Gone are the days when the Houston Rockets had silent and supportive ownership. More and more, the story is about Tilman Fertitta and his financial woes.
Times are tough these days as coronavirus runs rampant through the United States and the rest of the world. It’s brought about the best in some people. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban didn’t wait an hour after the NBA suspended its season before pledging to take care of his low-wage employees. New Orleans Pelicans rookie Zion Williamson pledged to pay the salaries of Smoothie King Center employees for 30 days. Blake Griffin, Kevin Love and more have offered support. And then there’s Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta.
Since purchasing the team from Les Alexander in 2017, Fertitta has had a rough go of it. He’s notoriously insisted the Rockets would go into the luxury tax in order to compete but by some miracle, they keep managing to avoid it (not using the mid-level exception MLE has provided some of that magical relief, surely by accident).
Fertitta needed Russell Westbrook to restructure his contract in order to save him money on initial 2019-20 payments.
Rather than extending head coach Mike D’Antoni in the offseason, he claimed not to know what lame-duck means (for Fertitta’s benefit, a lame-duck coach is what D’Antoni is, a coach in his final year without an extension):
"I don’t know what ‘lame duck’ means because he’s under contract. I think his agent did me a favor. OK? Because if for some reason we had a horrible year and we thought we needed to make a coaching change — we just got through paying off one of the other coaches, I believe. I hope we win a championship and Mike comes and puts a gun to my head."
It’s not how you do business in the NBA. When you have a contender with the brief championship window associated with a superstar like James Harden, you don’t cut corners by not utilizing basic tools like the MLE. When you’re on the cusp, especially with your best shot at a championship now that the Golden State Warriors are out of the way, you don’t humiliate your coach and low-ball him.
You especially don’t do that when at the time he had a net worth over $5 billion.
As a big shot in the hospitality business, Fertitta has been hit hard by the economic woes which have befallen the world in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. After the crash (to this point), his net worth has dropped to $3.2 billion and given the economic landscape in the sectors his interests are focused, the outlook is grim.
Tilman Fertitta was in over his head when he purchased the Houston Rockets in the first place. He bought high, purchasing them for a record $2.2 billion, saddling himself with more debt. He could have taken on partners but as a point of pride refuses to do so, and it impacts both their competitive potential as an organization and in an era where the public is not afraid to name and shame incompetent and cheap billionaires, it impacts the Rockets reputation and image.
Fertitta has turned down offers for partnerships:
"“I had a call from somebody this week who asked if I would sell 50% of the Rockets for $1 billion and the answer was no,” he said. “I could have gotten $1 billion, but I don’t need it.”"
This is a man who has requested to open his business early during a shutdown caused by a global pandemic. He has furloughed 40,000 employees. Things aren’t going to get better before they get worse, and the Houston Rockets will end up paying the price for his hubris.
Whether Tilman Fertitta needs to take on a partner or outright sell the team, he is clearly not capable of owning the Rockets by himself without hampering the on-court product.
Sell the team or get some help, Tilman.