Bidding For The Los Angeles Clippers May Be Approaching $2 Billion
"Hearing the basement for a Clippers offer now starts at $1.8 billion," Simmons wrote on Twitter. "There is no way they go for less than $2 billion if it becomes an auction."
It is no surprise that the Clippers sale price will exceed their Forbes.com valuation of $575 million. There are a number of things to love about the potential of the franchise in such a big NBA market.
In addition, a team's true value is really whatever somebody is willing to pay for it.
But more importantly, a sale price that could be nearly four times as big as the Forbes.com valuation shows just how inept Donald Sterling was as an NBA owner, even before his racist comments were recently revealed.
Prior to this recent run of three straight playoff appearances and back-to-back 50-win seasons, the Clippers:
- Made the playoffs just 4 times in 30 season even though more than half of the NBA teams make the playoffs each season
- Won 1 playoff series
- Won just 34.3% of their games which translates to 28-53 over 82 games.
- In 2013 the Clippers ranked just 19th among NBA teams in revenue, taking in $128 million, or less than half of the revenue generated by the Lakers ($298 million) in the same city.
- The Clippers' revenue is also less than several small-market teams, including the San Antonio Spurs ($167 million), Oklahoma City Thunder ($144 million), Portland Trail Blazers ($140 million), Orlando Magic ($139 million), and Utah Jazz ($131 million), despite an exciting team in a big market.
The NBA's reputation will be much-improved without Sterling owning one of the 30 franchises. The NBA also has a chance to be a much better product with an owner that can realize the full potential of this sleeping giant franchise.