If Meruelo can’t have the Hawks, will anybody buy this team?
Even if the Hawks' sale doesn't go through, does Alex Meruelo at least get to keep the hat? (AP photo)
Buzzard’s luck is when you can’t kill anything and nothing will die. And now, not for the first time, we wonder if the local NBA franchise should change its name from Hawks to Buzzards.
After seven years of being lost in the wilderness we called the Atlanta Spirit, the Hawks finally found someone — and significantly, this entity was a one and not a many — who really wants to own them. He’s Alex Meruelo, and his introductory briefing in August was long on nothing except enthusiasm. He was going to do this right, he said. He was going to work his hardest to win Atlanta’s trust and make the Hawks relevant again. Frankly, it sounded great.
But now we learn that Alex Meruelo of Downey, Calif., might not be buying the Hawks after all. The sale, reports esteemed colleague Tim Tucker, is in jeopardy because the NBA isn’t sure Meruelo has the wherewithal to buy and run the team in the way an NBA team needs to be run. (Although, it must be noted, no NBA teams are purring smoothly as we speak: The league has locked out its players.)
Meruelo released a statement Wednesday saying he has “more than ample resources to purchase and operate the Hawks in a first-class manner,” and it’s entirely possible this apparent stalemate is just part of a process that will ultimately yield league approval. It’s also possible it isn’t, and that soon Meruelo will be reduced to a local footnote on the order of David McDavid, the Texas car dealer who sought to buy the Hawks and the Thrashers from Turner Broadcasting and who wound up being elbowed aside to make room for the many-headed Spirit. (McDavid would also wind up winning a $281 million lawsuit for his trouble.)
The point being: It’s seldom easy to believe fully in the Hawks, and stuff like this is the chief reason why. Nothing about this star-crossed team ever seems to go as planned, whether it’s the sign-and-trade for Joe Johnson — that wound up in court, too — or the drafting of Marvin Williams. The refreshing part about Meruelo is that this franchise’s checkered history doesn’t faze him, but there’s now a chance he could become another paragraph in the tangled tale of woe.
And then we need ask: If not Meruelo, who? Even with the Thrashers sold and gone to Canada, this always figured to be a tough sell — a team that doesn’t draw well and that hasn’t won quite as big as it needs to win, coming off a lockout (assuming the lockout ever ends) to boot. Owing to his $120 million contract, Joe Johnson might be the least popular star in North American sports, and that contract runs through 2016!
In conversations back in August, Meruelo admitted he didn’t know a whole lot about the Hawks’ history, which kind of made sense: If he had, he might not have wanted any part of them. But clearly he did, and hearing him speak so effusively you thought, “Maybe this is the guy they need — someone who doesn’t care about yesterday and who’s committed only to tomorrow.” He hit enough right notes to make you believe he saw the Big Picture. But now: Snag city.
If not Meruelo, then the Hawks could be facing a worst-case scenario: They’d revert to being owned by the folks who’ve been desperate to get rid of them. Could we really trust Messrs. Gearon and Levenson, et al, to make the right moves, financial and otherwise, when it has become clear their enthusiasm is stretched to the limit? Could anyone in Atlanta summon up one iota of enthusiasm for yet another season of Hawks basketball as presented by Atlanta Spirit?
No, it wouldn’t be a good idea for the Hawks to pass into the hands of someone, even an enthusiastic someone, who can’t really afford them. But it couldn’t be any worse than the alternative, which is a status quo so locally lampooned that even the once-chipper Spirit members are more than ready to fade into the woodwork. They’ve had enough. But they, and we, might be about to get even more. Have mercy on us all.
By Mark Bradley
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75 comments Add your comment
JoeFan
October 27th, 2011
11:08 am
Remember professional sports is for entertainment purposes. The fans do not own the teams. So should anyone really care who ultimately owns the Hawks? Atlanta can easily survive without the professional sports.
Ted M
October 27th, 2011
11:42 am
That’s the worst news I’ve heard in a long time.
Sonny Clusters
October 27th, 2011
11:46 am
We was wondering if a pizza guy is going to buy the Hawks, then why not Herman Cain? If he gets elected president he can put them in trust. If not, he gives them local dough.
jon
October 27th, 2011
12:06 pm
lets not panic… the nba just wants to do there due diligence… only because they don’t want atl to bwe in another mess like the spirit.
Falcon Josh
October 27th, 2011
12:22 pm
Tyler Perry should buy the team.
Atlanta Journal Constitution: Meruelo’s deal to buy Hawks may be in jeopardy | DowneyBeat.com
October 27th, 2011
12:27 pm
[...] Read it here. [...]
