Is the N.B.A. Still LeBron James’s League? | The New Yorker

During the meeting, James reportedly focussed on pressuring the owners to do far more than they have. All thirty teams have committed three hundred million dollars across the next ten years toward a foundation empowering the Black community—small change, considering that twenty-two of the league’s owners are billionaires. A million dollars a year is a rounding error for the Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, one of the richest men in the world. The DeVos family, which owns the Orlando Magic, has spent millions of dollars promoting right-wing causes and candidates; Betsy DeVos is a member of Trump’s Cabinet. Quicken Loans, the company run by Dan Gilbert, who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers, donated seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Trump’s Inauguration fund, and, shortly afterward, benefitted from a tax break originally intended to help the poor. Tilman Fertitta, the owner of the Houston Rockets, is a Trump supporter who furloughed roughly forty thousand employees from his casino-and-restaurant empire during the shutdown. Tom Gores, who owns the Detroit Pistons, has made billions in private equity, and frequently donates to Democratic candidates; his firm owns companies that contract with law-enforcement agencies and Border Patrol, including one that makes its money by charging incarcerated people exorbitant rates and fees to make phone calls.