When the then-record $6.1 billion sale of the Boston Celtics to Bay Area tech investor Bill Chisholm was announced, part of the deal was that current team governor Wyc Grousbeck would stay in that role until 2028.
Nope. Grousbeck will step aside and Chisholm will take over as the team’s governor when the sale is completed soon, reports Shams Charania of ESPN.
This isn’t a shock, and it echoes what happened with Mark Cuban’s sale of the majority of the Dallas Mavericks to Miriam Adelson and her family. Cuban thought and announced that he was going to stay on and oversee basketball operations, but that turned out not to be the case (the Luka Doncic trade would never have happened on his watch).
With Jayson Tatum out for most, if not all, of next season, Chisholm’s Celtics have been aggressive in reducing their payroll and associated luxury tax, trading away Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday, among others. All their moves have knocked the Celtics’ tax bill down by about $300 million for next season, although the team still has the fifth highest payroll in the league and remains $12 million into the luxury tax (don’t be shocked if Boston makes another move or two in an effort to get below that number and reset the repeater tax). All that cost-cutting is going to hit the Celtics on the court, where they still have an impressive top of the roster led by Jaylen Brown and Derrick White, but things get thin pretty quickly with this group.
Choosing to make this a gap year and reduce an enormous tax bill is defensible, even smart, in a season where the Celtics are not expected to compete for a title due to Tatum’s injury. The real test of Chisholm as an owner comes in a year: What is he willing to spend to rebuild a contending roster? With Tatum and Brown at the top, as well as others such as White, the Celtics have the foundation of a team that could hang banner No. 19, but will the new ownership spend what it takes to fill out the roster with quality and win?
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