What did Lacob do? On the advice of then-NBA Commissioner David Stern, he bought into his hometown Boston Celtics as a minority partner and built relationships with league honchos. “When the Warriors came up in 2010, I had an advantage, ironically — maybe my only advantage — over Larry Ellison, which was I knew everybody in the league really well,” said Lacob, who partnered with Peter Guber to buy the Warriors in 2010, five years after MLB denied him, for $450 million. The team is now valued by Forbes at $5.6 billion.