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Tag: <span>nba</span>

Cavs lock in Donovan Mitchell with 3-Year, $150.3m contract…

2 July 2024
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Donovan Mitchell plans to sign a three-year, $150.3 maximum-level contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers, according to multiple reports Tuesday.

Mitchell’s deal includes a player option for the third year (2027-28), providing the All-Star guard the potential to return to free agency when he’s eligible for a five-year, $380 million extension.

Either way, Mitchell has the framework of a four-year contract — including the final year of his previous deal — worth $185 million. He confirmed he’s staying with the Cavs in a social media post early Tuesday.

Read also: Celtics reward Jayson Tatum with historic five-Year, $314m extension

Mitchell, 27, carried the Cavaliers into the second round of the 2024 playoffs with a heroic performance in the final two games of the series with the Orlando Magic.

He averaged 26.6 points and a career-best 6.1 assists per game in 2023-24 but was limited to 55 regular-season games. Mitchell was forced out of the lineup in the second-round series against the Boston Celtics because of a groin injury. He did not play in the final two games of the series.

Entering his eighth NBA season, Mitchell played his first five seasons with the Utah Jazz. In 468 career regular-season games, he has averaged 24.8 points, 4.6 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game.

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Boston Celtics’ majority owner puts team up for sale…

1 July 2024
by admin

A “Believe in Boston” flag flies during the duck boat parade celebrating the Boston Celtics’ 18th NBA championship.

Stan Grossfeld | Boston Globe | Getty Images

The 2024 National Basketball Association champions are up for sale.

The Boston Celtics’ ownership group announced Monday that it plans to sell the team, according to a statement posted to the Celtics’ account on social media site X.

The controlling family of the ownership group, Boston Basketball Partners LLC, said it intends to sell all of its shares in the team “for estate and family planning consideration.”

The sale of a majority stake is expected to be completed by the end of 2024 or early 2025, with the remainder of the sale closing in 2028, according to the statement.

As sports franchise valuations soar, the Celtics could fetch a particularly high price. The team is among the most successful and most widely followed in U.S. professional sports, and won its NBA record 18th championship last month.

This, plus the soaring cost of sports media rights, will likely lead to a valuation close to — if not more than — the record $4 billion price tag the NBA’s Phoenix Suns received in 2023, sports consultants said Monday.

Sports valuations, media rights climb

The Celtics became the latest NBA champions after beating the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5 of the Finals in June. It was the team’s second championship under Grousbeck’s ownership.

U.S. professional sports teams, especially those in the National Football League and NBA, have been garnering high valuations when owners sell a stake, if not the entirety of the team.

In 2023, the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury were sold to Mat Ishbia for a record valuation of $4 billion.

Meanwhile, the media rights for the leagues have never been more lucrative, as live sports beckon the biggest TV audiences.

Negotiations surrounding the NBA’s media rights are ongoing with an announcement expected soon. Comcast‘s NBCUniversal is expected to pay $2.5 billion per year, with Disney‘s ESPN and Amazon’s Prime Video among the other bidders, CNBC has previously reported.

— CNBC’s Jessica Golden contributed to this article.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.

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Lakers prepare 3-year max deal offer for LeBron James…

25 June 2024
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LeBron James can take his talents elsewhere by declining a $51.4 million option in his contract for the 2024-25 season before Sunday’s deadline, but the Lakers are looking to reroute the 39-year-old back to Los Angeles with a new three-year max offer, according to ESPN.

James can be offered no more than a three-year deal under the NBA’s rule limiting the length of contracts teams can offer players over age 38.

That caps the three-year offer the Lakers can make to James at a maximum $162 million. The first step is his player option, although he can decline the option, test free agency and opt for a short-term deal if that’s his preference.

“We want to respect and honour LeBron’s ability on June 29th to make a decision about his contract,” Lakers GM Rob Pelinka said Tuesday.

Read also: NBA: Lakers announce JJ Redick as their new head coach

A 20-time All-Star set to turn 40 on Dec. 30, James and new head coach JJ Redick were co-hosts of a popular podcast “Mind the Game” last season and clearly have a rapport with shared thinking about key parts of player development and team culture.

Pelinka said Tuesday that James was “supportive” of the Lakers’ search but opted not to be overly involved, which is the opposite of the approach taken by All-Star teammate Anthony Davis.

Redick turned 40 on Tuesday and the first-time head coach claimed he had only a brief conversation with James this week after being offered the spot held by Darvin Ham the past two seasons.

