The affable and earnest Chisholm, a Celtics superfan, and Grousbeck, a commendable owner who, along with Steve Pagliuca, bankrolled Banners 17 and 18 during a passionate 23-year tenure, lobbed compliments at each other. They appeared simpatico at the press conference coronating Chisholm as the Celtics new owner Thursday at the Auerbach Center. But moneyed masters of the universe like Chisholm and Grousbeck possess egos. You don’t accumulate such wealth without one.
There’s only one Green commander in chief, and that’s Chisholm. He’s not going to rub anyone’s nose in it, but it remains an ineluctable fact of the sale.
What happens when Chisholm no longer feels he needs neophyte owner bumper guards for his lane? What happens when Grousbeck feels his vast experience as a successful NBA owner is discounted in favor of a decision he doesn’t endorse?
The idea of this working long-term is a tough sell. For now, though, it’s a win-win-win. Chisholm benefits from an ownership Sherpa showing him the path. Grousbeck doesn’t have to cede the stage he relishes. Fans get an organization that maintains continuity and institutional knowledge as it retools around the Jays — Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
“There’s no way coming in here everything you do is going to be right on. … There’s going to be some mistakes,” said Chisholm. “I’m not perfect, not even close. Frankly, Wyc has been a really good partner for me and kept me out of some trouble, to be honest. So, it has been really a fantastic partnership. I’m really excited about the path forward with that, too.”
Grousbeck, who has a five-year contract to serve as CEO, wasted no time human-shielding Chisholm, stating that whether the team had been sold or not, the Celtics would have executed this offseason’s second apron-mandated sell-off of Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis to avoid the onerous NBA luxury tax penalties. They were facing a $500 million-plus payroll bill.
“Those moves would have happened whether or not the team was sold,” said Grousbeck, who reminded he was on the NBA committee that formulated the current CBA.
All fans really care about with any owner is how much they are willing to spend to win. That’s the ROI for their emotional investment. Chisholm was circumspect, not uttering any statements that could come back to haunt him as sports talk radio fodder. On the luxury tax, he said he wants to go for it, but “do it in a reasonable way.”
“Let’s do whatever we can to win championships and raise banners and raise as many as we can, both in the near term, but also in the medium to the long term as well,” he said in Red Sox-ian fashion.
Quick learner.
Chisholm said he’s built a lot of trust with Grousbeck as they navigated a sale that took five months to earn NBA approval and also worked on a capital raise to fill out the new ownership group. Some presumed Grousbeck was out when there was a report by Shams Charania of ESPN that he wasn’t going to remain the Celtics governor as the original terms spelled out. But that was a technicality. With the capital raise, Grousbeck’s ownership stake slipped beneath the NBA-required 15 percent to hold that role. Chisholm is the team’s governor.
Let’s say the quiet part out loud. Grousbeck didn’t want to sell the team. The ownership structure relating to his family’s influence and the financial backing from his father, Irv, the co-founder of Continental Cablevision, was a CIA-level secret.
Grousbeck was surprisingly forthcoming about the personal weight of losing the team, saying it was hard to wrap his head around selling.
“I found out my family had voted to sell the team, their ownership in the team, about 18 months ago, and, at the time, I thought, well, if this is going to happen, I hope we find a great new ownership group. And that dream has come true, in my opinion,” said Grousbeck, who retains 13 percent of the club.
“These new owners really love it, and that makes me personally happy because I love it. I’ve always loved it, and I’ll love it forever. And [my wife] Emilia and I are staying in. I’m staying in shoulder to shoulder, as we’ve said, with Bill, and then with the managing board. I want a third ring, and then I want a fourth one.”
Grousbeck , who said he plans to keep some shares in the team forever
, is like the ownership version of Patriots executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf.
How long that lasts remains to be seen.
When Mark Cuban sold the Mavericks to the Adelson family in 2023, the intention was for him to remain in charge. But the new owners cut him out, and he was powerless to stop the trade of Luka Dončić to the Lakers last season.
You don’t spend billions of dollars on the ultimate toy only to have someone else tell you how to play with it.
On the court, three is the guiding number for the Celtics. But Chisholm and Grousbeck aim to prove that ownership can be a partnership where it takes two to make a thing go right.