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  • The Grip - Wednesday, 7.6.17

The Grip - Wednesday, 7.6.17

The Rockets’ humble beginnings; Eurobasket fun

September 07, 2017

9.7.2017

HOW TO RUIN A DECEASED SAN DIEGAN'S DAY

WHEN THE ROCKETS LEFT SAN DIEGO FOR PENNIES ON THE DOLLAR

Do you want to know just how ludicrously lucrative today’s NBA has become? Alright, alright, alright.

A couple of months ago, we informed our readers that the Houston Rockets were for sale.

A couple of days ago, it was announced that now-former-owner Leslie Alexander had a buyer: a guy called Tilman Fertitta, a Houston-area businessman who agreed to a price of $2.2 billion.

Now, take a trip with us to 1971, 46 years ago. It’s San Diego. We haven’t pinpointed a specific month but the weather is always the same, so. Everyone is a hippie. Bill Walton is poking around smoking herbs and eating dunkaroos.

A man named Bob Breitbard, a San Diego icon and a pioneer in his quest to make his city a big-league sports town, is the proud owner of the San Diego Rockets, a four-year-old expansion team that the NBA awarded the city due in-part to the 1965 ribbon-cutting of the state-of-the-art San Diego Sports Arena.

(The opening was such a momentous occasion, in fact, that a minor league hockey team playing there in 1966 drew a sellout crowd of 11,692 folks, roughly ten times the amount of people that attended last night’s Padre’s game.)

But the San Diego Rockets, no longer a novelty in ‘71 after four bad inaugural seasons, were in trouble. That new stadium was a burden; Breitbard was paying $142,000 a year in property tax, up from just $35,000 six years earlier.

The city was none-too-keen on helping him out, so poor ol’ Breitbard saw only one option: sell, sell, sell. And so he did, to a trio from Houston that immediately took the franchise 1,500 miles east, where they’ve settled quite nicely.

And for how much did Breitbard sell? A lump sum of $5.6 million, all cash, by the way.

To put that amount in perspective, we used this highly reliable inflation calculator, punched in the numbers, and found out that $5.6 million in 1971 is the equivalent of $34,442,251 today. That’s a jump of about $29 million.

So, if you had that equivalent three weeks ago and wanted to buy the Rockets, in order to match Tilman Fertitta’s offer, you would need this much more: $2,165,557,749. You would be roughly $2.165 billion short. When you weigh all the money out, the price of a franchise has jumped roughly 60,000 percent from 1971 to now.  

Luckily for Bob Breitbard, he’s been dead for seven years, so he doesn’t have to know these facts.  

OH DAMN, THERE'S A EUROPEAN BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT GOING ON RIGHT NOW

We’re still 40 days away from the 2017-18 NBA season. Most athletes are sticking to the gym and hanging with friends and family, or in some cases, investigating a dead bird on their property. But the NBA’s European talents are repping their countries in the FIBA Eurobasket tournament.

Since America is not involved, it’s been balanced. So far, Slovenia and Lithuania have won their respective group stages. With one more gameday left, Spain is looking to lock the top spot for Group C and Latvia, Serbia and Russia are tied in Group D.

You might be thinking, “these European ballers in the NBA must be a lot better when playing the likes of Icelandic and Georgian players in Europe.” Well you’re pretty much right -- promising athletes like Goran Dragic, Dennis Schroder and Kristaps Porzingis have been putting up some great numbers. Here’s the current top ten by scoring:

We’ll keep you updated with the tournament as it progresses. Hopefully, the hyper-competitive (seriously) matchup of Croatia vs. Serbia will happen somewhere in the final rounds. If you’re unaware of this rivalry, read this fascinating write-up by a passionate Reddit user about Serbia’s dominance over Croatia (we’re talking 60 foot game-winning heaves type of stuff).

QUICK HITS

CONCRETE READS 

  • Royce White was supposed to be a good NBA player. It never happened, in-part because of a crippling mental illness. Sam Riches has the story. [Tap Here]

  • Haven’t read Isaiah Thomas’ piece on the Players’ Tribune? It’s so, so much better than the usual contrived dribble they have. [Tap Here]

CONCRETE PODS

#throwbackeveryday

September 7, 1988: Kevin Love was born, let's celebrate accordingly by looking at this picture of him and Isaiah that will be circulated three million times over the course of this season.