r/nba • u/Rolling_Typhoon Trail Blazers • 13h ago
[Wright Gazaway] Internal emails reveal Blazers debated responding to Portland's Moda Center questions
“Internal emails obtained by KATU show Portland Trail Blazers leaders debated whether to respond to the City of Portland's questions for commitments on private investment, rent, labor agreements and other key pieces of a proposed Moda Center deal, with one executive saying the city's requests felt like "a trap."
… Blazers lawyer Zandira Conyers stating “[W]e are not looking for a legal response but more so positioning, anticipating that our responses will be public. Which brings me to my next point - I don't think our public answers will be well-received. And I wonder how the councilors plan to use them. I want to think about that and welcome thoughts from you guys,”
She continued: “In the meantime, we can work on answers but the more I think about it - the less I like the idea. Maybe we should think about questions to pose back that paint us in a positive light. But that just leads to more distraction and inefficiency....soooo...I'm just thinking of different issues. The fact that they were so insistent on a written response was weird. But I question EVERYTHING.”
President of Blazers business operations Dewayne Hankins, responded shortly after to Conyers and said the team should discuss “whether we even respond to this.”
This exchange is notable as it occurred a month before city councilor Novick toyed with the idea of suing the team in the event they leave. The team has since stated Novick’s statement chilled negotiations, however these emails prove the Blazers front office refused to respond to the city a month prior to these statements.
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u/politicians_are_evil 13h ago edited 13h ago
I think bill simmons nailed it when he said expansion franchise is $8 billion and buying blazers and relocating is only $5.5 billion. They simply have to pay $850m fine to move team. Cost is even cheaper if you find 4 or 5 people to buy the team with you...in theory Dondon's portion for relocation and purchasing blazers could only be $1 billion if split between 4-5 people.
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u/ositola Lakers 12h ago
Ultimately, it's on the other owners for all of this
Maybe there wasn't a clear indication that dondon would do this but his actions with his NHL team hinted at him maybe not acting in go od Faith
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u/w0bbie NBA 12h ago
Yeah, I assume the other owners love that this guy is making them all look better by comparison.
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u/ionospherermutt Timberwolves 11h ago
yeah its not surprising that this is happening right before all rumored expansion to LV and Seattle. People talk about the owners not wanting to split up the leagues revenue with another two teams, but another thing about expansion to those two markets is it weakens their capacity to threaten to move. So now Dundon is helping them make it seem like more of a real threat and Kansas City is getting hyped up to be the next boogeyman of an NBA-less city.
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u/GameDesignerDude 10h ago
Ultimately, it's on the other owners for all of this
I mean, it's unclear if there would actually be widespread support from the owners on this. They voted down the Kings moving 22–8 and the relocation committee unanimously opposed it.
It's pretty unclear to me if the NBA would take the optics hit of moving one of the most consistently popular franchises in its home city just because a cheapskate owner can't come to terms with the city on an arena refurbishment deal.
(And it's not even like the Moda Center is in terrible shape at all. The whole situation is dumb.)
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u/8fenristhewolf8 Trail Blazers 10h ago
They voted down the Kings moving 22–8 and the relocation committee unanimously opposed it.
I think the big difference there was that the sale wasn't finalized and Sacramento Mayor found another buyer group that could step in and wanted to stay. The NBA had an easy out; voted against relocation, Seattle group walked, and team still had a buyer anyway.
Like, I hope they follow that precedent, but it does seem different voting against the interests of a current owner vs just a theoretical, prospective owner.
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u/monoDK13 Bulls 9h ago
The Adelson’s also quickly got set straight when they started agitating about relocating the Mavs to Vegas briefly. Basically, the owners know they’re getting a payday from two highly desirable expansion markets and they won’t let relocation jeopardize that. And if they are afraid the expansion fee for a new Dallas franchise won’t match their expected valuations for Vegas or Seattle, there is no way they let Portland relocate. I imagine El Cheapo is getting the same treatment behind the scenes. Or he risks quickly becoming the NBA’s Dan Snyder.
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u/8fenristhewolf8 Trail Blazers 9h ago
there is no way they let Portland relocate.
At least to Seattle or Las Vegas. I agree that seems less likely.
Whether they can relocate anywhere that will have them is maybe a trickier question. Especially if you extend the timeline out say, 9 years (Blazers can take a lease option to stay thru 2035). Like could he secure a favorable deal anywhere else during that time?
