Picks 'n Pops: Returns on investment, Tatum's intentional timing, and an existential moment

Every week I gather some thoughts about the Celtics, the NBA, and beyond and dump them here. Because no one wanted to book me for my tour to promote my severe writer's block medication ... which is what I call Merlot now.

- Wyc Grousbeck on the process of selling (and buying back into) the Celtics: “This was a challenge to wrap my head around this. I worked it out with my family. I ended up with half of what my family and I collectively put in. So that’s now in my name. So I’m a significant owner in this team alongside Bill and Adit and Sixth Street and I’m grateful for that. But more than ownership it’s love and commitment. And Emelia and I have agreed to, and glad to be invited to, to stay in forever and keep shares of the team and courtside seats and just be there for our kids. Starting off it was a challenge to figure out how to auction the Celtics successfully and find the right group, among the many qualified groups and great people, including old friends who were bidding. But we knew one would step forward eventually and a great group stepped forward and now we’re partners. So it’s actually worked out. No fooling, it’s worked out authentically. I think it’s worked out well for the Celtics, too.”

Let’s do some quick math. 

Irv Grouseck owned about 20% of the team. Wyc Grousbeck owned about 3%. The Celtics just completed the first phase of their sale at 51% of $6.1 billion. The remaining 49% will be at a valuation of approximately $7 billion. 

The Grousbeck’s combined share of the first phase of the sale is about $715.5 million. Their combined share of the rest will be about $789 million. That's about $1.5 billion combined by 2028, when the second phase of the deal closes. 

Wyc will end up with half of that, which is about $750 million. I don’t have any actual information on this, but he could easily tell Bill Chisholm to keep a certain amount of that as the payment for his ownership stake in the new group. He could take $250 million out of for himself, tell Chisholm to throw $500 million into the team and come away with an approximately 7% ownership stake on top of that. 

Talk about a win-win-win. 

• Irv gets three quarters of a billion dollars out of an initial investment of about $75 million. 

• Wyc gets three quarters of a billion dollars out of an initial investment of about $11 million. 

• Chisholm is spared the work of having to raise half a billion dollars. 

I wish my life was that challenging. 

- Aditya Mittal is, with Wyc Grousbeck, an alternate governor on the team. I don’t know where he lives, but his company is headquartered in Luxembourg, so I assume he didn’t take the commuter rail into the practice facility yesterday. He invested $1 billion into the team, so he’s a significant part of the ownership group. 

And he sat there for 40 minutes yesterday listening to Chisholm and Grousbeck, with a sprinkling of Brad Stevens and Rich Gotham, talk about buying this team. If it wasn’t for one question, asked by a team employee, he would have been ignored completely. So here’s his full answer, just because I think the guy who kicked in a billion dollars should have his one answer printed somewhere. 

“I'm truly excited and very humbled to be here. As some of you may guess, I was born in India, but I lived in and grew up in Indonesia, which is miles away from Boston, maybe 8,000 miles away. But I had the chance to visit Boston in the late 80s. I went to a game in the old Garden and it was magical. I mean, I fell in love with it. And when I heard from Wyc that he's thinking of expanding the partnership, I thought it was a phenomenal opportunity. 

“As all of you know, Wyc has been a tremendous leader, he’s a phenomenal role model. He really took the Celtics to new heights, and we're so happy that he's continuing with his partnership with us. And he introduced me to Bill, and I remember having my first conversation with Bill. And we went to the same University. He went to Wharton, I went to Wharton as well, undergrad, and we hit it off. And I knew that his partnership will work. 

“As you heard from Bill and his family, they're fully committed to the Celtics, and we're so happy to be riding and going on this journey with Bill and his family and the rest of the partnership group. I think all of us will be true to the heritage of Celtics. It has very intelligent and smart, competitive spirit, a very loyal and passionate fan base, including me, including all of us, and it pursues excellence in everything it does, right? Whether it's on the court or the organization. As you can see, Brad is here, Rich is here, but also what it does in terms of its community support, social justice. So I'm just truly excited, humbled and honored to be here and look forward to the season and go get some more banners.”

- Stevens was asked about Jayson Tatum’s press tour, specifically how Tatum sounded optimistic about a return this season.

“I’ve said this from Day 1, and I’ll continue to say it: no timelines on Jayson from my perspective. My No. 1 goal, my No. 2 goal, 3 goal, 4 goal is Jayson Tatum fully healthy, full recovery. And he’s well on his way. He has been incredibly diligent. He has been a great leader by example to people in this building when no players were around in the middle of the summer and when a lot of the young guys have been around in the last month-and-a-half. We appreciate that, and we know that he’s going to be itching to get back, and he will be the biggest decision-maker in that. But there will be a lot of people in that room when that ultimately gets decided, including people that are working with him every day and people that are really important to him. So we’re on a good path, and we just need — the most important thing is fully healthy Jayson Tatum.”

Everyone agrees on that. No one wants Tatum to rush back, and I honestly don’t think Tatum wants to rush back either. That said, Tatum wouldn’t do a press tour less than a week before media day just because he loves a painkiller. That timing was intentional. 

- Here’s a question to ponder: How many months of on-court work does it take for a player recovering from an Achilles tear to return to action? 

Got an answer?

