Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Stephen Curry still remembers his lightning-strike fan moment: the first time he ever saw the Panthers on the field in Clemson in 1995. “The very first game,” Steph said. “I was six probably at the time. And from there, going to games, we used to sit behind the Panthers’ bench in the top of the lower bowl. Tailgates. The walk into the stadium, just being a fan.”
The Curry brothers still try to get back to Charlotte to see a game every once in a while, but the NBA schedule makes that tougher during the season. Steph tries to catch the Panthers on the road, as evidenced by his appearance in Las Vegas last year to see a game. He still remembers the first time Jake Delhomme, Smith and the rest of the Panthers made the Super Bowl (XXXVIII) for the first time in 2004, when the brothers were still playing for Charlotte Christian School. “We had a whole watch party at the crib,” Steph said. “Then, ’16 (Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara) I went, and every run we had, just locked in. Obviously, you want to see them do well. Charlotte is a sports town, and the Hornets haven’t been good in a long time; hopefully they can turn it around, but the Panthers are always fun when they’re relevant.”
Charlotte Hornets star LaMelo Ball now owns the uptown Charlotte condo he previously leased from another famous figure on the city’s sports scene — former Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton, public tax records show. Ball’s MB1 Enterprises LLC paid $2.47 million on May 15 to Newton’s Agape Property Management Group LLC for the condo in the Trust building at 139 S. Tryon St., according to Mecklenburg County property tax records.
Winston-Salem State and Virginia Union’s men’s basketball teams are heading to the NBA All-Star Weekend in February. The Rams and the Panthers will play each other in a key CIAA game on Feb. 17 at 2 p.m. at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The game was originally scheduled to be played on campus at Virginia Union but will now be played on the building where the Indiana Pacers play their NBA games.
Advertisement
Sean Cunningham: In attendance for tonight’s Game 5 at Golden 1 Center include California Governor Gavin Newsom, Sacramento natives Shaq Thompson (Panthers LB) & Derrek Lee (former MLB All-Star), Former Kings Brad Miller, Bobby Jackson, Peja Stojakovic & his son, All-American Andrej Stojakovic.
Former Carolina Panthers wide receiver Devin Funchess has been considering trying his hand at basketball career as he evaluates his options in the NFL. Funchess, a former second-round pick by the Panthers and a member of their Super Bowl 50 team in 2015, has not played a down of NFL football since 2019.
Devin Funchess was the 41st overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft by the Carolina Panthers after a stellar college career for the Michigan Wolverines. The 28-year-old spent four seasons with the Panthers (and also had brief stints with the Indianapolis Colts, Green Bay Packers, San Francisco 49ers and Detroit Lions). Right now, he is an NFL free agent, and in a recent interview with Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson of Bally Sports, he revealed his love for basketball. Funchess: "I know I have to go overseas and play and get some film, but then after that, my dream growing up was to play in the NBA, so that's my main goal, and that's what I'm gonna make happen"
What's it like being named Michael Jordan when you're in the same city as the legendary NBA player, now the owner of the Charlotte Hornets? Just ask the Carolina Panthers guard, who secured free pizza from Papa John's with his name when he was a freshman at Ohio State. "I placed it online in the name of 'Michael Jordan,'" Jordan recalled. "All of a sudden, it says it will be here in 20 minutes. So I called the place and said I placed an order for Michael Jordan. He started cussing me out. He said, 'It's Super Bowl Sunday. You can't be playing around with fake names like that.' Then I went in and showed him my ID, and I got free pizza for a week,'' he said.
Drury University men’s basketball head coach announced that Chris Carr will join the Panthers coaching staff as an assistant. Carr played six seasons in the National Basketball Association and played professionally for two years overseas. He was a second round draft pick of the Phoenix Suns in 1995 and saw time with the Suns, Timberwolves, Nets, Warriors, Bulls, and Celtics. While playing for Minnesota in 1997, he was the NBA Slam Dunk Contest runner-up as Kobe Bryant won the event that year in Cleveland, Ohio.
Advertisement
2020 was a historically bad year for NBA finances, thanks to the pandemic shutdown, absent ticket revenue, and a hit to the NBA’s China business. If cash is tight, can Jordan still count on Plotkin or Sundheim? Will Plotkin or Sundheim be liquidating assets in the fallout of the GameStop episode? Could that include their stakes in the Hornets? (One potential buyer is legendary hedge fund manager David Tepper, who bought the Carolina Panthers at an NFL-record price. In 2019, he brought the MLS to Charlotte reportedly for a cool $300 million.) And … did Jordan invest his own money with Melvin Capital or D1 Capital?
New England Patriots quarterback Cam Newton reportedly has sold his luxury Charlotte, N.C. condo to a new starring attraction in the city. Charlotte Hornets 2020 first-round pick LaMelo Ball has purchased the ex-Carolina Panthers QB's former home for nearly $3 million, per Panthers beat reporter Sheena Quick. The condo had been on the market since July.
Joseph Tsai is closing in on an agreement to purchase the controlling interest in the Brooklyn Nets from majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov, sources confirmed to ESPN. The deal, which is expected to be completed by the end of the week, would value the team at $2.35 billion -- making it the largest purchase price of an American professional sports team, surpassing the $2.2 billion paid by David Tepper to buy the Carolina Panthers and by Tilman Fertitta to buy the Houston Rockets.