With maximum cap space available, the Philadelphia 76ers are considered a looming threat to the Lakers if James opts out of his contract. The Sixers are among teams showing the greatest interest in James’ oldest son, USC guard Bronny James, before the 2024 NBA Draft on Wednesday, according to multiple reports.

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NBA, NHL voice concerns over future of Diamond Sports,…

4 June 2024
by admin

A Bally Sports display is shown in the eighth inning of the game between the MLB’s Houston Astros and Minnesota Twins at Target Field in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on April 9, 2023.

David Berding | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

The National Basketball Association and National Hockey League are concerned over Diamond Sports’ future, and whether the regional sports network owner can put together a viable business plan ahead of the upcoming seasons this fall.

Diamond Sports — which operates its networks under the Bally Sports brand — has been under bankruptcy protection since March of last year. The leagues are worried the owner of the largest portfolio of regional sports networks won’t have a viable business plan sorted out ahead of the 2024-25 season.

Lawyers for each league raised their concerns during a status conference in bankruptcy court on Tuesday, after Diamond said it was delaying its hearing to confirm its reorganization plan from mid-June until late July.

“I want to reiterate why timing is so critical for the NBA. The start of the 2024-2025 season is fast approaching,” said NBA attorney Vincent Indelicato in court on Tuesday. “A lot needs to get done well ahead of the season to properly produce and distribute games.”

The NHL attorney voiced similar fears, indicating if Diamond Sports is unable to craft a viable business plan in the coming months, the leagues may be left scrambling to find options to produce and air games in local markets. Some Major League Baseball teams have already forged ahead without their Bally Sports network.

Meanwhile, numerous NBA and NHL teams have reached deals with local broadcast station groups to carry local games.

Diamond Sports must put together a reorganization plan, outlining its future outside of bankruptcy protection, and receive court approval to move forward with it. The approval paves the way for a company to exit bankruptcy protection.

The NBA has pushed for Diamond Sports to have “a very clear business plan no later than July,” Indelicato said Tuesday.

For Diamond, it has been a long road to formulate a reorganization plan filled with various negotiations — with lenders to restructure its hefty debt load, with the leagues and teams for streaming TV rights and with pay-TV distributors that carry the games.

The recent breakdown of negotiations between Diamond Sports and Comcast Corp. threw a wrench in the sports network operator’s progress, its attorneys said Tuesday.

Last month, Comcast customers lost access to Bally Sports networks, which affected fans of 11 MLB teams. The carriage blackout has not caused an issue yet for NBA and NHL fans, however, since the leagues are each in the postseason. Regional sports networks air regular season local games.

The Diamond Sports attorney said Tuesday the company is still in negotiations with various stakeholders, but it reached an impasse with Comcast, giving it little choice but “to explore alternatives.”

Distributors such as Comcast have been losing pay-TV customers at a fast clip in recent years as people opt for streaming alternatives, and the regional sports networks are among the most-affected channels. On top of this, Diamond Sports had a more than $8 billion debt load stemming from Sinclair‘s acquisition of the networks in 2019.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.

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Coco Gauff says Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler offered…

25 May 2024
by admin

CNN
—

Jimmy Butler’s talents have been lauded this postseason. From his toughness to his elite shot-making, there is a reason he has earned the nickname ‘Himmy Buckets.’

But one talent we didn’t know the Miami Heat star had was clairvoyance. But according to tennis star and Heat fan Coco Gauff, Butler is either excellent at predicting the future or just extremely confident.

In the lead up to the French Open, Gauff hinted she had a “funny story” about Butler but was “going to save it” to avoid jinxing it.

However, after her victory in the first round at Roland Garros on Tuesday and, more importantly, the Heat’s dominant Game 7 win over the Boston Celtics to book their ticket to the NBA Finals against the Denver Nuggets, Gauff said she was finally ready to tell the story.

Butler drives to the basket during Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics.

Gauff, who said she didn’t watch Game 7 as it was on in the middle of the night before her first round match but was “very relieved” to see the result, explained that before the playoffs, Butler reached out to her to offer her tickets for the final home game of the season in April, before contacting her a few weeks later offering her tickets for the postseason.

“I said: ‘I won’t be here. I’ll be in Madrid and then Rome and then France,’” Gauff told reporters.

“And then he said: ‘OK, when we make the Finals, let me know if your family wants some tickets.’ So this was before [the Heat] were even in the playoffs.