Time
October 27th, 2011
12:41 pm
Yea, this is good news really. The last thing we Hawks fans need is another deadbeat owner, or group of owners, screwing up this franchise any further. I tend to think that Meruelo, even if his funds are more limited, would be a improvement. Mainly because it would be hard to be worse than the ASG. But it’s not impossible, it can always get worse, especially if two years in we start to see the guy really doesn’t have the money and it’s Joe (the only one with zero trade value) and 11 guys off the street playing every night.
Time
October 27th, 2011
12:42 pm
mark bradley is socialist oppressor of free speech
Joe Tess Fish House
October 27th, 2011
12:47 pm
Who would want 2 buy a baseketball team N E way? Its a boring sprt 4 loosers and thugs
Jimmy
October 27th, 2011
1:07 pm
I say start an “Occupy Phillips Arena” group and make headlines with signs begging the commissioner to take over the franchise and say adios to this inept ownership group.
Jimmy
October 27th, 2011
1:11 pm
Time, I’d be more concerned about rightwingers in government who want to take away your voice and rights and give it all to big fat corporations… Open your eyes
Phil McCrackin
October 27th, 2011
1:17 pm
I know there isn’t enough interest in this team to get fans to rally down at Phillips… but boy would that be nice!
bro
October 27th, 2011
2:15 pm
WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND CARES ABOUT THE NBA. OVER PAID SPOILED BRATS AND NOT MANY WOULD MAKE GOOD ROLE MODELS FOR YOUR CHILDREN OR ANYONE ELSES.
Stinger2
October 27th, 2011
3:07 pm
Mark: Your peers in the AJC sports department should take you out for a steak dinner. You always refer to them as
“esteemed”.
GT
October 27th, 2011
3:36 pm
I am with Just saying. None of this would be so difficult if someone wanted to pay these people, it is the force feeding and making the public feel like dogs for not going along that most of us don’t understand.
J
October 27th, 2011
4:39 pm
yup, same garbage bloggers on this blog … NBA is full of thugs, wha wha Thrashers … must be the same people on both blogs. Pathetic!
J
October 27th, 2011
4:46 pm
bro – which teams do you follow? i bet i can name players on that team you follow, that you bring your children to see, whom are bad role models. More NBA bashing for no apparent reason other than to satisfy your need to feel like you made an educated comment on something you didn’t know anything about in the first place. I can think of many role models on the Hawks team alone (excluding Josh Smith). Oh yeah, i forgot, you don’t attend games … get a clue!!!
Tom
October 27th, 2011
6:16 pm
The Hawks need to be moved out of Atlanta just like the Thrashers got moved. The only two teams Atlanta need is the Braves and Falcons.
WeBurn
October 27th, 2011
7:29 pm
Have mercy on us all, indeed.
Wayne stuck in AL
October 27th, 2011
7:43 pm
If there is a god, let this deal collapse and let Gearon and Levenson be bled dry!!!!
Master Thesis
October 27th, 2011
10:13 pm
I’m sure some MLB player is the least popular star, it’s baseball
Bungaloo
October 28th, 2011
8:39 am
Why would anyone want to buy a team full of 6-9″ forwards ?
J
October 28th, 2011
9:12 am
wow Tom – Atlanta only needs Braves/Falcons huh? Not even thinking of the big picture are you? Move NBA basketball out and it just creates loss of revenue streams for downtown businesses. Same as the Thrashers. Tom, you should move out of Atlanta, b/c that won’t affect anybody.
bye now
October 28th, 2011
4:58 pm
send these overpaid thugs out of atlanta—this team is terrible and tickets, food and beer are way overpriced. Selah!
Not So Casual Observer
October 29th, 2011
8:44 pm
Yes, the players are paid too much money and the game has degenerated to one on one, “me first” basketball.
That said, you will see something amazing in almost every game, either an athletic defensive or offensive play by a great athlete. Is this enough to generate interest? Time will tell whether individual skills and mediocre results from all but a handful of teams are enough to support the NBA.
The best argument for the owners was the question by one of the players, “Why do the owners need to make money?” Some owners seem to be willing to cancel the season to bring fiscal sanity to a league with little self-restraint. Are they trying to break the union? Probably.
There are only a very few of these players with ability outside of basketball and the willingness to actually work like “normal people”.
If the difference is actually $100 million per year that equates to $250,000 each when spread among 400+ players who currently average $6-7 million per year. Despite all of the cliches, hackneyed phrases and self-serving comments by the leaders of the players, the numbers make the players appear to be foolish.
These are players who, on average, make more money in one year than 99% of the country will make in a lifetime.