The NBA is a league that always seems to generate headlines wherever we are in the calendar. Even though August is probably the most dead period in terms of official basketball activity, but there has been no shortage of drama thanks to the league's group of owners.
The sale of the Los Angeles Lakers to Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner has generated a potential legal fight amongst the Buss siblings while several other teams are involved in squabbles with their own cities over arena funding. Which NBA team could get the biggest headaches from their owner's rich person problems?
6. San Antonio Spurs
The crux of the Spurs' drama involves their negotiations with the city of San Antonio to build a modern arena downtown. The city council narrowly rejected a motion to send an initiative to the public to vote on whether to approve nearly $500 million in funds for the new building, ensuring that the Spurs will get the money necessary to complete their arena project.
This does feel like a bit of an extortionate measure from the Spurs, who have played a few games in Austin each of the past few years to try and expand their regional influence with Victor Wembanyama on board. In terms of the rich guy problems, this is relatively low on the list.
5. Phoenix Suns
The mess in Phoenix surrounds owner Mat Ishbia, who isn't the most popular with his fan base after the failed Kevin Durant experiment and his attempts to turn the Suns into Michigan State West. Ishbia may have some bigger concerns, however, as Sportico's Eben Novy-Williams notes that his net worth has dropped by nearly $3.5 billion so far this year.
Per Forbes numbers, Mat Ishbia's net worth has dropped from $9.1 billion in March to $5.8 billion today.
— Eben Novy-Williams (@novy_williams) August 6, 2026
We value the @Suns, which Mat owns a large chunk of, at $5.1 billion... pic.twitter.com/2cHmWsVNLu
It doesn't appear that Ishbia's personal finances are impacting the Suns yet, but we have seen several other teams in professional sports run into issues when their owner deals with a significant loss of capital. While nobody expects Ishbia to go bankrupt like Frank McCourt did running the Dodgers, his finances could impact Phoenix' willingness to go into the luxury tax in the future.
4. Brooklyn Nets
Fewer teams in the NBA have more egg on their face than the Nets, who squandered a chance to win a title with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving while watching the Knicks build a champion across town. Nets' owner Joe Tsai has weighed in on the state of affairs, telling NetsDaily that it is "embarrassing" for Brooklyn to see the Knicks win a title while his team is in the midst of a rebuild.
Kudos to Tsai for putting what his fans are thinking into the universe but it puts unnecessary heat on the franchise's front office to successfully complete a rebuild. We would file Tsai's grievances in the unnecessary distraction department, especially since he has no one to blame for his franchise's predicament than himself.
3. Portland Trail Blazers
There may not be an owner more hated by his team right now than Tom Dundon is in Portland. Dundon has gone full slash and burn on his franchise's operations, skimping out on things like T-shirts for his fans, firing the Trail Blazer's long-time broadcasters and only guaranteeing one season on new coach Micah Nori's contract.
The Trail Blazers are also in a passive-aggressive fight with the city of Portland over who should foot the bill for renovations to Moda Arena, leading some to wonder if Dundon is agitating the gravel to force his way into a relocation. All of these grievances have popped up in Dundon's first few months of ownership, which could create a very rocky road for Portland moving forward.
2. Los Angeles Lakers
Something feels fishy about Mark Walter's decision to sell the franchise just over a year after buying it from the Buss family, but that is only half of the issues surrounding the Los Angeles Lakers. The other surrounds the remaining shares from the Buss siblings, with five of the six wanting to sell them, which would force Jeannie Buss out of the governor role since she wouldn't have enough equity to maintain it by rule.
A family legal drama is the last thing a franchise in transition from the LeBron James era to the Luka Dončić era needs right now. A lot of necessary progress and investment in the Lakers is going to be held up by this dispute to see who is making decisions at the governor level, which could impact their ability to keep pace with the more advanced operations in the league.
1. Los Angeles Clippers
To be fair to Steve Ballmer, a lot of this mess is due to the NBA's incredibly slow investigation into the Aspiration scandal. The league has had more than enough time to determine whether the Clippers circumvented the cap with Kawhi Leonard and their determination that Toronto would assume consequences of the investigation if a proposed trade is completed is nonsensical.
The bottom line is that the Clippers remain first because there are serious team building consequences in play if the investigation determines they cheated the salary cap. Ballmer has to hope that this investigation is wrapped up soon so they can figure out what the deal is with Leonard and the trade in order to get ready for the upcoming campaign.
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