“This is before we lost to the Hawks for the first Play-In game. Everybody is like we have a 3% chance of making the Finals, but when he sent me that, I knew we were making the Finals because he didn’t say, ‘If we make the Finals,’ he said: ‘When we make the Finals.’ Now that we are in the Finals, I can say that story.

“But I remember screenshotting it and sending it to my family and I was, like: ‘Oh, we’re going to the Finals!’”

Butler’s confidence stuck with the 19-year-old, as she said: “I just really like that mentality of him.”

Gauff plays a forehand during the 2023 French Open.

Gauff also revealed she took heart from the Heat’s resolve in Game 7 having relinquished a 3-0 lead to the Celtics in the series only to come out on top.

“Honestly, today, I told myself if Jimmy Butler didn’t freak out when they were up 3-0 and all of a sudden it’s 3-all, then I shouldn’t freak out after losing the first set,” Gauff said on court after her comeback win against Rebeka Masarova.

Butler has played a vital role in the No. 8 seed Heat’s miraculous run to the NBA Finals, beating the No. 1 seed Milwaukee Bucks, the No. 5 New York Knicks and most recently the No. 2 seeded Celtics.

The NBA Finals begin on Thursday in Denver.

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Netflix to stream Christmas Day NFL games for three…

15 May 2024
by admin

Netflix will stream Christmas Day National Football League games for the next three years, in its first true step into live sports.

The streaming platform will show two games on Christmas Day this year, followed by at least one matchup in both 2025 and 2026, the league announced Wednesday. The games will continue to be available on broadcast TV in local team markets and on the NFL+ mobile app.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but people familiar with the matter said Netflix will pay in the ballpark of $75 million per game. Spokespeople for the NFL and Netflix declined to comment.

The streamer will hire its own announcers for the games and partner with existing production companies. Sarandos told CNBC he felt the NFL was the right fit because it matched the streamer’s event strategy, allowing Netflix to effectively own the day.

Netflix has drawn large audiences with sports programming, from the “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” documentary to its “Quarterback” series following NFL signal callers. While the company took major strides into live programming with a deal to stream the WWE’s “Raw” and a boxing fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, the company suggested it had not found a live sports rights strategy that worked for it.

“We have not seen a profit path to renting big sports,” Sarandos said in December 2022.

“We’re not anti-sports, we’re just pro-profit,” Sarandos said.

Now, Netflix will stream games for the most-watched U.S. sports league, at a time when it is trying to boost profits by raising subscription prices, pushing users toward an ad-tier membership and cracking down on password sharing.

The games could give Netflix a major draw for advertisers. The three Christmas Day NFL games averaged 28.68 million viewers last year, according to Sports Media Watch.

The Christmas Day matchups can function as a marketing ramp up for Netflix before it starts airing “Raw” in January.

The streaming giant’s forays into live events have not come without issues. Its live reunion event for the hit reality TV show “Love Is Blind” in April 2023 had a technical bug that delayed the stream for more than an hour, at which point the show was no longer live.

The announcement comes as streamers across the industry show increasing interest in live sports programming, particularly the NFL.

In January, NBCUniversal’s Peacock showed an NFL Wild Card game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins, marking the first time a playoff game was broadcast exclusively on a streaming service. Amazon‘s Prime Video has already snatched the exclusive rights to an NFL playoff game next season.

Amazon also signed a media rights deal with the NFL in 2021, where it agreed to pay about $1 billion per year to have exclusive Thursday Night Football rights for 10 years, starting with the 2023 season. The deal was the first time a streaming service carried a full package of games exclusively.

Netflix could be looking to branch out into basketball, as well. CNBC reported last year that Netflix, along with Amazon, Apple, YouTube TV and Comcast’s NBCUniversal/Peacock, have all had preliminary conversations with the National Basketball Association about possible interest in media rights when the league’s deal with Walt Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery comes to an end after next season.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.

— CNBC’s Alex Sherman and Lillian Rizzo contributed to this report

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Michael Jordan’s 1998 NBA Finals sneakers sell for a…

12 April 2023
by admin

Editor’s Note: This story was updated with the final sale price and other details following the auction.

CNN
—

In 1998, Michael Jordan laced up a pair of his iconic black and red Air Jordan 13s to bring home a Bulls victory during Game 2 of his final NBA championship — and now they are the most expensive sneakers ever to sell at auction.

The game-winning sneakers sold for $2.2 million at Sotheby’s in New York on Tuesday, smashing the sneaker auction record of $1.47 million, set in 2021 by a pair of Nike Air Ships that Jordan wore earlier in his career.

