The NBA industry just lost a ton of business

TUE, JUN 11, 2019

YOUR AFTERNOON NEWS UPDATE AND MARKET ACTION FROM CNBC

AS OF TUE, JUN 11, 2019 • 11:33 ET

DJIA		26114.95
		+0.20%	+52.27

S&P 500		2891.61
		+0.17%	+4.88

NASDAQ		7834.73
		+0.15%	+11.56

EDITOR'S NOTE

Ladies & gents, a Sandy Cannold encore appearance (and what a wild game that was last night!!). Enjoy, and I'll see you back here tomorrow!

Kelly

It wasn't supposed to end this way. Kevin Durant, the all-star forward for the Golden State Warriors, wasn't supposed to end his season limping off the court with what appears to be a devastating ruptured Achilles tendon.

Durant wasn't just any super star coming back from an injury. He was just two weeks away from the entire NBA wining and dining him to get him to come to their team. He was set to become the face of a franchise, sign a max deal of 4-years for roughly $160 million dollars. He was also set to reap all the side benefits – new shoe deal, marketing contracts, licensing dollars, etc. that come with today's NBA stardom.

Now all of that is in limbo. Not just for him, but for all the teams who had spent the season preparing for this moment and for a league that has built a 365 day a year business around both the games and the free agent frenzy.

Here at CNBC we look at everything through the lens of business. If you are the management of the Warriors, should you have let a player with that much to lose get on that court when he is less than 100% just to help you potentially win another championship? If you are KD do you have to look out for your own self-interest & sit out to protect your financial future?

This was a no win situation for Kevin Durant – if he sits out game 5 after the team says he is cleared to play, he gets labeled selfish—or worse yet, a baby for not "playing through the pain." If he plays, he risks a major injury and the potential loss of millions & millions of dollars.

We now know that he played and suffered what appears to be an injury that will keep him out of action for the next 9-12 months.

What we don't know is what he will do next and how this injury will impact his value in free agency. Will he stay with the Warriors next year collect $31 million dollars and then try to become a free agent the following year? Will a team decide he is worth the gamble and offer him a max deal anyway knowing that he will be lost for next season? And how will this impact all the other free agents in what the media was calling the year of the K's – KD, Kyrie, Klay, Kawhi & Kemba.

We at the Exchange hope that KD recovers and returns to his dominant form, but today we are sad for him. We are also sad that what was shaping up to be a blockbuster off-season has now lost quite a bit of its luster.

Oh and one more side note – I am a life-long Knicks fan, so today I feel like 'here we go again.' For now, it seems like our dream of seeing #35 in orange and blue is over. And as I am writing this, shares of MSG – the parent company of the Knicks – are down close to $5 dollars a share or roughly one percent. My spirits are down a lot more than that!

Kelly will be back tomorrow. Thanks for letting me share some of my thoughts with you,

Sandy

Kelly Evans

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