Tatum’s first on-court work was this week. So let’s start projecting out:

• 1 month = October

• 2 months = November

• 3 months = December

• 4 months = January

• 5 months = February

I feel pretty confident we can throw out the first two. Three months might be pushing it. But I think four or five months is pretty much within the normal recovery range. 

Tatum might be ahead of schedule right now, but this is the hardest part of the recovery. This is where he has to be careful. Still, five months of on-court work is a lot. I’ve been saying he can be back by March, but I’m thinking that might change. 

Tatum wants to come back and play in front of home fans. He wants to make it a special day. If I had to throw $5 on a date, I think Sunday, February 8 against the Knicks might be the date he’s looking at. 

- I just need a moment to really highlight how absurd it is to get an update like this because an athlete is on a painkiller promotion tour. 

- It’s been 25 years since the Paul Pierce stabbing. I was working overnights at WHDH when the call came in that Pierce was taken to the hospital. I thought it was a Reggie Lewis, Len Bias thing happening all over again. It’s incredible how much luck was involved for him to survive that attack. 

The most amazing thing is that this happened so close to the season and he didn’t miss a game. I’ll never understand how that was possible. 

- I think the new Celtics alternates are pretty nice. 

If we want to nitpick, I might have done the border in green instead of black, but otherwise, I think these will look nice. 

If they REALLY want to have these hit home, I think an alternate logo at center court would be great. Some people don’t seem to like that idea, but the logo isn’t married to Celtics lore. The first championship they won with a logo on the floor was in 1976. The logo on the floor now is a bigger, colorized version of the past logos. In fact, the 2024 logo is a different version of the other logos (it’s missing the white background). 

So changing the logo for a few games during the season to match the jerseys (using one of the already established alternates) would be a cool thing to see. 

- One of the best things I’ve seen in a while is Jaylen Brown going through an existential crisis when none of his teammates picked up his call, then realizing he never gave any of them his new number.

Early lesson learned, Jaylen. Gotta communicate better with your teammates. 

- Bill Nye would have picked up. 

- Jaylen’s Twitch stream will be something to watch this season. 

I wish I could get into a time machine and read that sentence to myself as a senior broadcast journalism major at Emerson College in 1995. 

“Hey John, I’m you in 30 years …”
“Holy crap … we really let ourselves go …”
“I’m here from the future and the first thing out of your mouth is a fat joke? I’m here to tell you how your career is going.”
“Am I a SportsCenter anchor? Am I doing Celtics play-by-play?”
“No. You are going to be watching athletes on a live video stream from their mansion so you can create content on the internet.”
“Ah ha … that feels … sad. So why the hell am I spending so much money to go to journalism school?”
“I cannot answer that question. But I’d take a few bucks and buy some Apple stock right now so you don’t have to worry about it.” “I’m broke. I just spent my last $20 on beer and crab rangoon. Can you lend me any cash?”
“I’m also broke for the same reason. How do you think we end up looking like this?”

- The Celtics will be blowing a huge opportunity if they don’t get Will Forte to do a Bill Chisholm impression for them somehow. Maybe at the preseason gala? Jumbotron bit? Social media hype video? Get on it, folks. 

- The North Washington Street Bridge is now the Bill Russell Bridge. It’s a nice honor because it’s in the shadows of the Garden. Hopefully it’s the beginning of getting more stuff named after Russell. 

- This has been an insane summer for injuries during off-court workouts and now we can add two more names to the growing list. Fred VanVleet tore his ACL in a workout and will miss the season. And yesterday the Sixers announced Jared McCain, who was having an incredible rookie season before suffering a meniscus tear, just tore the UCL in his right thumb. 

- The NBA unveiled its officiating points of emphasis today. I was able to get an inside look when I attended the NBA officials camp media day in New York earlier this week. 

The “high five” play is going to be a particular point of interest that could lead to an uptick in fouls on jump shots early in the season. In particular, they are looking for players who turn valid contests into opportunities to slap at, and through, a player’s wrist after the shot is released. 

Players were really taking advantage of the no-calls because the officials were allowing contact after the ball was released. Now we’re going to see some judgment on whether the contact was intentional. Defenders were using the leeway to sort of intimidate jump shooters, because who wants to get their wrists bashed every time they rise up for a jumper? 

Landing spot fouls and straight line drives will also be points of emphasis. 

Honestly, I was impressed with the level of detail that goes into officiating. Where they stand and how they move is very precise. It’s just like a basketball play. And yes, sometimes things go wrong and they miss important calls, just like plays go wrong and players miss open players. But by and large, there is precision and detail to their positioning. 

It was enlightening. I hope to share some of the stuff I learned as calls are made and not made throughout the season. One important thing to start with is not all contact is a foul. There are allowances made to let the game flow and breathe. The league wants play to be competitive, but not rough.

- Olamide Zaccheaus does a great Nate Robinson impression.

If you don’t remember …. 

Ray Allen’s face at the end makes the whole video. 

- This week’s AI-generated image is the new banner I think Celtics owners really want to hang at TD Garden

Yeesh someone must have run an excessively hot iron over the logo.

- I really love that Jaylen Brown’s tweet about meeting Bill Nye has turned into an actual friendship. Him being there for Nye’s Walk of Fame moment is incredible, and that makes this the best week ever for both of them. 

- Here’s my latest podcast, if you’re bored.