Several NBA owners recently got together for a roundtable discussion airing Friday night on NBA TV that tackles several issues they deal with, including the day-to-day involvement with their teams and listening to fans. Hawks Owner Tony Ressler said he "did not appreciate the amount of time and effort that is obviously required" to run a team when he bought the club in '15. He said, "You get to see that when you see great franchises that have built championship cultures." Lakers President Jeanie Buss said the "role of an owner is to put together all of the pieces." She added, "We’re the producers, we put everything together so that the team can be the best that they can be." The Cavaliers' Dan Gilbert said for a team owner, the "second you cross the line into the arena, you’re meddling and you have to stay away." He asked if there is "any other business" where the word "meddling" is used. Gilbert: "It’s a word that only goes with ownership of sports." Warriors co-Owner Joe Lacob said, "The truth is the best owners … are those that are very involved. They do not micromanage, that’s the key." Gilbert added an owner has to be the one "setting the culture" for the organization, providing the capital to run the franchise and being the one to make the "hard decisions that have to be made." The Clippers' Steve Ballmer: "There are big decisions that are only the owner's to make, big financial decisions."
STRIVING FOR SUCCESS: Buss said teams "always want to stay relevant" in the league. She said, "These teams that say, ‘Hey, we need to tank and we need to get really bad for a long time,’ their players aren’t gaining any valuable experience. You’re wasting the time, maybe even doing damage to their psyche." Buss said teams "that want to get to the bottom" are just "prolonging their own agony." Meanwhile, she brought up listening to fans' comments and said, "Any person in my position would be foolish not to listen." Buss: "There’s a difference between the fans, and then there’s your customers." Gilbert said, "It doesn’t mean you’ve got to act on it (from fans), but you’ve got to listen." Lacob said he likes "to listen to all the fans, good and bad." Lacob: "I read everything. You have to be pretty good at compartmentalizing and not getting upset when they say critical things." Ressler said his basketball business causes him more "sleepless nights," and it was something he "did not anticipate." Ressler: "Having an NBA franchise is not a day job. It’s a day job, it’s a night job, it’s a morning job. You think about it all the time the things you should do" ("Open Court," NBA TV, 10/6).
