After initial reports on Thursday that LaMelo Ball had expressed interest in buying the Illawarra Hawks, the Illawarra Mercury reported on Friday that Ball will be the face of a new ownership group.
Details of the deal are still emerging but NBL owner Larry Kestelman spoke on the idea of Ball being a potential buyer in Thursday’s piece in The Daily Telegraph.
“He (LaMelo) definitely expressed an interest with his manager. The world is in a different place now, so I don’t know if that is the case currently as I haven’t spoken to them about it. But they have expressed an interest. If Simon was not successful and the club came back to us, we would run a process to try and find the right owner.”
The future of the Hawks had become a growing concern since the end of the regular season. In the last week, matters seem to hit their breaking point as the franchise was forced into a holding pattern as the future of the club remained up in the air. The league itself taking over the club while a buyer was sought was the most common solution discussed.
The move for Ball is an unprecedented one. While a player like LeBron James holds a small ownership percentage in Liverpool F.C., a player buying a stake in a basketball team in another league is ground not yet broken.
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