Rumors

The Clippers were one of the teams that had already shown interest in Beal and were on his short list. When the Powell deal happened, talks accelerated, sources said. Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and head coach Ty Lue, who as a native of Mexico, Missouri, has a long relationship with St. Louis native Beal, spoke to Beal about what the Clippers could offer. But the key voice came from James Harden, who lobbied the Clippers' front office to chase Beal and then reached out to him directly to make the sale, sources said.

ESPN

Law Murray: Lawrence Frank making it clear as to why it is hard for young players to get clock on Clippers and why "blowing it up" isn't going to happen -- it's a Steve Ballmer edict. "It's always about competing and giving our fans, every single night… we're never trying to tank." pic.x.com/gEZjhY5rIM

Twitter

Law Murray: Lawrence Frank says Clippers have no issues being in the tax. A nod to Steve Ballmer.

bsky.app

Steve Ballmer flew over 120 Clippers fans to Denver on a charter plane this morning, also covering their tickets and transportation to Game 7. They will be on the side the Nuggets are shooting on the 2nd half, bringing "The Wall" to Ball Arena (video via @TomerAzarly, h/t @ramonashelburne)

reddit

Ramona Shelburne: It seems about 120 members of “the swell” flew on a charter plane this morning. Steve Ballmer covered the plane, tickets and busses to the game.

x.com

Ramona Shelburne: One important thing to point out. These seats are very good seats right next to the Clippers bench and under the basket the Nuggets will likely shoot on in the second half. No idea how Ballmer managed to get these particular seats away from Nuggets fans. But it couldn’t have been cheap.

x.com

Jake Shapiro: There are SO many clippers fans in Denver for Game 7. Steve Ballmer bought almost all the tickets behind the backboard nearest the Nuggets bench and flew out LAC fans from “The Wall.”

Twitter

In this week’s CNBC Sport newsletter, LA Clippers Business Operations President Gillian Zucker sat down with CNBC Media & Sports Reporter Alex Sherman for the CNBC Sport videocast. Zucker discusses the Los Angeles Clippers valuation, the Intuit Dome, her boss Steve Ballmer, and more. Watch the full video here or listen via the CNBC Sport podcast by visiting cnbc.com/sportpodcast. Subscribe here to get the CNBC Sport newsletter sent directly to your inbox every Thursday morning. GILLIAN ZUCKER ON THE CLIPPERS VALUATION ZUCKER: There's a lot of things to consider in those valuations. So first of all, it's based on last year's numbers. So you're going to see those dramatically shift now that we're in a building that we own rather than being a renter. You're going to see things like sponsorship numbers triple. So you're going to see a lot of differentiation between those numbers last year and the numbers this year, but there's a lot of things that go into those evaluations and part of it is how far you go in the playoffs. That has a pretty big impact on EBITDA. Last year, unfortunately, we didn't go as far as we would have liked to, but you'll see, I think a dramatic change this year and then again next year, after some of the onetime only, sort of inaugural expenses of Intuit Dome have kind of worked their way out of our numbers as well.

CNBC

GILLIAN ZUCKER ON HER BOSS STEVE BALLMER ZUCKER: I have the greatest boss in the world. I'll just start there. He is fantastic to work for. A lot of the reason why I love working for him is because of how competitive he is and because of the way that he pushes. He's never satisfied. And that, for me, is exciting. You know, this idea – if you look at fans, I mean, they're never satisfied either. And even if you know we're the very, very best at something, he's always focused on, how can we be better tomorrow? What can we learn from what we did today that pushes us forward, and that provides for an environment that I think is really attractive to people who are very creative and who are very ambitious, and so our team of people that works at the Clippers are pretty extraordinary.

CNBC

After the opening comment about his rough week, Cuban told Gates he loved Source Code, but he had a question for the billionaire entrepreneur. “If after you left Microsoft, you found out that Steve Ballmer traded Windows 11 — like, the new hot operating system — for Windows 10, the Hall-of-Fame but older operating system, what would you do?”

Dallas Morning News

Cuban, who developed and then sold MicroSolutions and Broadcast.com earlier in his career, asked how Gates balanced being the CEO of a company with fatherhood. “I played the role that my dad played. I was always calm, and I was pretty busy,” he said, adding he was lucky that Ballmer eventually stepped up to become CEO. “Now he’s got the Clippers,” Cuban said, with a little spice in his voice. Ballmer bought the LA Clippers in 2014 after retiring from Microsoft. “They don’t make trades like that to us!” Cuban said, eliciting a big laugh, since he seemed to be referring to the Doncic trade. It was the kind of week when any use of the word “trade” got a crowd reaction.

Dallas Morning News

Julia Poe: Lonzo Ball had high praise for the Intuit Dome tonight, highlighting the accommodations for visiting teams including a cold tub and expanded locker room: "(Steve Ballmer) is very thoughtful thinking of the away team. We appreciate that."

x.com

KC Johnson: Several Bulls commented on how nice the Intuit Dome facilities are for the visiting team. Lonzo Ball: “Shoutout to Ballmer. He’s very thoughtful thinking of the away team. We appreciate that.”

Twitter

Law Murray: Asked JJ Redick about his place in an important time in Clippers franchise history JJ says he looks back fondly on his four seasons with Clippers (except the not winning a championship part) while praising Steve Ballmer's ownership "as evidenced by what's about 200 ft from us" pic.x.com/rlS2tH9fVY

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