ja unveiling a new celebration, of course, in which he pantomimes throwing a grenade.
And then in another celebration this month. Yeah, this is new.
Ja pantomimes a rocket launcher. And it goes on from there.
But while the rest of sports media wants to focus in on Ja, he is not the subject of our investigation as much as he is thematically very essential to understanding the implications of it.
What shocking revelations are made about John Morant?
Most sports fans know a lot about Ja Morant. He's a super polarizing player, and we're not going to retread any of that here today.
Because, Sam, the main character of the report that you have done here with your investigative team at Hunterbrook Media, which we are always glad, always honored to feature here, if Pablo Torre finds out, is a guy that I think most fans could not pick out of a lineup, even though he happens to also be the billionaire deciding the entire question of whether the Grizzlies should actually pull the trigger, as it were, on a Ja Morant blockbuster trade. And so this guy, this billionaire that no one else is talking about, this Mr. Invisible of the NBA, Who is he?
The owner of the Memphis Grizzlies is a man by the name of Robert Perra. He left Apple, where he was an engineer, to become the founder and CEO of a relatively obscure but very important company called Ubiquity Networks.
And Ubiquity, for those who are not familiar, as I imagine almost all of our audience is not, What does Ubiquiti do?
They promise to, quote, democratize the internet. They offer affordable, easy to use, high quality Wi-Fi equipment.
So we're talking like Wi-Fi routers.
Routers and switches and radios and antennae with full local control and privacy. More on why that matters in a minute. And basically what Perra did is he helped spread internet connectivity to remote areas around the globe.
And so in the world of tech, what's his reputation like?
Back in 2012, one former member of Ubiquity's board of directors, the legendary investor Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital, he tweeted that Robert Perra is, quote, the most successful entrepreneur in Silicon Valley that you don't know.
Right. And so 2012 happens to be the same year when Robert Perra bought the Memphis Grizzlies. At age 34, which made him, and this was the thing that first put him on my radar before he disappeared off of it entirely, it made him the youngest controlling owner in the history of the NBA. A kid owner.
I'm an NBA super fan. I believe it's the greatest sport in the world. just from a fan perspective, from a player's perspective. Memphis as a city, it's unbelievable. The people have been great. I can tell the community is really special. And those two things combined, I consider myself very, very fortunate, probably the luckiest man in the world right now.
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