Bucks ownership: Lowe/Windhorst ESPN piece pg 5

[Novocaine]

Ok so lets see some facts that we know, please correct me if I'm wrong:

Being a team owner is an investment, it's about making money.

I think you get wrong right here. It's mostly about the intangible benefits - it's part toy, part a philanthropic, public service to the community (or at least they convince themselves that's the case) and mostly very cool and prestigious. Hence why few to none team owners act as profit maximizers. Sure, most owners aren't Mark Cuban and won't want to lose money -when that happens, a lockout happens and they take a bigger slice of the pie out of the players hands- but if it was all about making money, or even primarily, teams would be managed very differently and you'd have a lot more of institutional investors, like the Raptors owners.

[Pachinko_]

I might be wrong... after all we're driving blind here, NBA teams don't disclose their finances.

[midranger]

Giannis, I'll enjoy watching you every minute you're still here.

[GrandAdmiralDan]

Except these aren't the same things.

NBA Board of Governors does not equal Governing Partner

Where are you seeing this? Lowe specifically said "Designated Governor" and all teams have them.

The NBA Board of Governors is a separate entity. It's essentially owners talking about the state of the league, and its issues (ie. resting players) for example. It's the opposite of the NBPA.

Designated Governor is if an ownership of a team is distributed amongst a number of individuals. There is a designated governor who has the final say if necessary. Think of that as a managing partner for the franchise, as in a law firm or brokerage.

It could be that one may have both powers, but I don't think it should be assumed in this case.

The NBA Board Of Governors is compromised of each team's Designated Governor.

[GrandAdmiralDan]

So, let me get this straight:

There is an agreement in place whereby a simple 2-1 majority is needed to make key decisions. However, there is a wrinkle stipulating the single owner who is the Board of Governors rep has overriding veto power for a five year cycle?
So, for five years 2 of the 3 owners are really glorified voices in the room. Couple this with the juggling of a senile and antiquated basketball mind in Rod Thorn; the coaching and strategist mind of Jaon Kidd; and, now, the youngest and lowest salaried GM in the League...

This is my understanding:

I don't know if the majority-rules policy is a contractually-mandated stipulation of their partnership agreement or if its simply an informal agreement between the three. Either way, the only way to enforce that approach is through litigation, which partners like to avoid if at all possible.

That is distinct from the "Designated Governor." From the NBA's perspective, they are only going to listen to whoever is the "Designated Governor." They are not a party to whatever "majority-rules policy" the Bucks are operating under. Thus, if Edens makes a decision that the other owners are dissatisfied with, the only thing they can do is either bide their time until they are "Designated Governor" or sue Edens. The NBA would likely attempt to mediate the dispute, but as Edens is the "Designated Governor," he has ultimate authority in the eyes of the League.

Yep

[WeekapaugGroove]

I know this has been discussed but the part of the lowe article i can't get over was that horst didn't know he was being considered for the job before being offered the job.... thats something man wow... not exactly the way I'd hire a gm.

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[th87]

It sucks, but these dudes bought the team and probably find happiness in running it like a toy.

They technically don't owe us anything, so I'm emotionally divesting.

[hege53190]

I know this has been discussed but the part of the lowe article i can't get over was that horst didn't know he was being considered for the job before being offered the job.... thats something man wow... not exactly the way I'd hire a gm.

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That is the part you can't get over? What about the part where he is getting paid $500,000 a year?

The Horst hire to me was as much about saving a dollar as it was about hiring a competent GM.

[randy84]

I know this has been discussed but the part of the lowe article i can't get over was that horst didn't know he was being considered for the job before being offered the job.... thats something man wow... not exactly the way I'd hire a gm.

Sent from my SM-G930V using RealGM mobile app

That is the part you can't get over? What about the part where he is getting paid $500,000 a year?

The Horst hire to me was as much about saving a dollar as it was about hiring a competent GM.

