When we heard the Woj bombshell that Wyc Grousbeck and his partners were putting the Celtics up for sale, about 15 seconds after announcing they were extending Derrick White’s contract to the max, it certainly came as a shock. You don’t exactly see a team that just won the NBA title immediately put back up for sale, but I guess you can’t blame an ownership group for wanting to cash in on a $5 billion+ asset that only cost them $320 million. I’m not much of a math or finance expert, but that ROI seems pretty good!
There are still a lot of unknowns about the parameters of this sale, things that we outsiders will most likely never know. Given how the team is divided in terms of the shares each owns, do they just have to go to the highest bidder? Does it matter who that person is, as long as they bring the money? Could it be Saudi oil money or Jeff Bezos, or maybe it stays internal with Steve Pagliuca?
After a few weeks of no movement, it seems like something is moving in this sale
It is no surprise that almost immediately after learning that the team is moving forward and selecting the bankers to help with the sale (as Wyc mentioned a few weeks ago), we are getting reports like this
Giphy images.
Advertising
Giphy images.
Giphy images.
Giphy images.
Let me say this as clearly as possible. John Fenway and FSG need to STAY AWAY from the Boston Celtics. I don’t care who they play as long as it’s not John Henry. You want the Saudi oil money? Fine. You want to give your franchise to Jeff Bezos like we all have with Amazon in almost every aspect of our lives? Then you can go nuts. You want to give it to Pags because he’s been on this journey for over 20 years? Fantastic choice.
But Wyc/the Celts should not under any circumstances even consider selling this team to John Henry. That would be a death sentence. In my opinion, there is no faster way to destroy all the goodwill that this NBA title has brought Wyc and the team than to give everything to this asshole. And I get it, he turned the Sox around and won 4 World Series. That was great. And it was also at a time when it really mattered to him. Since FSG has been around, John Henry has destroyed the Sox.
Advertising
Do you think John Henry would be willing to pay the $400 million luxury tax this current roster will soon have to pay? The same guy who dropped Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, etc.? No way. At this point, John Henry and FSG only care about one thing: making a profit. If you have to pay a ton of money to keep your talent, it eats into your profit. If you want to keep things local, just give the team to Pags!
Of course, there’s also the LeBron aspect when it comes to FSG, as he has a stake in it. The NBA prohibits him from being a player/owner while in the league, so I’m sure there would have to be a whole lot of legal nonsense for FSG to buy the Celts. Here’s a pretty good report on the whole situation that I recommend reading.
I’m not sure how this would affect the first half of the sale, as LeBron would still be an active player, but in the second wave he might already be retired and the topic would no longer be relevant.
But this isn’t about LeBron. This is about keeping John Henry as far away as possible from a team that seems to be on the verge of doing something special. My only requirements for the new owner or ownership group are simple.
1. You must accept and bow down to our Lord and Savior Brad Stevens. He is in charge, you do what he wants without questioning.
2. They have to be willing to spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on luxury taxes and second apron penalties to keep this squad together as long as this current window is open
3. They believe in Mazzulla Ball and everything he stands for
4. You are not John Henry and FSG
That’s all. In my opinion, it’s not even a crazy request. At least it’s the bare minimum.
That’s why the unknown parameters surrounding the sale are so important. Can Wyc (and technically it’s his father) really decide who the team is sold to, regardless of price? Or do they have to let whoever offers the most money go? It seems crazy to me that they would look at what Henry and FSG did with the baseball team in the same city, how the fan base reacted to all that crap, and then decide FSG is the way to go for the Celtics. They might not care at this point, since they’d be making over $5 billion, but Wyc would go from one of the most legendary owners in Boston sports history to Public Enemy No. 1 in the blink of an eye.
Advertising
I don’t care if I have to start the GoFundMe campaign myself. I’m more than confident that if every single person who hates John Henry with all their heart chipped in, we could easily get to over $5 billion. That might seem like an insane number, but that’s how annoying this guy is.
Again, I’m not a math guy, so don’t ask me to break that down per capita, but desperate times call for desperate measures and we as a region need to do everything in our power to make sure this crap doesn’t happen.
