Steve

This is one of Kevin Durant's burner accounts. NBA addict. New Orleans Pelicans fanatic. Memes connoisseur. Mostly in that order.

[Steve @steverustom]

I beat cancer and traveled 7399 miles to watch the @PelicansNBA ! #DoItBig

[stella @stellinharv]

um dos melhores tweets de todos os tempos pqpppp kkkkk

[Lukaku @LJohansson777]

@duolingo @762cayuga @cruzewilson Hi mr Duolingo. I was hungover last sunday and lost my 4 day streak. Pls help

[George Jarjour @GeorgeOnTap]

The Los Angeles Lakers just sold for $12.5 billion, the most expensive sale in American sports history. And there’s some for a lack of better words, interesting connections. The seller is Mark Walter, who is under active federal investigation.

The buyer is Josh Kushner who’s brother is Donald Trump’s son in law and the man whose firm tried to buy the FIFA World Cup. The most famous franchise in sports just passed straight from a man being probed by the feds to a man who tried to privatize the world's biggest tournament. Let’s take a look at the full picture, because the full picture is ugly.

Let’s start off with some of the facts because this story is LOADED.

Mark Walter bought the Lakers 14 months ago at a $10 billion valuation. He didn't buy them to just flip them. He tore up the front office, rebuilt the scouting department, overhauled the business side, all the moves of a man planning to own this team for a decade. Then, 14 months in, he sold the Lakers?! Nobody does that. You don't buy your dream asset and unload it before you've finished redecorating, unless something changed and changed drastically.

Here's what happened. Walter is under federal investigation, a probe into the insurance companies he controls, the same case where the FBI reportedly seized his phone and laptop off a private jet at a Chicago airport. Separate investigations by U.S. prosecutors and the SEC are underway.

Now there is no proof of guilt yet. No one has pointed out for sure that the investigation forced this sale. Walter hasn't been charged with anything. The teams themselves are not named in the probe. Every serious outlet says the connection is unproven, and it is.

But you're allowed to look at the picture, and the picture is ugly. A man under federal investigation does not sell his trophy asset 14 months after buying it, at $2.5 billion above what he paid, in a matter of days, for no reason. That's not a normal exit. That's a fast, wildly profitable, remarkably clean getaway from the spotlight, executed at the precise moment the spotlight turned into a liability. You don't liquidate the Los Angeles Lakers this quickly unless you have a reason to want out. What that reason is, only the investigation knows. But the timing is not small.

But then who is buying it is a whole new story.

The buyer is Josh Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital. Weeks ago, that same firm was the lead investor in Gianni Infantino's $20 billion plan to sell off the commercial rights to the FIFA World Cup, the scheme that collapsed under a global revolt and nearly cost the FIFA president his job. Same man. Same firm. Different sport, different continent, weeks apart.

And there's a layer under the Kushner name that makes this bigger than sports. Josh Kushner is the brother of Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump. Which means the most famous franchise in American sports is now owned, in part, by the sitting President's son-in-law's brother. Not the President himself, to be clear. He has no stake in this and no role in it. But the Lakers just became connected by marriage to the First Family, at the same time the seller is under a federal investigation run by that same administration's Justice Department. You don't have to allege anything to notice that's a crazy plot twist.

Two of the biggest money scandals in sports right now, a federally investigated owner on one side and the private equity operator who tried to buy the World Cup on the other, just resolved into a single transaction. The investigated man sold America's most famous team to the FIFA guy, in days, at a record price, and most people are reading it as a fun headline about the Lakers getting a new owner.

Here's the thing about the money at the very top of sports. Fans watch 30 teams, 30 owners, 30 separate franchises with their own colors and cities and rivalries. But the capital behind all of it is a small room. It's the same few dozen people, and they keep turning up in each other's deals. The Lakers, the Dodgers, the Giants, the Heat, Liverpool, the World Cup itself, pull the thread on almost any of them right now and you find the same handful of names, buying from and selling to one another.

That's the lesson that runs underneath all of this. At the level fans watch, sports is a game. At the level that actually owns it, sports is an asset class, and it is a far smaller and more connected world than anyone lets on. The Lakers didn't just get a new owner. They moved one square on a board most people don't know they're looking at, from a man under federal investigation to a man connected by marriage to the President.

The Buss family owned the Lakers for 46 years. Mark Walter owned them for 14 months. The next chapter belongs to the man whose firm tried to privatize the World Cup, and whose brother is married into the White House. That tells you everything about how fast the money moves at the top now, and how very few hands it moves between.

[Broly @2Big2Broly]

Bro worked with Nolan, started shifting his career towards more exciting direction, got married to Zendaya and got called a good boy by Anne Hathaway in the same year frankly no matter how good he is in this film he doesn’t need any awards he’s peaked

[charlie perc ⚧ 🇵🇸 @ghoastdad]

you all laughed at rick ross for this in 2023 but i said it then and will again: he's right and he should say it

[Brooklyn World @quadspawning]

getting shot while wearing these but i transfer my consciousness to a tiny little person in the car right before the bullet destroys my brain and I drive off to safety

[𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐮𝐤𝐮𝐧𝐚 ☢ @King_Sukunaaa]

Optimus Prime had me standing up in the theater like I was gonna fight Decepticons

[Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor]

.@NYCSanitation I'd like to report a sweep

[CP3REGION @CP3REGION]

CHRIS PAUL LMAO

[New Orleans Pelicans @PelicansNBA]

Yeah, they're all-rookie 🔥

RT for your chance to win both rookie autographed pics!

Rules🔗 https://t.co/P5sVm9v9UC

[Will 🦥 Menaker @willmenaker]

tapping the sign...

[Ryanair @Ryanair]

Brits in Tenerife be like

[Mr Ethical 🚩 @nw_nicholas]

I read it so you don't have to. It's because they speak Italian.

[Steve @steverustom]

@DruProductions

[Almut Rochowanski @rochowanski]

EU citizens should sign this European Citizens' Initiative to suspend the EU-Israel association agreement (=free trade). This is a powerful constitutional tool, which at 1 mil signatures forces EU bodies to take action (see ⬇️). It's already at 750,000.
https://t.co/p4cwjBCu43

[Hardwood Paroxysm @HPbasketball]

... Anthony Davis imploded a team that had made the playoffs and the second round, FINALLY after so many years and then submarined the following season and trolled the fans on the way out.

Get the fucking facts right.