Nah. I think Edens is biding his time on the Kidd/Lasry thing. I think if the Kidd thing blows up and he is fired, Edens is going to push for a new GM that will hire his own coach. Keeping Horst at $500,000 makes it easier to boot him out the door and hire a real GM.

[bigkurty]

I know this has been discussed but the part of the lowe article i can't get over was that horst didn't know he was being considered for the job before being offered the job.... thats something man wow... not exactly the way I'd hire a gm.

Sent from my SM-G930V using RealGM mobile app

That is the part you can't get over? What about the part where he is getting paid $500,000 a year?

The Horst hire to me was as much about saving a dollar as it was about hiring a competent GM.

Nah. I think Edens is biding his time on the Kidd/Lasry thing. I think if the Kidd thing blows up and he is fired, Edens is going to push for a new GM that will hire his own coach. Keeping Horst at $500,000 makes it easier to boot him out the door and hire a real GM.

The story I heard was Eden's was given the ok to fire Kidd if he really wanted to however last summers contract extension and the way they closed the season led him to put that on hold. Like PP says, follow the money. These guys may be billionaires but they are bleeding their personal money faster now than they ever have in their lives. So for now Wes seems to be trying to cut costs to get the team back in the black. I wouldn't be surprised if non player payroll has doubled or tripled since they bought the team. Now that Wes sold his company, he has tons of extra time to really dive into Bucks operations. He probably saw that payroll line ballooning in the profits and loss statement and was like wtf.

[econniption]

That is the part you can't get over? What about the part where he is getting paid $500,000 a year?

The Horst hire to me was as much about saving a dollar as it was about hiring a competent GM.

Nah. I think Edens is biding his time on the Kidd/Lasry thing. I think if the Kidd thing blows up and he is fired, Edens is going to push for a new GM that will hire his own coach. Keeping Horst at $500,000 makes it easier to boot him out the door and hire a real GM.

The story I heard was Eden's was given the ok to fire Kidd if he really wanted to however last summers contract extension and the way they closed the season led him to put that on hold. Like PP says, follow the money. These guys may be billionaires but they are bleeding their personal money faster now than they ever have in their lives. So for now Wes seems to be trying to cut costs to get the team back in the black. I wouldn't be surprised if non player payroll has doubled or tripled since they bought the team. Now that Wes sold his company, he has tons of extra time to really dive into Bucks operations. He probably saw that payroll line ballooning in the profits and loss statement and was like wtf.

As much as I want this team to excel, I kinda want next season's team to perform below, or even well below, expectations so that Kidd can get the boot. But the problem is, since they're going to pay him up to $6 million per season for the next three seasons (!), they'd probably want to go cheap on his replacement until his contact runs out.

Btw, how can you pay your HC $6M/yr when your GM only makes $500K per year? Based on that alone, it promotes an ambiguous hierarchy, at best.

[VooDoo7]

Nah. I think Edens is biding his time on the Kidd/Lasry thing. I think if the Kidd thing blows up and he is fired, Edens is going to push for a new GM that will hire his own coach. Keeping Horst at $500,000 makes it easier to boot him out the door and hire a real GM.

The story I heard was Eden's was given the ok to fire Kidd if he really wanted to however last summers contract extension and the way they closed the season led him to put that on hold. Like PP says, follow the money. These guys may be billionaires but they are bleeding their personal money faster now than they ever have in their lives. So for now Wes seems to be trying to cut costs to get the team back in the black. I wouldn't be surprised if non player payroll has doubled or tripled since they bought the team. Now that Wes sold his company, he has tons of extra time to really dive into Bucks operations. He probably saw that payroll line ballooning in the profits and loss statement and was like wtf.

As much as I want this team to excel, I kinda want next season's team to perform below, or even well below, expectations so that Kidd can get the boot. But the problem is, since they're going to pay him up to $6 million per season for the next three seasons (!), they'd probably want to go cheap on his replacement until his contact runs out.

Btw, how can you pay your HC $6M/yr when your GM only makes $500K per year? Based on that alone, it promotes an ambiguous hierarchy, at best.