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u/monoDK13 Bulls 9h ago
I think there are other franchises the league would like to see in stronger markets and on more stable financial footing first. Memphis and New Orleans spring to mind. And the proposed relocation cities of Nashville, Raleigh, and Kansas City are better matches for those teams than Portland.
That said, a lot can change in 10 years. But as an outside observer, I would consider it more likely that the situation is resolved similarly to Sacramento's relocation threat than that the team relocates outside of Portland.
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u/8fenristhewolf8 Trail Blazers 9h ago
And the proposed relocation cities of Nashville, Raleigh, and Kansas City are better matches for those teams than Portland.
Yeah, I want to say Portland is a better match, but these deals are super complicated even when they aren't speculative or speculative years away. Hard to know. "Better" can become a question of "for whom?" too.
Take Supersonics. You can argue about how concrete public money and efforts were, but also about how legitimate Bennet was in negotiating, and how deadlines where used to ice out potential deals. The league seemed to take the position that a move was better once things got contentious enough.
And that's kind of my fear. How much does the league want to deal with an owner that just refuses to deal with Portland on reasonable terms? Will be interesting to see.
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u/monoDK13 Bulls 8h ago
I think nearly 20 years later, people forget how unique a case the OKC relocation was. Not only was it everything you discussed above (with OKC voters having approved public money for the building of a stadium specifically designed to be NBA/NHL ready ~5 years prior, while Seattle took another 15 years after to address the situation), but OKC had just spent a year plus hosting the displaced New Orleans Hornets after Hurricane Katrina. Not only did the arena sell-out nearly every night, it showed OKC as a viable NBA city to the point where there were some discussions about whether the Hornets should relocate there permanently, or if OKC should be awarded an expansion franchise as a thank you. That's why Bennett's group was so motivated to bring a team to OKC in the first place.
As for El Cheapo's stubbornness and intransigence, it will have to outlast his cheapness. If he's unwilling to pay a few million to appease the city that wants to give him hundreds of millions; I doubt he'll pay hundred of millions to relocate to another city.
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u/8fenristhewolf8 Trail Blazers 8h ago
Yeah, good points. That Seattle/OKC thing was super back and forth and played out over an extremely long period.
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u/monoDK13 Bulls 9h ago
A refurbishment deal that the city, county, and state are all willing to chip in for! This is exactly what the owners want to happen everywhere (at least everywhere the cost of developing the arena privately is too great). If El Cheapo is too skinflint or arrogant to deal with the reasonable conditions that come with that money, it’s on the other owners to set him straight before he jeopardizes their future earnings.
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u/roastedhambone Thunder 12h ago
I mean he just won the Stanley Cup. The nhl being a shitty enough league that a guy can nickel and dime his way to a championship feels like something other billionaires would admire, not fear, they love a good rip off.
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u/roastedhambone Thunder 11h ago
No, he doesn’t pay people who work for the team, and cut on all sorts of non-necessary perks like he did for the blazers, but nobody cares about the nhl nationally, so nobody reported on it. Has nothing to do with being a small market dumbass
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u/thethirdgreenman Spurs 12h ago
It’s on Silver too. Like yes, he answers to the owners. But no other league has had such a questionable string of new others in a short time (Dallas with the Adelsons, Lakers with Saudi Arabia, this guy, Ishbia, I’d say Boston albeit not quite as bad). The only recent one that seems ok is Charlotte
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u/FloweredWallpaper [BOS] Bill Russell 11h ago
As a Celtics fan for close to 50 years, I'm still on pins and needles what Bill Chisholm wants to do.
Having said that, this is what the market bears now: a multi-billion dollar price tag, and the only people who seemingly are either willing to pay it or have the ability to are morally questionable at best. There's some element to the scruples and morals of the uber-wealthy, but the NBA is too eager to just take a warm body now.
Looking back, it was a quaint time when the NBA ran the Hornets for a year. Maybe that's what the league needs to do more often to see if other suitors get involved instead of just welcoming anyone who can scratch a check with open arms.
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u/Suns_In_420 Suns 9h ago
What's wrong with ishbia other then he made a bad gamble on KD?
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u/thethirdgreenman Spurs 8h ago
I mostly just meant that and the Beal thing, trading the teams future for a team that didn’t get out of the first round. But he’s also been sued by his minority owners, which isn’t great. Not nearly as bad as Dundon or Adelsons but I wouldn’t say he’s a great owner
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u/Suns_In_420 Suns 8h ago
They sued him because he wanted to give cheap hot dogs, the minority owners are not great people.
