Reports: Ellison fails in bid for NBA's Warriors
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has reportedly lost out to a group that includes Joseph Lacob, a partner in Silicon Valley venture capital company Kleiner Perkins.
The NBA's most beautifully dysfunctional franchise has not, reportedly, fallen into the hands of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.
According to reports from both the Bay Area News Group and CSN Bay Area, the winning group has, as one of its pillars, Joseph Lacob, managing director and partner at Silicon Valley venture capital company Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
CSN Bay Area reports that Lacob will be the front man for a group that is co-led by Peter Guber, the chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment, while the Bay Area News Group suggests that Lacob, currently a part owner of the Boston Celtics, leads the group alone.
Both reports imply that Ellison valued the Warriors at a certain amount--around $400 million--and was not prepared to raise his bid, despite being touted as the favorite all along.
For Warriors fans, who include so many who suffer all day in the tech business and go to the Oracle (yes, that Oracle) Arena to assuage their pressured existences, anything has to be better than the current ownership.
The team has an extremely loyal and myopic following (yes, I am guilty on both counts) and has made an art form out of a macabre mixture of entertainment and failure.
In the last few weeks, the team has already made trades that offer the hope of strange concepts such a defense and discipline, bringing in David Lee from the New York Knicks in exchange for, among others Anthony Randolph, a player of raw talent, raw emotions, and, too often, raw pain in certain parts of his body.
To counterbalance this apparent competence, the Warriors this year drafted Ekpe Udoh, a little-known power forward, who immediately injured himself and will be out for six months.
Given that Lacob has had an association with a successful team in the Celtics, one must be cautiously, oh, who's kidding, giddily optimistic that winter will not be full of wayward, injured players, and games in which the Warriors give up 120 points a night.
Updated 2:02 p.m. PDT: Oracle released a statement from Ellison, with interesting information: "Although I was the highest bidder, Chris Cohan decided to sell to someone else. In my experience, this is a bit unusual."