The NBA is set to announce approval on Thursday of the $550MM sale of the Bucks from Herb Kohl to Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens, reports Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. Lasry, who’ll have to divest his minority share of the Nets, and Edens had prioritized taking control before Tuesday’s lottery, Windhorst writes. Still, opposition groups are lining up against public funding for a new arena in Milwaukee, and the NBA has the right to buy the team for $575MM if a deal for a new building isn’t in place by November 2017. Kohl put that clause in the purchase agreement to keep the new owners from moving the team, Windhorst notes. Here’s more from the Central Division:
- A league executive told Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press that Stu Jackson is a possibility to serve as Pistons GM under Stan Van Gundy, noting that Van Gundy worked under Jackson as an assistant at the University of Wisconsin in the 1990s (Twitter link).
- The fate of John Loyer isn’t immediately clear in the wake of Van Gundy’s hiring, writes Marc Stein of ESPN.com, who notes that Loyer has one season left on his contract. Loyer had been serving as Pistons interim head coach, and it’s possible he’ll return to the role of assistant coach that he occupied before the team fired Maurice Cheeks in February, according to MLive’s David Mayo.
- It’ll be business as usual at this week’s draft combine for Pistons assistant GM George David and director of basketball operations Ken Catanella, who jointly ran the team’s front office following the end of Joe Dumars‘ tenure, Ellis tweets.
- John Calipari would love to coach LeBron James someday, as he tells Mary Schmitt Boyer of the Plain Dealer, but he’s committed to Kentucky and won’t be in the mix to replace Mike Brown on the Cavs, who loom as a possible free agent destination for James.