In new book on sports owners, Joe Tsai talks about unexpected lessons learned
In a new book out next Tuesday, David Rubenstein, owner of the Baltimore Orioles, interviews sports franchise owners across America about what the view is like from the executive suites at arenas and stadiums across America.
Per the promotion, “From the Owner’s Box” examines, “the financial strategies, leadership secrets, and billion-dollar deal-making behind championship franchises through conversations with America’s most powerful owners.” And in the case of Brooklyn Nets Joe Tsai, how being a fan and reacting to fans is a big part of the job.
In an excerpt of the book, New York Post writer Eric Spitznagel, Tsai described first few months as an owner … and the ramifications of making a big move early.
Tsai, 62, knows how quickly an expensive trade can turn an owner into a target. The Alibaba cofounder, worth an estimated $12.1 billion, still takes heat from fans for the January 2021 trade that brought James Harden to Brooklyn alongside Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.
Durant and Irving had arrived in 2019, before Tsai became controlling owner. Harden was his gamble, acquired at the cost of players and valuable draft assets. The trio never delivered a championship.
“The Harden decision was definitely on my watch,” Tsai tells Rubenstein. “That’s why I’m hated by fans on social media.”
(The excerpt, however, doesn’t make mention of Tsai’s decisions re: Kyrie Irving’s antics during the first months of Tsai’s ownership, including the superstar’s decision not to get vaccinated against COVID or his implicit endorsement of a book filled with antisemitic tropes. Both led to lost time, lost games and a lot of controversy for Tsai. We’ll have to wait for the book to see whether it is mentioned there.)
Rubenstein’s book does address a lesser-known part of Tsai’s legacy, a proposed trade that would test his personal fandom.
In July 2018, while still a 49% owner of the Nets, Tsai heard from Sean Marks about a trade the Nets GM was planning to make, a deal that would send Jeremy Lin to the Atlanta Hawks. Lin wasn’t just a Chinese-American whose LinSanity while a Knick years earlier had ignited pride among Asians and Asian-Americans worldwide. When he bought into the Nests Tsai had called Lin his “favorite player” and a “good friend,” praising his leadership and representation of the underdog.
“Sean, if you trade Jeremy Lin, I will be hated in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong,” According to the book, Tsai recalls telling Marks “The entire Chinese community will hate me forever.”
Marks replied, “That’s why I’m calling you.”
In the deal, a classic salary dump, Nets traded guard Jeremy Lin, a 2025 second round draft pick and the right to swap second round picks in 2023 to the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for the draft rights to a French guard Isaia Cordinier and a protected 2020 second round draft pick. (For you draft sickos out there, that 2025 pick got moved three more times and wound up back with the Nets and was used last June on Tyler Bilodeau!)
Tsai accepted the rationale but his prediction came true. Asian fans were not pleased that an owner with Chinese heritage had traded a player with Chinese heritage. He was heavily criticized across Asia. Later, Tsai and Lin did business together and Lin joined the advisory council of The Asian-American Foundation, an organization co-founded by Tsai.
As Rubenstein wrote, that episode taught Tsai a lesson.
He realized he needs a way to explain himself to fans, so he opened a Twitter account despite objections from his communications team, according to the book. He promised to discuss sports rather than Alibaba or politics, a promise he has stuck with although he’s not that active on the renamed x.com.
“I need to have a direct channel to communicate with our fans,” he told Rubenstein. “I can’t have the New York Post interpret.”
The book also noted Tsai’s basketball memories include skipping constitutional law classes at Yale to play pickup games. One opponent was future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who he calls a “decent player.”
His current ambitions require better players, per the book. “We need to win a championship,” Tsai tells Rubenstein. “We need to prove ourselves.”
Still, Tsai admitted ownership supplies a pleasure that running Alibaba cannot.
“I can be chairman of a public company, but there are thousands of public companies. There are only thirty NBA owners,” Tsai says. “When you have something that other people don’t have, it feels pretty good.”
In addition to Joe Tsai, Rubenstein interviewed Clara Wu Tsai for his book and she told him in an interview, separately excerpted on Bloomberg News that Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment is “selectively” interested in other sports investments and see sports as an “asset class” of its own, adding that sports is the anti-AI.
“As you know, sports has become legitimate asset class and they’ve become very good investment,” she told Rubenstein. “Who knew we’d have to develop an anti-AI? Who knew live experiences would become so valuable? Who knew something that was unscripted and unpredictable was something that bring people together in a shared experience would be something that was monetizable and also really valued. But it has happened and sports is some place where that can be manifested.”
