When NBA owners put their teams on the market, there are billionaires waiting in the wings who would love to snatch up one of these toys. Often guys who also want to move the teams. We’re looking at you, Larry Ellison.
So whenever Michael Jordan does sell the Bobcats there will be a market — but Jordan is denying a report out of New York that a sale could be sooner rather than later.
It all started with a story Sunday in the New York Daily News.Nearing the end of another lost season as Bobcats owner, Jordan recently told his GM, Rich Cho, to start planning for a rebuilding campaign. He also dropped a bombshell, telling Cho and other deputies that if this one doesn’t produce a winner and he continues to lose millions over the next “three to four years,” then he intends to sell the team.
“I told Rich to make us better,” Jordan told one associate recently. “If that doesn’t work and I can’t make a profit in the next three to four years, then I’m selling.”
You knew the denial would be coming soon after that paper hit the street, and it did, with a statement from Jordan posted on the Bobcats Web site.
What else is he going to say? Whether or not it is the truth, Jordan had no choice but to issue that statement.
Jordan is rich by your and my standards — unless you own your own Carolina blue jet — but he is not by NBA owner standards. His pockets are not that deep. If the new CBA and eventually (maybe) some better play on the court are not enough to turn around the financial fortunes of the Bobcats, it’s reasonable to expect him to sell. There already are reports his other investors are not happy.
But either way, this is something that is years away. It just wouldn’t be shocking if it came to that.
