In addition to announcing that Melinda French Gates is joining the Seattle Kraken’s ownership group as a minority investor, Samantha Holloway, the majority owner of the NHL team, confirmed that she’s assembling a group that will make a bid for an NBA franchise based in Seattle, writes Emily Kaplan of ESPN.
Holloway also pointed out that the Kraken’s ownership group has strengthened its case to bring the NBA to Seattle by acquiring a majority stake in Climate Pledge Arena, where the Kraken and the WNBA’s Seattle Storm play.
“The City of Seattle certainly could use an NBA team, and the fans here are ready for it,” Holloway said. “If that happens, they will all buy their Kraken friends beers because it wouldn’t happen without them. So we are hopeful, we are working on it, and stay tuned.”
We have more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Exploring at greater length why Jamal Murray isn’t expected to play for the Canadian national team in international competition anytime soon, Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca explains that Canada Basketball was seeking three-year commitments from its players, and the Nuggets guard wasn’t able to commit to being available for each of the next three summers. “If guys don’t commit this summer, they’re not in,” new national team coach Gordon Herbert said. “When I was with Germany, we had six or seven NBA guys and three guys didn’t come, they didn’t want to come. All of sudden they wanted to come (in) year two. Sorry. You can’t be successful in anything without commitment, in my opinion.”
- Joseph Sanberg, the co-founder of the now-bankrupt green banking company Aspiration, was sentenced this week to 14 years in federal prison, writes Baxter Holmes of ESPN. Judge Stephen V. Wilson described Sanberg as “greedy, brazen, callous” and said he would “put the grade of his fraud at the zenith,” as Holmes relays. Kawhi Leonard‘s sponsorship deal with Aspiration and Steve Ballmer‘s investment in the company are at the center of the NBA’s investigation into possible salary cap circumvention by the Clippers. In advance of his sentencing, the league said in a letter to Wilson that Sanberg “substantially assisted” its probe, while Ballmer’s attorneys advocated against leniency for the Aspiration co-founder, writing that Sanberg “flagrantly defrauded” the Clippers owner.
- Spurs big man Victor Wembanyama is the only player eligible for a rookie scale extension who is likely to sign a maximum-salary contract this offseason, in the view of Keith Smith of Spotrac. However, Smith – projecting possible deals for each member of the 2023 draft class – view Hornets forward Brandon Miller (five years, $200MM), Rockets guard Amen Thompson (five years, $185MM), and Jazz guard Keyonte George (four years, $152MM) as strong candidates for lucrative extensions.