Looking at the east next year, and how bad it's gonna be, I'm willing to be our record actually improves next season. And Kidd will be praised. **** us all.

[Bernman]

It sucks, but these dudes bought the team and probably find happiness in running it like a toy.

They technically don't owe us anything, so I'm emotionally divesting.

They owed us something the moment they asked for public money for a new arena, if not before where they bought a franchise under a condition that they keep it in Milwaukee. While they technically may be meeting that requirement, they aren't in spirit if they're occupying the team as opposed to an alternative buyer, and then managing like their own toy.

[Bernman]

Even if Edens has power of the pen, they made a verbal agreement majority rules, and he can't play the hard man unless he wants them to turn around and do it to him at the end of the 5-year period.

[emunney]

See, but the problem is that they don't get "inside" scoops and ad money. if they're critical of the team. It's such a quid pro quo that local media needs that access - the Journal is already a rag and is hemorrhaging, so if they lose their connection to the Bucks, then that's some major revenue they lose out on.

Does this assume that the Bucks don't get anything out of advertising in the MJS other than positive coverage? It's also... advertisement, right?

[Pachinko_]

Btw, how can you pay your HC $6M/yr when your GM only makes $500K per year? Based on that alone, it promotes an ambiguous hierarchy, at best.

Probably the same way you pay your players many times more than your coach and you expect them to respect him and follow his orders.

[HKPackFan]

So Edens was the one being the dick and made this whole GM thing a mess by refusing to give the job to Zanik.

But somewhere someone said Zanik was BFF's with Kidd and that may have been a problem for Edens.

If that's true then I kinda like that. I'm glad someone isn't sold on Kidd and hopefully has him on a tight leash.

Although that might be a moot point if the east sucks and we finish a Top 4-5 seed and win a playoff series because everyone below 5th seed sucks ass. We have a year older Giannis, a couple of old 2nd year players in Thon and Brogdon, and Mids a year removed from injury, so I would expect us to be slightly better than last year even if we have this for a playbook:




So while I'm embarrassed of the **** show of a GM search, I'm slightly please someone up top is not a Kidd fan, but I'm still pessimistic Kidd will skate by since our status quo team is perfect mediocrity to get a middle seed and cleanly swept in the 2nd round. Maybe a complete fail in the first round to a low seed could be our only hope to cause a change.

[econniption]

Btw, how can you pay your HC $6M/yr when your GM only makes $500K per year? Based on that alone, it promotes an ambiguous hierarchy, at best.

Probably the same way you pay your players many times more than your coach and you expect them to respect him and follow his orders.

I'm not saying that the GM should be paid more or even as much as the HC. I'm just saying that based on the way they're getting paid, you can see how much this organization values the HC and the GM positions, at least for now.

[VooDoo7]

It absolutely sucks that my enthusiasm for this team has gone from 100 to about 20, now that we know we have such incompetent owners. I mean, I had a bad feeling ab out them from the beginning with the Kidd hiring, but it just keeps getting worse and worse.

Our future isn't nearly as bright as we all once thought it was.

[Fotis St]

It absolutely sucks that my enthusiasm for this team has gone from 100 to about 20, now that we know we have such incompetent owners. I mean, I had a bad feeling ab out them from the beginning with the Kidd hiring, but it just keeps getting worse and worse.

Our future isn't nearly as bright as we all once thought it was.

This team needs people in charge that love the Bucks.

Anyone besides the fans that love this team ?

Kareem Abdul Jabbar ?
Can you think any vet that LOVES this team ?
Could Ray Allen LOVE this team ?

My point is that someone who loves his team, will do mistakes but he will care to correct them. He will do the best he can to improve his team. Look at what Vlade Divac - Peja Stojakovic did for the Kings ... they made mistakes, but now they project as a team that can compete for a Championship in the future, with the cap space and the talent they gathered.

Is there any similar Bucks' guy ?

P.S. I think Hammond loved the Bucks.