Editor’s note: This is the Wednesday, March 17 edition of the Purple & Bold Lakers newsletter from reporter Kyle Goon. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.
The last time LeBron James talked about his longstanding desire to own an NBA team, it was in the crowded din of Bojangles Arena in Charlotte, N.C. The general tone of the then-34-year-old was that he was in no rush.
“I got a lot more game to play – I got a lot,” he said at the time. “A ton more years to play this game and suit up and be in a Lakers uniform. Once we get to that point, we’ll cross that path. Hopefully, I can sit up here and answer questions as a player for a long time.”
That 2019 All-Star Weekend in Charlotte seems like a lifetime ago. Since then, that season’s Lakers crashed and burned; Anthony Davis became James’ teammate; the pandemic began; the NBA was at the vanguard of a nationwide social justice movement; the Lakers won a title, and now James is again at the helm of one of the league’s best teams that is playing nightly in an empty Staples Center.
While James – who is under contract for at least two more seasons – still might have a lot of basketball to play, he struck a decidedly different tone that had more urgency behind it. The question was brought up again late Tuesday night following the news that James and his business partner Maverick Carter became partners in Fenway Sports Group, which lists among its top teams the Boston Red Sox.
“I know what it takes to win at this level,” he said. “I know talent. I also know how to run a business, as well. And so, that is my goal. My goal is to own an NBA franchise and it will be sooner than later.”
James rarely speaks without picking his words with at least a little bit of care, so the phrase “sooner than later,” which he uttered before leaving Staples Center on Tuesday, rings in the ear.
How far away is James from really owning an NBA team? And has anything changed his timeline to do it?
At 36, James has conquered much of what there is to do as a player, with championships, MVPs and multiple records. Inching up in some categories, such as the career scoring list, are merely notches on his belt for arguing that he’s the greatest player in NBA history.
There’s a lot more ground to cover in ownership. James has been involved since 2011 when he took a 2% stake of Liverpool, the Premier League football club. While Forbes reported that his share of FSG could be as small as 1%, that still represents at least a $70 million investment. James is said to be strategically extracting knowledge and experience from owners, seeing what works and what doesn’t in the same way he might break down an opponent’s film before a playoff series.
One of the great questions in this exercise is how much James is worth. By the end of his current contract, he’ll have nearly $475 million in career earnings, which could well be dwarfed by his off-court income. He has a deal with Nike believed to be worth in excess of $1 billion. Aside from his ownership holdings, he has stakes in many companies, including his entertainment enterprise Springhill Entertainment which is set to release his spin on “Space Jam” this summer. In January, Forbes estimated his annual income at $95 million.
For as much wealth as James has accumulated, NBA ownership is another level. Tech billionaire Ryan Smith recently bought the Utah Jazz for $1.66 billion, a sale approved in December. Depending on market and brand strength, James would be looking at an even higher price for buying into an NBA franchise (while it’s unclear which franchise James would pursue, there’s one in Cleveland with an owner with whom he has a somewhat turbulent history).
The only former player who is a controlling owner is Michael Jordan, who is worth an estimated $2.2 billion. Some of the timing of Jordan’s ownership might be instructive: He first bought a minority share of the Washington Wizards when he was 36, a precursor to his second comeback from retirement. He bought a share of the Charlotte franchise in 2006 and didn’t buy a majority stake until 2010, when he was 47. At that time, it still wasn’t clear if Jordan was a billionaire – now, it’s not a question.
Most estimates don’t have James’ net worth in the billion range yet, but The Athletic reported in 2019 that James could pull a group of investors together and become the majority owner, which would require him to have at least 15 percent of the shares.
As shrewdly as James has helped engineer moves as a player, from helping swing Kevin Love to Cleveland, to getting Anthony Davis to Los Angeles (and if you believe that James had little to do with those moves, keep dreaming), there’s little doubt that he would have ambitious goals for running a competitive NBA franchise. But part of the pull is more emotional: James strongly believes in Black ownership.
It was hard to miss last month when James glowingly talked about Renee Montgomery, the former Atlanta Dream player who became part of the group that bought that WNBA franchise from former Sen. Kelly Loeffler. And he laid it out explicitly on Tuesday night, as he and Carter became the first Black men to own a piece of the Red Sox.
“I think for me and for my partner, Maverick, to be the first two Black men to be a part of that ownership group in the history of that franchise, I think it’s pretty damn cool,” he said after his 25-point triple-double in a victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves. “It gives me and people that look like me hope and inspiration that they can be in a position like that as well, that it can be done. It gives my kids at my I Promise School more and more inspiration as well.”
In a league in which 75 percent of the workforce is Black, James would be only the second Black NBA owner to Jordan, which would only spur the rivalry that he’s already created to No. 23. But there’s other meaning to consider there.
One of the insightful pieces of Jared Dudley’s book, Inside the NBA Bubble, was about the stoppage in August when the Lakers (and other teams) were seriously discussing the possibility of walking out on the season after the shooting of Jacob Blake. According to Dudley, James in particular was moved by the idea that the players could leverage the owners into serious political change.
Wrote Dudley: The threat of a holdout gives us some sway with the owners. But we also know that many of our owners are Trump supporters. We believe that the primary goal at this point is to get Trump out of office. We start to talk about how we can persuade the owners, even the pro-Trump owners, to help make that happen.
The ripple effect of that sentiment was highly influential, as owners opened NBA arenas as voting sites for November’s presidential election. If you look at where those sites were located and where some of the critical counties were in the election, it’s hard to deny that the results of the stoppage at least had some influence on the result.
James wants to own a team for the same reason he has strived to win championships as a player: He is incredibly competitive, and he knows the game well.
But there’s a compelling case that the events of the last two years have also sped up the urgency he feels toward owning a franchise, and therein, the power and clout that comes with ownership. Rather than being across the bargaining table from NBA owners, who comprise some of the wealthiest and most influential people in the country, he would sit alongside them.
After the shooting of Blake, an anguished James said: “I got half of my brain locked in on the playoffs and the other half locked in on how I can help Black people become greater in America.” James has helped fund dramatic solutions in education and assistance for Black people. For a person who values the advancement of Black people as much as James, being an NBA owner is a compelling position to gain in order to affect change. And maybe that has seemed all the more important given how America and the world have changed in two short years.
Sooner than later? LeBron James still has a lot of basketball left in him. That part hasn’t changed. But we might be closer to seeing him as an owner than we think.
— Kyle Goon
Editor’s note: Thanks for reading the Purple & Bold Lakers newsletter from reporter Kyle Goon. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.
No A.D.? No problem.
- Tiiiimmbeerrrr! – Minnesota dropped like a log against the relentless Lakers bench.
- A true team player – Jared Dudley explained how his decision to not have surgery on an MCL tear is related to his team role.
- Still Golden – The Lakers knocked around the Warriors again in San Francisco.
- A Cold War thaw? – Are LeBron and Steph lightening up after years of rivalry?
- Hard to blend – The newcomers acknowledged they’re still trying to pick up what they need to know.
- Kuzma’s charge – The first game back from All-Star break was quite the exhibition for the fourth-year forward.
- A few more weeks of winter – Anthony Davis is out through at least late March.
- “It’s go time” – LeBron pledged that he’s not looking for more rest in a grueling second-half schedule.
- Burning questions – What stands out as the Lakers churn through the second half?
