By Mike Finger | San Antonio Express-News (SAEN), 2026-08-13 16:53:40
2025年12月16日，在拉斯维加斯T-Mobile竞技场举行的NBA杯冠军赛前新闻发布会上，NBA总裁亚当·肖华 (Adam Silver) 向媒体发表讲话。(Mick Akers/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS)
十二年前，在担任NBA总裁的第一个春天，肖华明确表示联盟是有底线的。
在宣布决定终身禁赛声名狼藉的洛杉矶快船队老板唐纳德·斯特林 (Donald Sterling) 时，肖华谈到了“他作为NBA老板的整体资质”。这一决定表现出令人敬佩的果断，传递出的信息是：仅仅拥有数十亿美元，并不足以保证能成为当时那个专属俱乐部的成员。
但现在呢？
现在，越来越难想象会有NBA不愿接纳的亿万资金了。
关于最新一起球队交易的报道毫无预兆地传出——洛杉矶湖人队将以125亿美元的价格出售给风险投资家乔希·库什纳 (Josh Kushner) 和前迪士尼首席执行官鲍勃·艾格 (Bob Iger)。这一交易的时机也着实令人侧目。
湖人队现任老板马克·沃尔特 (Mark Walter) 掌控球队还不足一年。上个月底，《华尔街日报》报道称，美国证券交易委员会（SEC）的联邦调查人员正在调查沃尔特旗下的公司是否涉嫌欺诈。而不知是巧合还是另有隐情，他现在正将湖人队卖给一位恰好是总统女婿弟弟的商人。
当然，我们显然无法确定这其中是否存在任何不当行为。而且，假设双方都不退出，距离NBA董事会批准这笔交易也还有很长的路要走。
但如果说肖华执掌时期的过去几年教会了我们什么，那就是：只要资金到位，任何人的几十亿在这里都大受欢迎。尽管当年一段录音中曝光的一连串种族主义言论足以让斯特林被踢出联盟，但现在，我们并不清楚一个老板究竟还要做出什么出格的事才会触碰红线。
我们可以先从卫冕冠军说起。《连线》（Wired）杂志最近的一项调查显示，纽约尼克斯队老板詹姆斯·多兰 (James Dolan) 在麦迪逊广场花园使用人脸识别和生物监测系统来追踪“一名跨性别女性、律师、抗议者等”，并建立了一个名人和其他球迷的数据库，分类贴上“LGBTQIA”等标签。
想必几个月后，当肖华向尼克斯队颁发总冠军戒指时，多兰依然会坐在场边。毕竟，在最近因场外负面新闻登上头条的NBA亿万富翁老板中，他绝非个例。
孟菲斯灰熊队老板罗伯特·佩拉 (Robert Pera) 是优倍快（Ubiquiti）公司的创始人兼首席执行官，据报道，该公司的网络技术正被俄罗斯军队用于对乌克兰的战争中。
汤姆·邓顿 (Tom Dundon) 去年以40亿美元收购了波特兰开拓者队，并在过去几个月里致力于削减各项开支，从教练薪水、球队酒店到解说员无一幸免。而他的财富积累源于一家次级贷款公司，俄勒冈州曾起诉该公司并指控其存在掠夺性放贷行为。
这样的背景并没有让他的同行老板们产生任何顾虑。毕竟，菲尼克斯太阳队老板马特·伊什比亚 (Mat Ishbia)——他曾因涉嫌管理不善并将球队当作其“个人存钱罐”而被小股东起诉——也是在接管了他父亲的批发抵押贷款公司后赚得盆满钵满的。而他在该行业最强劲的竞争对手之一，正是克利夫兰骑士队老板、火箭抵押贷款（Rocket Mortgage）董事长丹·吉尔伯特 (Dan Gilbert)。
如果说部分湖人球迷对潜在的新老板与现任美国总统之间显而易见的亲密关系感到有些不适？那么，在德克萨斯州，我们的三支NBA球队中，有两支正由与政治关系密切的人掌控：一位是恰好为唐纳德·特朗普 (Donald Trump) 最大金主之一的赌场大亨（达拉斯独行侠队的米丽亚姆·阿德尔森 (Miriam Adelson)），另一位则是被特朗普任命为美国驻意大利和圣马力诺大使的赌场大亨（休斯敦火箭队的蒂尔曼·费尔蒂塔 (Tilman Fertitta)）。
德州的第三支球队马刺队，其投资集团在四年前引入了一位名叫乔·格比亚 (Joe Gebbia) 的亿万富翁。他随后加入了埃隆·马斯克 (Elon Musk) 的政府效率部（DOGE）工作，被特朗普任命为国家的“首席设计官”，并因在社交媒体上转发（有时随后删除）极右翼组织约翰·伯奇协会（John Birch Society）的宣传内容而闻名。
我们提起这些，并不是建议将所有这些老板都踢出联盟。只是想再次指出，六年前当某些人因为泡泡园区地板上刷了几个社会正义标语而大发雷霆时，是多么的荒谬。当时，NBA在某些领域被指责“过于左倾”，然而，许多在支票上签字的老板们却在朝着相反的方向狂奔。
事实证明，联盟并没有排斥任何派系亿万富翁的习惯，这或许也是针对洛杉矶快船队涉嫌规避工资帽的调查拖延如此之久的原因之一。在禁赛斯特林十二年后，肖华真的会对那个从斯特林手中买下球队的人重拳出击吗？更何况史蒂夫·鲍尔默 (Steve Ballmer) 恰好是联盟中最富有的老板。
我们拭目以待。
但如果你手头刚好有几十亿美元的闲钱？很有可能，NBA会非常乐意接纳它们。
而且大概率不会多问一句。
2025年11月5日星期三，在洛杉矶举行的一场NBA常规赛上半场，圣安东尼奥马刺队后卫斯蒂芬·卡斯尔 (Stephon Castle)（左）的投篮被洛杉矶湖人队后卫卢卡·东契奇 (Luka Doncic) 封盖。(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
由生成式 AI 翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
查看原文：As Lakers sold, NBA’s standards for billionaire owners keep falling
As Lakers sold, NBA’s standards for billionaire owners keep falling
NBA commissioner Adam Silver addresses the media during a news conference ahead of the NBA Cup championship game Dec. 16, 2025, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. (Mick Akers/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS)
Twelve years ago, in his first spring as NBA commissioner, Adam Silver made it clear that the league had standards.
