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So Pera could just buy them out and keep the whole franchise for himself. Remember when $377 million dollars could get you an NBA team?
https://theathletic.com/170989/2017/11/30/memphis-grizzlies-minority-owners-exercise-buy-sell-option-uncertainty-reeling-franchise-david-fizdale/
Exclusive: Grizzlies minority owners exercise buy-sell option, adding more uncertainty to a reeling franchise
It was not that long ago that the Memphis Grizzlies were one of the league’s shining success stories, the poster child for a bond between city and franchise with a proud core of leaders that made the playoffs an expectation.
The Grizzlies were named the most well-run franchise in North American sports by ESPN in 2013 and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver held them up as “the model of small-market success” in 2014, one year after they advanced to the Western Conference finals.
Flash forward to 2017 and this once stable and standard-setting organization is on shaky ground, and the uncertainty is only growing. When coach David Fizdale was fired this week, interim coach J.B. Bickerstaff became the fourth coach in the last six seasons, a startling level of volatility for a team that has made the playoffs for seven straight seasons.
The roster is in flux, half of the foursome that laid the groundwork for the team’s success is gone and Robert Pera’s future as lead owner of the franchise is in question.
A buy-sell provision in the ownership agreement between Pera and minority owners Steve Kaplan and Daniel Straus was exercised last week, sources told The Athletic. Both minority owners had the right to invoke the clause starting in late October, which allows one or both of them to set a new valuation for the franchise that sold for $377 million in 2012.
Pera, who is being represented by CAA in the process, will have to decide whether to buy out Kaplan and/or Straus to keep control of the team or sell his shares at the set price and remove himself from the ownership group.
The clause in the agreement, which was first reported by ESPN, was born of Pera’s tenuous acquisition of the team from previous owner Michael Heisley in 2012. During that process, the value of Pera’s technology company, Ubiquiti Networks, took a sharp plunge, forcing him to bring on Kaplan and Straus as partners with 13.5 percent equity and give a number of owners with Memphis ties, including Peyton Manning and Justin Timberlake, smaller pieces of the pie to be able to close the deal.
Pera’s first couple of seasons in Memphis were successful, with Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, Tony Allen and Zach Randolph forming the backbone of the Grizzlies’ “Grit ‘n Grind” culture that endeared the franchise to the no-nonsense people of Memphis and made them a bruising opponent for the rest of the NBA. They won a franchise-record 56 games and advanced to the Western Conference finals in 2013 and have been in the playoffs every season Pera has been in charge, no small feat for a team that missed the playoffs in 12 of its first 15 seasons in the league.
But after winning at least 50 games in three straight seasons from 2012-13 to 2014-15, the injury-plagued Grizzlies slipped to 42 in 2015-16 and won 43 last year in Fizdale's only full season. They are 7-13 this season, losers of nine straight and in 12th place in the West.
Pera pulled the plug on fiery coach Lionel Hollins after that 2013 run, setting up a rollercoaster of coaching changes over the next five years. Dave Joerger spent three years at the helm, leading them to the playoffs in all three seasons and the conference semifinals in 2015. But his relationship with Pera was volatile from the start, with sources telling The Athletic that the reclusive owner considered firing him just three games into his first season. Joerger grew so displeased with the situation that he interviewed for the opening with the Minnesota Timberwolves during the summer of 2014, but wound up staying in Memphis for two more seasons.
Joerger fled for Sacramento before last season and was replaced by Fizdale, who was fired one month into his second season on the job.
Through it all, Pera has been a shadowy figure with the Grizzlies. He is almost never in Memphis to attend games, a lack of visibility that has contributed to questions about his level of involvement with the franchise and Memphis.
“I always tell him I would like to see him at more games,” Gasol told reporters on media day.
Gasol has always said he has a close relationship with Pera and speaks to him regularly. The All-Star has long been supportive of the young owner but has also acknowledged that his lack of visibility does not help the situation.
Though he was quoted in the press release announcing Fizdale's firing, his role in the decision to do so remains unclear. But the move drew sharp rebukes across the league from LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra, who worked with Fizdale in Miami, to Nuggets coach Michael Malone and others.
The absentee approach has led to tension between Pera and his minority owners, sources said. Kaplan tried to extricate himself from the situation a year and a half ago when he entered into negotiations with Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor to join the team as a minority partner with the intent on one day purchasing a majority stake in the franchise. But that agreement fell through, the second time Kaplan has missed out on a chance to become the lead owner of an NBA franchise. He was outbid by Tony Ressler for the Atlanta Hawks in 2015.
Straus is a New York-based healthcare magnate and the Grizzlies vice chairman.
Serving as Pera’s main consigliere in Memphis has been Joe Abadi, who carries the title of executive director but has no basketball background. He is higher on the food chain than GM Chris Wallace, who helped assemble the “Core Four” of Gasol, Allen, Conley and Randolph but has struggled since to buttress that group with the talent necessary to truly contend in the powerful Western Conference.
The Grizzlies said goodbye to the aging Randolph and Allen in the offseason, and injuries and underwhelming performances in recent drafts have hampered their ability to retool. They splurged on big contracts for Gasol and Conley, but signing Chandler Parsons, a versatile swingman with a history of knee problems, to a four-year, $94 million contract in 2016 has proven to be a huge mistake. The deal was completed without requiring a physical and contained no injury protections, according to sources, which has severely impacted the team’s salary cap situation.
The Grizzlies also do not have a first-round pick in next year’s draft thanks to an ill-advised trade for veteran journeyman Jeff Green, who is long gone from the roster.
All of it adds up to the kind of uncertainty — on the court and off — that can be difficult for a franchise to overcome, especially one in a smaller market like Memphis.
Seattle has been getting more aggressive in trying to address its arena situation to get a team to return to the city vacated when the SuperSonics left for Oklahoma City. But the Grizzlies lease at the FedEx Forum has strong protections through 2021 and the Commercial-Appeal reported that the subset of local owners in the group would be given the chance to buy the team if Pera, or any other owner, were to try to move the Grizzlies before 2027.
Since diving into the Grizzlies in 2012, Pera’s net worth has skyrocketed thanks in large part to a stock price rebound for his technology company. The value of the Grizzlies has more than doubled during his time as owner as well, and other franchises like the Houston Rockets ($2.2 billion) and the Los Angeles Clippers ($2 billion) have driven up the price tag to be an NBA owner.
It remains unknown whether he will look to retain the team or cash out and reap a financial windfall for his much smaller initial investment. The process could take months to come to a conclusion.
But for a once-stable franchise that was held up as a model for others to follow, the value of the product on the court appears to be in decline.
“We’ve been headed in a bad direction for quite some time,” Wallace told reporters on the day Fizdale was fired.
He was referring to trends he was seeing with the team in the games, but he could just as easily have been talking about the franchise as a whole.
Conley will still be out another two to three weeks with a sore left heel and Achilles tendon and Parsons is again experiencing issues with a right knee that has been surgically repaired three times.
That leaves Bickerstaff to try to pick up the pieces with a short-handed group as a daunting December schedule filled with heavyweights looms.
The long-term outlook for the franchise in Memphis is by no means assured either, until some clarity emerges in the ownership situation.
In a way, the buy-sell activation may be some of the best news the Grizzlies have had in a while. The season started under this cloud of uncertainty, with everyone knowing that the minority owners had the right to go down this road starting in late October. Deadlines spur action in the NBA, and maybe this one will lead to some much-needed answers for all involved. ------
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