Minutes after the Warriors officially announced Joe Lacob and Peter Guber had agreed to buy the Warriors for $450 million, fellow bidder Larry Ellison fired off a release claiming he had offered more money.But Sal Galatiato, who ran the sale for outgoing Warriors owner Chris Cohan, explained in an interview with Damon Bruce of KNBR-AM radio in San Francisco that Ellison's final bid came in weeks after the deadline, only when Lacob and Guber were hammering out the final details of the purchase.
Galatiato insinuated Ellison initially didn't believe the Warriors had drawn a $450 million bid from Lacob, a venture capitalist, and Guber, the chairman of Mandalay Entertainment Group. Weeks after the deadline for bids from the four finalists, as the team negotiated detailed terms with Lacob and Guber, Ellison came in with a bid nominally higher than the one accepted, Galatiato said in the interview.
Ellison, the CEO of Oracle and one of the richest men in the world, is used to getting his way in business; the tone of his post-sale statement is clearly geared towards ripping Cohan as a parting shot. Based on the ace reporting by Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News, Marcus Thompson III of the Contra Costa Times and Matt Steinmetz of CSNBayArea.com throughout the dramatic sale, it seems Cohan wanted to sell to someone other than Ellison all along, and Ellison always felt as if Cohan was stacking the deck. The final resolution -- the last little bit of melodrama -- certainly nods to that theory.
But if Lacob is as committed to turning the franchise around as he claims to be, it won't matter. Perhaps an avocado wouldn't do a better job as owner than Cohan has for a painful decade-and-a-half. But a bowl of guacamole might. Lacob figures to be much, much more savvy than that.
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VITO TO RESIGN MONDAY