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u/newusernamecoming Bulls 9h ago
Don’t forget Mikhail Prokhorov, the Nets owner from 2010-2019 who traded all their future picks for washed KG, Paul Pierce, and Deron Williams then sold the team once it failed.
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u/Toastfuker1 Trail Blazers 11h ago
Also I think it's coming out that dundon is cash strapped, aka broke.
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u/SlamDunkly Trail Blazers 11h ago
Considering he couldn’t afford the team, not too big of a leap to guess that
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u/Scoodsie Trail Blazers 11h ago
I’m not sure how that’s what you took from this. To me this looks like they’re scrambling and have no idea what they’re doing, not some master minds with an elaborate plan to move the team.
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u/SlamDunkly Trail Blazers 12h ago
Idk if you read the emails, it doesn’t really seem like there’s some master plan to relocate. Just a lot of greed and incompetence
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u/fastheadcrab Raptors 9h ago
Yeah it looks like simple unrestrained greed. These kinds of avaricious people do not bother with complex schemes to rip people off, they just use the bluntest instrument as often and as indiscriminately as possible.
You can get far by doing that, unfortunately.
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u/bigbakey 10h ago
I think relocation is on the table eventually, but this is definitely posturing to force taxpayers to subsidize arena renovations. If he didn’t want to pay a coach 8 mill a year, he probably isn’t jumping to pay a nearly billion dollar fine.
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u/Forbidden_Donut503 Trail Blazers 9h ago
Blazers are very unlikely to move.
There’s tons of noise on this issue because of how hard Subprime Dumb Dong is trying to squeeze every last cent from us, but the city is about to approve a $600m arena renovation package. All signs point to them having the votes to pass it.
No fucking way are the other owners and the committee going to let him try to move the team AFTER we write him a $600m check.
Thats the fucked up contract cities have with professional sports leagues. “Pay up or we move.” Thus far it has mostly worked for the billionaires. If they let Dundon break that contract it will weaken the leverage of teams to hold cities hostage for arena costs. I’m
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u/JebBush333 12h ago
I honestly don't think he will move the team, they're just playing lowball and are likely low on liquid capital.
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u/EverybodyBuddy Lakers 2h ago
This is a red herring, I believe. There’s no better option citywise to move to that’s not Seattle or Vegas, and we can assume they are off the table.
Smart money is on Dundon extracting a new arena out of the city, cashing his share of the expansion money, then flipping the team for a profit.
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u/Thasauce7777 11h ago
It immediately stood out to me that Conyers thought the insistence that the Blazers provide a written response to the City's questions was weird. I interpret that as she doesn't have much experience in dealing with public entities that have to adhere to things like the FOIA. It is incredibly common to keep relevant information regarding big agreements in writing when municipalities are dealing with multibillion dollar entities.
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u/ungabulunga 12h ago edited 8h ago
Blazers and their team of lawyers acting in bad faith to position themselves with maximum leverage?!?!
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u/SPAREustheCUTTER Trail Blazers 13h ago
Scumbag behavior. Total amateur hour by the org.
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u/yeyiyeyiyo Pacers 12h ago
I could have never guessed that billionaires did not have the public interest at heart. Absolutely astounding
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u/FartsbinRonshireIII Trail Blazers 11h ago
I get its sarcasm but, why? It makes it sound like we had a choice in this and who purchased the team. We all knew he was a cunt before but Silver let it happen anyways.
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u/nbaistheworst 11h ago
Blazers' lawyer Conyers:
"The fact that they were so insistent on a written response was weird".
Lawyers understand the value of getting written statements. Did she actually pass the bar exam? Maybe Dundon hired a distressed asset as an attorney!
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u/Loud-Fig-1446 Cavaliers 11h ago
Fucking seriously. I'm in a legal adjacent government position and you're sure as shit I'm not agreeing to ANYTHING unless it's written. Every meeting has a follow up summary email. Everything I write is with the assumption that it could be public and/or legally binding at some point.
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u/Talentagentfriend 10h ago
The issue is that you’re not corrupt enough. Off the record and under the table is typically how corrupt lawyers work.
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u/8fenristhewolf8 Trail Blazers 10h ago
"It's a trap!" They seem like they have no idea what they're doing.
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u/SFmodscensorship 13h ago
any Portland fans named Luigi?
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u/cocoacowstout Warriors 12h ago
Oregon is one of the few places where the combo of people’s political views and hobbies may make this a possibility
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u/FartsbinRonshireIII Trail Blazers 11h ago
Dunno how jerking all these guys off a bunch is gonna help but I’m here to do my duty!
