It’s hard to know who’ll make a good NBA billionaire
But people will like working for Tom Dundon
The Portland Trail Blazers reportedly will be sold to Dallas-based investor Tom Dundon.
How should we feel about that?
It’s too soon to tell.
Once upon a time, David Stern clapped me on the back and praised me for writing a sunny article about the prospects of the Brooklyn Nets under incoming billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov. His overreaction made me think I had missed something and indeed, time has been brutal to that take. I feel very differently now.
So I’m naturally skeptical of every billionaire, including Tom Dundon. But to get a sense of Dundon I just read several bios and listened to a 45-minute appearance Dundon made last year on the North Carolina-based David Glenn show. I wear two different hats here: Blazer fan and journalist.
As a Blazers fan, I came away feeling great, and not just because this means goodbye to Jody “penguin bones” Allen.
As a journalist, I recognize all these characters come in the gift bag of “billionaires sure seem to have a lot of ties to dodgy offshore money movement.” If there’s a worrisome word in Dundon’s bio, it’s: “Santander.” I’ve seen no suggestion Dundon has ever been personally implicated, but Dundon was a bigwig at a Spanish bank that has gotten in an eye-popping amount of trouble with regulators of several nations. I know it’s tempting to act like that’s no big deal, but it could matter.
Until we understand that better, however, let’s just think like sports fans. The worst NBA owners are essentially like Prokhorov. A quick brainstormed list:
OVERBEARING AND MEDDLESOME They stay heavily involved, which scares off the best general manager candidates who have options and don’t like meddling. Mat Ishbia is showing all the signs.
SPAZZY They make impulsive, emotional decisions, so the franchise is forever in year one or two of the latest five-year plan. Again, look to Ishbia, who paid an arm and leg to unite Durant, Beal, and Booker, and then paid an arm and a leg to disperse Durant and Beal.
GLORY HOUNDS They have trouble crediting others. They are glory hounds, which is a turnoff for good employees anywhere. (Sometimes when you listen to Joe Lacob talk it’s hard to tell if he thinks he or Stephen Curry drove that Warriors dynasty. It didn’t cost them their star player, luckily.)
OVERCONFIDENT They are not curious, and won’t admit mistakes, which makes the franchise behind as changes come to the league. Guys like James Dolan and Jerry Reinsdorf talk like they know exactly what they’re doing, while stepping on the rake repeatedly. I remember Tilman Fertitta telling people he’d deliver his team, that had just been in the conference finals, lessons he had learned from running restaurants.
To that end, let’s examine what Dundon has to say about his hockey team, the Carolina Hurricanes:
Is he overbearing and meddlesome?
Dundon tells David Glenn that he never bought a house in Carolina. He visited a lot early, but now not so often--he outlined a typical visit that lasts most of a Friday--because “I don’t add a lot of value on a daily basis.” He also says that he gets very nervous about games, and often prefers to watch alone, because “we win a lot but we won’t win ‘em all.”
Is he spazzy?
The ‘canes are playing with a lease that runs into the 2040s. There’s a real estate development portion of it about which Dundon says he’s “not in a big rush just want to make sure we do it right.”
When asked about growing attached to players, he admits it has happened, but in this context: “As far as how we do contracts, they're only the only variable is, is it going to help us win the most games for the longest amount of time?” At the time of the interview, the ‘Canes had let some talented players go rather than get in salary cap hell, which speaks to a certain kind of long-term discipline. All in all, the team has performed very well.
Is he a glory hound?
This was my favorite part of the entire conversation. Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour had been through a contract negotiation with the team that dragged out and generated some attention. Glenn said that Brind’Amour has “got his wife Amy screaming in his ear that these other coaches make more than he does, and he's a better coach than they are.”
Without the slightest hesitation, Dundon said: “She's right. She's right about both those things.”
Is he overconfident?
After Glenn noted that Dundon is willing to admit mistakes, Dundon said:
I try to tell my kids: Try to figure out when you're wrong quick, so you can get to go do what's right. And look, I mean, it seems obvious that, over time, you're going to have new information. So there's a difference between I'm happy with the decision I made at the time based on the information I had, and now, with the new information, know when you were wrong.
And so I just try to go through a process when I make decisions, and then, you know, it's impossible to predict the future, but I don't know why anybody would ever worry about being wrong. It could be impossible not to be, and I think it probably would do more harm than good if you can't admit it.
And by the way, I'm sure I don't admit it enough.
According to Glenn, Brind’Amour says that he and Dundon disagree more than they agree—but that Brind’Amour thinks Dundon is the smartest person he has ever met. These kinds of conversations help nudge an organization toward smart choices, which seems to be Dundon’s mission. “Half the time I disagree with him,” Dundon explains, “he knows that I just disagree with him just so he hears another point of view.”
Maybe we’ll learn all kinds of important things that we don’t know yet about Tom Dundon. But I am not at all surprised that good hockey people want to work for him, nor that the team has won 205 games, and lost 94 (while tying 29) over the last four seasons.
Thank you for reading TrueHoop!
Soooo it'll be fascinating what Dundon thinks about this bogus Lillard reunion and contract.
Great piece as always!