In announcing his decision to ban disgraced Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life, Silver talked about “his overall fitness to be an owner in the NBA.” The message, issued with impressive decisiveness, was that having billions of dollars wasn’t enough to guarantee membership in what was then an exclusive club.
But now?
It’s getting harder and harder to imagine billions of dollars that the NBA wouldn’t be willing to take.
The reports of the latest team sale, of the Los Angeles Lakers for $12.5 billion to venture capitalist Josh Kushner and former Disney CEO Bob Iger, came out of nowhere. And the timing raised plenty of eyebrows.
The Lakers’ current owner, Mark Walter, has owned the team less than a year. Late last month, the Wall Street Journal reported federal authorities from the Securities and Exchange Commission were looking into whether Walter’s businesses committed fraud. And in what might or might not be a coincidence, he’s now selling the Lakers to a businessman who happens to be the brother of the president’s son-in-law.
Now, we obviously don’t know for sure if anything improper is happening here. And we’re also a long way from the NBA board of governors approving the sale, assuming neither side backs out.
But if the last several years of the Silver era have taught us anything, it’s that everybody’s billions are welcome here. And even though a string of racist comments caught on tape were enough to have Sterling kicked out of the league, it’s not clear what else an owner could do to cross the line.
We can start with the reigning champions. A recent investigation by Wired showed that New York Knicks owner James Dolan has used facial-recognition and biomonitoring systems at Madison Square Garden to track “a trans woman, lawyers, protestors and more,” and kept a database of celebrities and other fans categorized with labels like “LGBTQIA.”
Presumably, Dolan will be sitting courtside when Silver presents the Knicks with their championship rings in a couple of months. After all, he’s not alone among his NBA billionaire brethren in making less-than-flattering off-the-court headlines lately.
Memphis Grizzlies owner Robert Pera is the founder and CEO of Ubiquiti, a company whose network technology reportedly is being used by the Russian military in its war against Ukraine.
Tom Dundon, who bought the Portland Trail Blazers for $4 billion last year and has spent the last several months cutting costs on everything from coaching salaries to team hotels to broadcasters, built his fortune with a subprime loan company that the state of Oregon once sued and accused of predatory lending.
It’s not like that background gave any of his fellow owners pause. After all, Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia, who’s been sued by minority owners for allegedly mismanaging the franchise and using it as his “personal piggy bank,” earned his billions after taking over his father’s wholesale mortgage company. And one of his fiercest rivals in that industry was Dan Gilbert, the Rocket Mortgage chairman who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers.
And if some Lakers fans are a little uncomfortable with the perceived coziness between their potential new owner and the sitting president of the United States? Well, here in Texas, two of our three NBA teams are run by a casino magnate who happens to be one of Donald Trump’s biggest donors (Miriam Adelson of the Dallas Mavericks) and another casino magnate appointed by Trump as the ambassador to Italy and San Marino (Tilman Fertitta of the Houston Rockets).
The third Texas team, the Spurs, has an investor group that four years ago added a billionaire named Joe Gebbia, who went on to work with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, was appointed by Trump as the country’s “chief design officer,” and is known for reposting (and sometimes deleting) social-media propaganda from the John Birch Society.
We bring all of this up not to suggest that all of these owners should be kicked out of the league. It’s just to point out, again, how ridiculous it was six years ago when certain people got so up in arms about a few social justice slogans painted on the court in the bubble. The NBA was criticized in some quarters for moving too far to the left, even while many of the men who signed the checks were moving in the other direction.
As it turns out, the league isn’t in the habit of running off billionaires of any stripe, and that might be one reason why the investigation into alleged salary-cap circumvention by the Los Angeles Clippers is taking so long. Twelve years after banning Sterling, would Silver really bring the hammer down on the man who purchased the team from him? Especially since Steve Ballmer happens to be the league’s richest owner?
We’ll see.
But if you happen to have a few spare billion dollars lying around? Chances are, the NBA would be happy to take them.
Probably with no questions asked.
San Antonio Spurs guard Stephon Castle, left, has his shot blocked by Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic during the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
By Mike Finger, via San Antonio Express-News