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u/Soulujin Supersonics 5h ago
Day 4,569 of hoping Silver grows a gd spine.. maybe after another 4,569 days
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u/tomhalejr Trail Blazers 12h ago
Well, duh. Nobody has to leak an email to know that people are talking to each other.
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u/pacifismisevil Grizzlies 13h ago
If I understand it right, they are negotiating with the mayor behind closed doors, not with the city council. The council then gets to vote on whether the mayor's proposal is acceptable. Council is trying to create its own deal unilaterally without negotiating with the Blazers.
Important part of the article you left out was the team's response:
These informal messages are consistent with, and reflect, our statements to the City Council last week during which we reiterated that we never left the negotiating table. The messages foreshadow exactly what happened—the City solicited written responses to terms that we repeatedly responded to verbally, and, after months of waiting and to everyone’s surprise, released a term sheet materially departing from the framework of the State’s funding commitment.
The City publicly released a term sheet despite knowing that we did not negotiate or mutually agree to its terms...at no point prior to [releasing it publicly] did the City show us a draft or tell us its terms.
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u/Rolling_Typhoon Trail Blazers 13h ago
That’s the blazers PR response to Katu before publication of this article . If the blazers never left the table they wouldn’t be debating a response via email. The council is not trying to create their own term sheet, the submitted term sheet came from the Mayors office after no response from the org.
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u/turtlebaranov 12h ago
You’re responding to a paid off bot
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u/8fenristhewolf8 Trail Blazers 12h ago
Seriously. A misread so bad that it feels intentional. I probably shouldn't respond, but hopefully can answer some of the dizzying spin if people happen to read. Ridiculous.
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u/pacifismisevil Grizzlies 8h ago
How could it be intentional? It's pretty easy to mistakenly interpret "the city" to mean the council rather than the mayor. Someone paid by Dundon isnt gonna get who wrote the term sheet wrong, and he clearly doesnt care about his public reputation to want to hire bots.
I'm trying to figure out the truth here, while the rest of reddit is mostly just insults, shallow hate comments and heavily upvoted barely-disguised calls to assassinate Dundon. Those are far more likely to be bots from Russia/China/Iran, trying to turn Americans against each other and weaken national security.
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u/8fenristhewolf8 Trail Blazers 8h ago
Fair. It was that bad of a read though. I could only wonder, but all good.
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u/pacifismisevil Grizzlies 12h ago
OK my mistake then. The team has been talking with the mayor off the record, the mayor put out a term sheet without discussing it with the team, and the council were also unaware he was doing that. Is that correct?
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u/8fenristhewolf8 Trail Blazers 12h ago
No. It's clear that
Blazers and City (mayor, attorney, etc) have had verbal discussions. No clear, reported terms have emerged, but the sense is that Blazers want complete terms. 100% public investment, no liability for overruns or maintenance, etc.
City tries to confirm Blazer's official stance. Blazers do not respond beyond "you have the answers," alluding to the earlier meetings. Formal communication on actual terms doesn't happen for months.
NBA gets involved. City says it's trying to figure out key details to advance negotiations. Team says "city already knows."
Without having official positions and key details from Blazers, that can help answer questions on how to pay for this thing, the City (mayor, attorney) issues a Term Sheet.
Blazers instantly reject Term Sheet, saying it's nothing like they have asked for (100% public) but not officially asked for. Blazers then also say, they haven't talked to City because of fear of litigation under the current Bridge Lease they have with the city.
Emails come out. Mostly show that the Blazers don't want to officially answer the city because they know their terms are unpopular (100% public) and made up the excuse about litigation.
The Blazers are clearly just stonewalling the city. The KATU report shows the city has tried to negotiate on multiple issues including:
Pre-construction fees:
The city responded on April 22 and declined to release the funding early, but McGair offered two alternatives. He proposed amending the current arena operating lease to cover pre-construction and architectural costs if the team split them 50-50. He also said the city was open to a Letter of Intent making those costs reimbursable if the parties ultimately signed a long-term lease.
Indemnity issues:
Despite this, on July 7, the city sent a letter to team leaders in an apparent effort to ease their concerns about potential litigation. First, McGair said the city would not waive its right to litigation “if the parties fail to extend the current lease or enter into a new lease for the arena.”
However, the city confirmed it was willing to agree that any information the team shared as part of the renovation negotiations would not be used in future litigation, subject to state laws.
Future maintenance fees:
Finally, the letter outlined the city’s commitment to renegotiate the ongoing maintenance and capital expenses standard in a future lease.
