Les the poorest boss in NBA -- is that the important reason our role players suck?

Intereseting, Les's total assets are only 80 Million dollars, I thought an NBA team is worth severall hundred Milliond dollars by themselves. Is Les just the head of a bigger group that owns the Rockets?

 

Les is worth well over 500 million not including the rockets this is misinformation.

 

Chinese site is right on. As of 2005, Les is tied as poorest owner at 80 million dollars. I guess he has partners, or has a big mortgage on the team

Here is the link, supporting the chinese site (in english).
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/2005-salary-owners.htm

Houston Rockets
Owner: Leslie Alexander
Age: 60
Hometown: Boca Raton, Fla.
Net worth: $80 million

Other pro team interests: Owns WNBA's Houston Comets, formerly owned Arena Football League's Houston ThunderBears/Texas Terror; has shown an interest in becoming a minority owner of an NFL team.

How he earned his money: Former Wall Street securities trader

Education: Bachelor's at New York University, law degree at Western State

 

its not like rockets are the least profitable

he's probably just cheaper than most owners

 

http://www.nbawire.com/houston_rockets_team_info.html

 

rockets tried to get artest this season but didn't have the pieces to make that trade. rockets have a higher team payroll than the spurs, detroit, and suns.

it's all about getting lucky in the draft and/or trading for unproven players (recent e.g boris diaw & james jones for the suns)

 

Honestly I think this thread poses the question we'll all be asking this off-season.

Do I think JVG or CD should be fired? No. Does Les think we can really contend against Dallas and SA next season with their current rosters and his financial constraints? Where Les is concerned, who knows?

The problem is JVG was brought in to win "now" less than a year after Les' "Greatest Team Ever Assembled" remark. I doubt JVG was interested in a 3 year plan and now I think this team is still at least 2 years away from seriously contending. And we have few options going into next season.

We can't move Howard's contract, Swift's value is so low now that we'd have to take a probably a worse contract in order to unload him. T-Mac's health is uncertain and he sounds older than JVG. Rafer and Head have more value to us than probably any other team... So what do you do?

If I were Les, I'd rebuild or sell the franchise. If we rebuild I believe JVG would be the first to say he's not the guy to do it, and I firmly believe CD is tired of all the constant upheaval and retrenchment.

Selling the franchise now with the way Yao's been playing and his potential to be the most marketable athlete on the planet is probably against every bone in Les' body, so he won't, and is looking at a mess of epic proportions:

Bad luck, terrible attendance, un-entertaining product, general malaise and an extended-contract-coach that doesn't mind announcing "we suck" after a 4-0 preseason start. I've said it before, but Les has blown gaskets we've never heard about. Other than money and glory, Alexander loves hype and buzz more than any other owner I've seen in Houston. He is like Cuban and Jones without the money.

I've said this before, but what I think what might happen is JVG telling Les that it's better if he resigns and Thibodeaux and Yao cultivate and nurture young players along so that this becomes Yao's team as he enters his prime.

Thibodeaux will come cheap, reporters will still help him out when he's on camera and Les will keep his fingers crossed 24 hours a day on his lottery pick, Stro, V-Span et al.

If not, assuming T-Mac's healthy we're probably a 5th seed with a MLE guy, LLE guy and improvement from Head and Rafer (I do think time will help with him). And I want a commercial with JVG's face in the camera screaming "sell this marketing department". That would go over big here.

 

assuming you are correct and les doesn't own much...i'd imagine the other owners own much and we should look at their assets too if we wanna have this discussion right?

 

Les has several minority partners, but he is, BY FAR, the majority shareholder in the Rockets and the group that owns the rights to the arena.

Maybe they didn't factor that into his wealth assessment, but it most certainly should be.

bulk, I don't know where you get your info, but Les owns something like 80 percent of the shares in the businesses that own the Rockets and run the arena. He has two or three minority shareholders that have fewer than 10 percent of the franchise shares each.

 

Hey Jeff, what about all the millions Les has made via the NBA on YaoMing/Rockets Sales and Basketball Tv Coverage in China. Surely this is a large income for Les but it is never mentioned.

 

do rockets have their own jet? i saw on vh1 they showed maverick's jet, wich cuban bought. that's pretty cool of him.

 

Don't know if the Rockets organization have a jet, but T-Mac has his own jet. I wonder if he uses it to fly to/from away games.

 

I'm guessing they don't add the value of the franchise to his overall assets. If he only has $80 million outside the team, then that explains why he is so reluctant to go over the luxury tax threshold. Remember that Cuban said that he has lost $25 million in a season with the Mavs. If Les did that, it would eat up a huge chunk of his liquid cash.

Yeah, I'm also very curious about how much he's making from China. The jerseys and other merchandise sales are shared with the other teams, but I wonder how the chinese tv contracts work. Could it be anywhere close to what MSG network makes on the Knicks?

 

Off topic, but hopefully interesting: a top English soccer club like Manchester United has revenues of $300 million -- every year. That's right, every one and a half years, United takes in more money that the entire Rockets franchise is worth.

This really gives you some perspective on the relative popularity of the two sports, doesn't it? This is probably why the NBA owners are so anxious to expand the game into China and other countries.

 

It's probably never mentioned because it is more of an income for the NBA and not the Rockets. Not sure how the TV coverage works.

 

Les is still 80 millions richer than me

That's why I think Les is reluctant to fire JVG and JVG will be back next season as the head coach of houston rockets!!!