👋 Afternoon, Enjoyers! We offer our condolences for that extra hour of sleep you lost last night, but good news: more daylight is on the way!

Even better news: we have another Out of Bounds newsletter for y’all! Let’s talk about the best of basketball’s recent off-the-court action. 🏀 

Today’s Lineup

🔁 Players-turned-owners

They say rappers want to be ballers and ballers want to be rappers, and that is somewhat true. But the real 💰 is in owning a sports franchise. Let’s take a look at five guys who own other teams…

1️⃣ Magic Johnson is a part-time owner of the Washington Commanders, Los Angeles Sparks, Los Angeles FC and Los Angeles Dodgers. Magic added another championship ring to his collection in 2020 when the Dodgers won the World Series and with the arrival of Japanese superstars Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, he may soon run out of space on his fingers…. 

2️⃣ LeBron James is apart of Fenway Sports Group which owns the Boston Red Sox. Additionally, King James 👑 managed to multiply his initial investment for 2% of Liverpool FC 10-fold! Recently Bron rocked a custom Liverpool kit to a Lakers game and sent The Reds’ star defender Virgil Van Dijk a message congratulating him on becoming captain:

3️⃣ Giannis Antetokounmpo and his brothers own part of the MLS’ Nashville SC, in part to honor their late father who was a professional soccer player. Additionally, he owns a stake in the Milwaukee Brewers—more evidence of Giannis’ dedication to the city that bet on him!

4️⃣ Dwyane Wade owns a piece of the Utah Jazz despite spending nearly his entire career with the Heat (let’s just forget those Bulls/Cavs years😅). We love that this role clearly means something to D-Wade:

5️⃣ Marc Gasol is the founder and owner of Basquet Girona, the Liga ACB club for the northern Spanish city. Pau, Marc’s big brother and Laker legend, acts as club vice president! Running a basketball team with your brother seems like the best job ever—maybe just behind playing a decade in the NBA with him.

🚀 The Fast, Fashionable Rockets

The Houston Rockets are young, fun, and fashionable. Jalen Green lifted off 🚀 to Mars the other night when dunking all over Anfernee Simons, and Alperen Sengun is playing the best basketball of his career.

But let’s not let that on-court excellence distract us from these CRAZY off-the-court outfits. We love this sky blue sweater that Green wore, especially because the red E makes the red shoes pop. Meanwhile, Sengun put on a fit that makes him look like a 6’11” Kandinsky painting.

It was a dangerous week to be a scoring record. In the NBA, LeBron became the first player to hit 40K career points. Mike James became the all-time leading scorer in the EuroLeague. And yet the most cinematic record-breaking event was Caitlin Clark surpassed Pete Maravich to become the all-time leader in points in the NCAA, men’s or women’s.

Because we’re talking about off-court stuff, let’s talk about the fascinating crowd in the building in Iowa City. It included WNBA legend Maya Moore and freaking Jake from State Farm, but there was no bigger fan than Travis Scott.

“She’s one of the greatest humans of all time,” said Scott. “I’ve been in a lot of buildings but this Iowa energy is like no other.” You know Clark is doing something special when she’s getting Travis out into the cornfields! 🌽 

Signing Off

We had fun today talking franchises, fashion, and fandom! Can’t wait to do it again in approximately 336 hours! (or 2 weeks. Whichever is easier!)

-Conor Geelan