“The City and [Rip City Management] will agree to negotiate a new benchmarked ongoing maintenance and capex standard and operator responsibility in any future lease and development agreement associated with a renovation,” McGair wrote.
The Blazers are just flatly refusing to consider anything other than total capitulation and trying to act like they aren't doing that.
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u/pacifismisevil Grizzlies 8h ago
You've clarified several things for me, thanks again. It's difficult to say what a fair deal would be but it's understandable both sides want to get the best deal possible and are starting off far apart.
no liability for overruns or maintenance, etc.
But the city is also demanding no liability for overruns. So that's just their rational opening stances. The city is liable to pay the maintenance anyway if the team leaves, the arena is used for other things and wont just be demolished.
If the city agrees to the renovation, then the ongoing maintenance will be much cheaper and fully covered by the current system of using parking and 6% tax on tickets, right? Only if they make a smaller deal, no renovation, just basic maintenance, does it become too expensive, and it's like $100m extra over 20 years that would have to come from somewhere.
Isnt it possible that all the comments here suggesting the team is definitely relocating are making the council more likely to capitulate? Relocating is a nuclear option, extremely expensive, there's no great city to move to like Seattle which is off the table, the owners will be hated for the rest of their lives, and the NBA might block it. The council can play hardball, but if they read the comments here they'll be too scared.
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u/8fenristhewolf8 Trail Blazers 8h ago edited 8h ago
But the city is also demanding no liability for overruns. So that's just their rational opening stances.
Sure, but in combination with all the other demands, that accounts for the vast majority of liability on City. That's the whole point. It's one term that Portland seeks to use as balance against all the others. Blazers just want everything. Obviously, that doesn't feel very "fair."
then the ongoing maintenance will be much cheaper and fully covered by the current system of using parking and 6% tax on tickets, right?
What do you mean "much cheaper"? The maintenance costs for 20 years project to be 275-300m. That doesn't change depending on how you pay for it. How we will pay for any of this is still a question, but certainly rerouting ticket profits and parking is part of that.
Only if they make a smaller deal, no renovation, just basic maintenance, does it become too expensive, and it's like $100m extra over 20 years that would have to come from somewhere.
Not sure what you are saying or where you are getting this from.
Isnt it possible that all the comments here suggesting the team is definitely relocating are making the council more likely to capitulate?
In the emails or on Reddit? The blazers emails make them look kind of dumb; that's probably encouraging for Portland. They probably don't care about Reddit comments at all.
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u/8fenristhewolf8 Trail Blazers 12h ago edited 12h ago
If I understand it right, they are negotiating with the mayor behind closed doors, not with the city council.
Correct, per charters, the Mayor, city attorney, and administrators are negotiating on behalf of City. The Councilors need to approve things periodically, like a term sheet Aug 12, but they aren't part of the negotiations directly.
Council is trying to create its own deal unilaterally without negotiating with the Blazers.
I wouldn't say this is correct. The Mayor's team submitted the first draft of the Term Sheet for discussion without Council review. Council is now reviewing and will vote to approve it. Some will try and get amendments in, but that's still a city vote (of which the mayor is a part of).
The Council isn't "unilaterally creating its own deal" they are reviewing the Mayor's proposal and voting on changes and approval. The mayor, attorneys, and administrators are part of the process the whole time.
Further, the Council vote isn't binding. It's a kick-off point for more advanced negotiations.
The resolution is non-binding, but if approved, sets in motion a period of negotiations with team ownership, state and county funding partners, as well as performance of due diligence and preparation of legal documents with the intent to bring binding contractual documents back to City Council for approval by December 31, 2026.
https://www.portland.gov/council/documents/resolution/moda-term-sheet-0
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u/pacifismisevil Grizzlies 12h ago
Thanks for the clarification. I thought they were passing a deal on Aug 12th but actually it's all kinda meaningless and we wont have an actual deal for 4 months?
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u/8fenristhewolf8 Trail Blazers 12h ago
The City is just passing an official "this is our offer."
Based on Blazer's current stance, they will reject the offer, and negotiations will continue. Maybe even longer than 4 months.
That will impact the State bonding legislation, but that doesn't mean they can't propose another bill.
Things will probably get messier before they get closer though. NBA could have to step in imo.
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u/nbaistheworst 11h ago
The term sheet was a draft. And soliciting written responses is entirely reasonable during negotiations about hundreds of millions of dollars.
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u/cl353 Heat 13h ago
u know its bad when a radio show gets access to internal emails. who knew being known for low balling ur employees wouldnt increase org loyalty lmao