The sale arrives during “Jordan Year” — a reference to the NBA star player’s iconic jersey number 23. In January, Air Jordan partnered with Sotheby’s to auction off 13 pairs of retro sneakers that were designed in memory of The Notorious B.I.G. All lots outsold their high estimates of $5,000 by multiples, with the highest selling for more than $32,000.

Last year, Jordan’s Game 1 jersey, also from the 1998 finals, became the most expensive item of worn sports memorabilia to sell at auction when it fetched $10.1 million at a Sotheby’s sale.

Jordan’s farewell run with the Chicago Bulls is often referred to as “The Last Dance,” after the title of an ESPN and Netflix documentary that chronicled the season. Jordan announced his (second) retirement weeks before the finals, leading to the six-game series against the Utah Jazz becoming the most-watched in NBA history, based on Nielsen TV ratings. (Jordan would later return from 2001 to 2003 to play with the Washington Wizards, but did not win another championship).

Michael Jordan pictured wearing the record-breaking sneakers during the NBA Finals at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 05, 1998.

“Michael Jordan game-worn sports memorabilia has proven time and time again to be the most elite and coveted items on the market,” said Brahm Wachter, Sotheby’s head of streetwear and modern collectables, in a press release prior to the sale. “However, items from his ‘Last Dance’ season are of a greater scale and magnitude as seen with our record-breaking sale of his Game 1 jersey in 2022.”

The pair of sneakers sold Tuesday were worn during Game 2, in Salt Lake City, which the Bulls won 93-88 after losing Game 1, with Jordan scoring 37 points. They are the last pair of black and red Air Jordan 13s that Jordan ever wore on the court for an NBA game, a press release from Sotheby’s noted.

Following Game 2, Jordan signed and gifted the set of worn shoes to the ball boy in the visitor’s locker room, as he was known to do, according to Sotheby’s.

The Air Jordan 13 sneakers starred in a sports memorabilia sale called “Victoriam,” which featured items worn by athletes including Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant and Roger Federer. Several other Jordan items were included in the two-part auction, with a game-worn 1998 Bulls jersey and a pair of 1985 Air Jordan 1s fetching $508,000 and $127,000 respectively.

Other top lots included one of Kobe Bryant’s LA Lakers shooting shirts, which sold for over $406,000, and a soccer jersey, worn by the late Pelé on his debut for the New York Cosmos in 1975, that sold fetched over $177,000.

Top image: The Air Jordan 13 sneakers signed by Michael Jordan.

Science & Environment

The Boston Celtics become the first team to hit…

12 January 2023
by admin

CNN
—

The Boston Celtics became the first team in the NBA this season to reach 30 wins after beating the New Orleans Pelicans 125-114 at TD Garden in Boston on Wednesday night, largely behind a combined 72 points from the team’s stars, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.

Brown scored season-high 41 points and had 12 rebounds while Tatum had 31 points and 10 rebounds as the Celtics won their fourth straight game.

Brown specifically attacked the Pelicans from the mid range, crediting extra muscle added in the offseason for allowing him to handle contact with bigger opponents, as he makes a concerted effort to not settle for attempts from deep.

“I think I can get to the rim at a good rate this year,” Brown told reporters afterwards, per the Celtics website. “I definitely want to keep that up.

“I don’t want to let the defense off the hook, but I feel good about a lot of the shots I took from three. Some of them went down, some of them haven’t. But I definitely still think I’m going to look to get to the basket a lot more for sure just for the remainder of the year.”

Celtics forward Al Horford reiterated the point: “When (Brown) drives, I feel like people feel it.

“When he’s hitting you when he’s driving, that’s real. So it’s good to see him play at that level and have his mind made up that he’s going to attack the paint.”

It was Brown’s sixth 40-point game of his career, moving him past Sam Jones and Isaiah Thomas for the sixth-most in Celtics history.

Together with Tatum, the two wing players have become the driving force behind Boston’s recent success.

The team reached the NBA Finals last season, eventually losing to the Golden State Warriors, and is again one of the best in the league this year.

In both scoring at least 30 points and 10 rebounds in the same game, Brown and Tatum became the first Celtics players to achieve that stat line since Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker in 2001.

Drafted a year after one another – Brown was drafted with the No. 3 pick in the 2016 draft and Tatum was selected with the No. 3 pick in 2017 – they have built up an understanding together about dissecting defenses.

“They continue to grow in front of our eyes,” Horford said of the star duo after the victory. “They feed off each other, and that’s what really drives our team.”

Tag: <span>nba</span>

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