Stan Middleman Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Atlantic Notes: Ingram, Powell, Sixers, Chisholm

November 27th, 2025 at 11:15pm CST by Rory Maher

Brandon Ingram showed once again on Wednesday why the Raptors were willing to give him a three-year, $120MM extension after trading for him in February, writes Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca. In a grind-it-out game against Indiana, Ingram hit a game-winning pull-up jump shot over Pascal Siakam, securing Toronto’s ninth straight win and 13th in the past 14 games.

“That’s why I’m here,” Ingram said after a 26-point, eight-rebound night when asked what he was shouting on the court after making that last shot. “That’s the cleanest I can say it.”

Here’s more from the Atlantic:

Of the Nets‘ five first-round picks, Drake Powell has looked the most ready to contribute as a rookie, says Brian Lewis of The New York Post. The former North Carolina wing finished with 15 points and four assists in 24 minutes during Monday’s loss vs. New York. “As we go, he’s gonna continue to understand the league [and] the schemes, especially defensively,” head coach Jordi Fernandez said. “I consider him a very, very good defender with a really high ceiling defensively and I’m gonna keep challenging him to be better.”
With injuries mounting, the Sixers are starting to look more like last year’s version of the team, contends Tony Jones of The Athletic. Philadelphia suffered its worst defeat of the season on Tuesday against Orlando, having been blown out by 41 points. “We got spanked,” star guard Tyrese Maxey said. “That’s all there is to it. There are two or three games every year where everything kind of goes wrong for you. That’s what tonight was for us. Everything went wrong for us, and everything went right for them. Jett Howard had one that went off the top of the backboard and fell through the net. That’s when you just have to realize that it isn’t your night.”
Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic takes a look at how Bill Chisholm went from relative obscurity as a wealthy head of a private equity firm to the new majority of the Celtics, the team he grew up rooting for as a child. While Chisholm’s group set a then-record for purchasing the Celtics for $6.1 billion, they outbid the second-place finisher — believed to be Philadelphia Phillies minority owner Stan Middleman — by less than $100MM, sources tell Vorkunov. “Anyone who’s had their boyhood team or girlhood team and have this happen — I want to say it’s like a dream come true but… I didn’t even know to dream this,” Chisholm said. “What does it mean to be the owner of the Boston Celtics? I don’t know.”

Celtics Sale Notes: Chisholm, Financing, Valuation, More

March 25th, 2025 at 10:22am CST by Luke Adams

Although William Chisholm has reached a tentative agreement to buy a controlling stake in the Celtics, the NBA’s Board of Governors vote to approve the sale isn’t expected to happen until June, according to Dan Primack of Axios (hat tip to Brian Robb of MassLive.com).

That will give Chisholm some time to recruit additional investors, since his bid for the franchise isn’t fully financed, Primack writes. A report from Kerry A. Dolan of Forbes seems to corroborate this point, noting that Chisholm offered another billionaire an opportunity to buy a stake in the Celtics last Thursday.

Primack suggests that Chisholm’s best route to secure additional financing may be to reach out to the other three groups who were involved in the bidding process. Those groups are headed by Dan Friedkin, Stan Middleman, and current Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca.

However, according to Primack, Friedkin may already be moving on to pursuing an NHL expansion team in Houston. As for Pagliuca, his group’s bid was fully financed, so he may prefer to hold firm as a potential Plan B if Chisholm’s bid falls through rather than joining Chisholm’s group himself.

Primack also notes that Middleman’s offer came in below Chisholm’s but above Pagliuca’s. There has been no indication that offer was fully financed.

Here’s more on the Celtics’ impending sale:

While the initial valuation of the franchise is said to be $6.1 billion for the controlling stake, the agreement calls for the valuation to rise to about $7.3 billion by the time Chisholm’s group buys out the remaining shares in 2028, according to Primack, who adds that the weighted price would work out to approximately $6.7 billion.
Wyc Grousbeck‘s desire to remain in place as the Celtics’ CEO and governor until 2028 was dropped as a mandatory requirement at some point during the sale process, but Chisholm “smartly recognized” the value of agreeing to that condition when he made his offer, writes Primack. According to Axios, the terms of Pagliuca’s fully financed bid didn’t include Grousbeck retaining his CEO position.
Primack suggests that the high price tag for the Celtics may reduce the likelihood of the NBA expanding to cities like Seattle or Las Vegas in the near future. As he explains, with the Celtics sale resetting the market for franchise valuations, other team owners may be able to get an influx of cash by selling small stakes in their teams rather than relying on expansion fees. Adding one or more expansion franchises to the league would result in a substantial one-time payment for existing teams, but would dilute each club’s share of media rights revenue going forward.

Four Groups Identified As Bidders For Celtics

March 12th, 2025 at 2:51pm CST by Luke Adams

Four prospective ownership groups remain involved in bidding for the Celtics and have taken part in management presentations with the team, according to a report from Eben Novy-Williams and Scott Soshnick of Sportico.

Here are those four groups, per Sportico’s reporting:

Steve Pagliuca‘s group: Pagliuca is a current minority stakeholder in the Celtics who has expressed interest throughout the process in assuming majority control of the franchise. Sportico reported on Tuesday that he was a “near certainty” to be involved in the second round of bidding and was considered by some industry sources to be the frontrunner.
The Friedkin Group: Described by Sportico as “a privately held consortium based in Texas,” The Friedkin Group has holdings that include a pair of soccer clubs, AS Roma in Italy and Everton in the English Premier League. Dan Friedkin, the owner and CEO, is reportedly worth $7.5 billion.
Stan Middleman‘s group: Middleman, the president and CEO of Freedom Mortgage, bought a minority stake in MLB’s Philadelphia Phillies in 2023 and has explored pursuing majority control of other sports franchises, including the Cleveland Guardians and Washington Nationals, according to Sportico.
Bill Chisholm‘s group: Chisholm, whose involvement was first reported by Bloomberg, is the co-founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of Symphony Technology Group, which manages about $10 billion in assets, per Sportico.

The Celtics’ majority ownership group first announced last July that it would be putting control of the franchise up for sale. The plan laid out at that time was to sell a majority share (ie. 51%) of the team in late 2024 or early 2025, with Celtics governor Wyc Grousbeck remaining in his current role until the balance of the sale is completed in 2028.

It’s unclear whether or not that’s still the plan, according to Novy-Williams and Soshnick, who note that the messiness of the Timberwolves’ ownership transfer prompted commissioner Adam Silver to suggest that the league may try to avoid sales that play out in multiple stages going forward.

The deadline for potential buyers to submit their initial offers was January 23. A second round of revised bids is reportedly due this Friday.

It’s not yet known whether the four groups involved in the process are fully funded or exactly how much they’re willing to offer for a controlling stake in the defending NBA champions, Novy-Williams and Soshnick write. During the site’s latest round of NBA franchise valuations, Sportico estimated that the Celtics are worth $5.66 billion.