NBA: Golden State Warriors to be sold

The Golden State Warriors owner Chris Cohan has reached an agreement to sell his team for a reported $450 million. After months of wooing a potential buyer a darkhorse arose to make the deal.

The Golden State Warriors are the only NBA franchise that does not have the name of a city or the state in their name and now they will be putting the name of a new owner on their letterhead. Former owner Chris Cohan, who purchased the team in the 1995 is now out and Joe Lacob and Peter Guber are in. Lacob is a minority owner of the Boston Celtics and league rules will require him to sell his ownership of the team. Peter Guber is the CEO of Mandalay Entertainment a multimedia group in motion pictures, television, and the sports industry. The Warriors have been to the playoffs just once in the last 16 seasons and in their lifetime as a franchise have moved from Philadelphia to San Francisco to Oakland, where they now reside. They do have two NBA Championships, and a BAA (which was the predicesor to the NBA). Still the team founded in 1946 has otherwise found little success capturing seven division titles and six conference titles. Fans seem to be happy as well as one was quoted as saying, "I mean, Voldemort would be better than (Chris) Cohan. I think this is a case of the devil we don't know can't be worse than the devil we do know." Making reference to the infamous "Harry Potter" villain. Steven Ding, a 19-year old fan stated, "The main thing is just to get Cohan out finally Anyone could do a better job than Cohan — even me." Ding even started a website called fansvscohan.com The team and fans had been courting Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who according to Forbes has a personal net worth of roughly $28 billion and is the sixth richest man in the world. Ellison was a bit surprised by the announcement and released a statement saying,

"Although I was the highest bidder, Chris Cohan decided to sell to someone else. In my experience this is a bit unusual. Nonetheless, I wish the Warriors and their fans nothing but success under their new ownership."

Fans were also slightly surprised by the decision to go with Lacob and Guber as well with Jeff Deeney stating, "I am extremely happy Cohan has finally agreed to sell the team, but at the same time I am disappointed Larry Ellison is not the buyer. That being said, in the long run I think the fact Cohan is gone is the most important factor in all of this, and that is a huge positive." Deeney like Ding had started his own website, sellcohan.com over his dislike of the former owner. If basketball experience was a determining factor for Cohan to set his former team up then hopefully for soon-to-be former Celtics minority owner might be the ideal choice, but for now only time will tell if the new owners are willing to spend money and bring in players along with making smart trades and draft picks to bring in winners.