Kevin Durant To San Antonio Spurs? Say No Go
The Ego Trap
In case you missed it, the Spurs have a new owner, kind of. Julianna Hawn Holt, wife of longtime Spurs owner and CEO Peter Holt, assumed the public mantle from her husband more than a month ago. While they both have financial equity in the franchise, Holt was the ownership’s face since he and his wife purchased the team in 1993.
Hawn Holt, as the new chairwoman and co-CEO of Spurs Sports & Entertainment (which owns the Spurs, among other sports teams), has gone on record stating that she has always wanted to be more active in the SS&E organization, particularly with the Spurs.
"“For many years I’ve had the desire to take a more active role with Spurs Sports & Entertainment,” Hawn Holt said via an official press release. “We felt this was the right time to make this transition. We are very excited about the current Spurs season and the future of the organization.”"
In any corporate change of power, the incoming executive will always want to put his or her own stamp on the organization or department. One reason is to provide distinction from the predecessor; another is to surround oneself with a team that is loyal to the new person, not the outgoing one.
The party line is that the Spurs front office, as currently set, will be as loyal to Hawn Holt as it was to her husband. Still, Hawn Holt has acknowledged that she has “quite an act to follow.”
This is what concerns me.
By making a run at Durant in the offseason, Hawn Holt would be putting her own stamp on the team, as this would be one of her first official forays into free agency as co-CEO.
Her husband had signed the checks on the acquisitions of David Robinson, Bruce Bowen, Brent Barry, Robert Horry, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, Boris Diaw, Kawhi Leonard, LaMarcus Aldridge, Danny Green and Boban Marjanovic, among others. These deals led to the five NBA championship banners hanging in the AT&T Center, with a sixth in the crosshairs.
Hawn Holt would have to, in poker parlance, see her husband’s acquisitions or raise.
Hawn Holt is a born and bred Texan, where the unofficial state motto is, “Go big or go home.” She’ll probably go for the raise, unless cooler heads prevail. And it’ll backfire.
Signing Durant would be little more than an ego boost, a way to show that the front office–led by longtime general manager R.C. Buford and head coach and president of basketball operations Gregg Popovich–under Hawn Holt can land the big dogs as well as it did under her husband’s watch.
To paraphrase the late Rick James: the ego is a helluva drug.
Next: The Backseat Blues