Joe Tsai spoke mostly about his day job, executive chair of Alibaba, at J.P. Morgan’s Global China Summit in Shanghai Friday. Still, Brooklyn Nets fans are everywhere and in responding to a question presumably from a Brooklyn fan, Tsai said the team is “at a crossroads,” and are looking “long-term” rather than “winning now” so they can build “a sustainable winning culture.”
Tsai has now made three sets of public comments on his vision for Nets since the team missed the NBA playoffs. The other two were on April 3 when Tsai sat down with the head of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund in Oslo and said owning the Nets and Liberty was
“absolutely fun.”
Then Saturday, a video of him speaking at Yale back on May 8 emerged. In that commentary, Tsai spoke more philosophically about the role of a sports owner n that video shot at Yale, Tsai’s alma mater, on February 8, Tsai said his first responsibility is to the Nets fans, who he called his collective boss.
@NetsPressIG broke the news of Tsai’s most recent comments on Thursday, tweeting out key excerpts ...
Tsai began his Shanghai discussion Friday by admitting the team was disappointing last year but it is already in a “revamp.” Much of what Tsai said echoed Sean Marks recent remarks at the introduction of Jordi Fernandez, the team’s new head coach. on April 24.
“Brooklyn Nets is at a crossroads in a way,” Tsai told the J.P. Morgan questioner. “I think we are ... we didn’t do well as we expected last season. We didn’t make the playoffs, but we hope to revamp the team and make sure we can compete ... in the long run.”
Tsai gave no hint of what he and Marks & co. are planning this summer, but made it clear that he prefers a team built over the long term rather than “just winning now.”
“I think there’s a difference,” he continued. “I think when people ask owners what do you want to do with the basketball team. There’s a difference between ‘I want to win’ and ‘I want to build a winning mentality and a sustainable winning culture.’ Those are two very different things.
Tsai also seemed to express regrets about how Brooklyn built a superteam around Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden. Brooklyn traded all their draft picks to the Rockets deal losing Caris LeVert and Jarrett Allen as well. Harden didn’t last two years in Brooklyn before asking out. (KD and Kyrie were free agent signings although Durant officially arrived in a sign-and-trade with Golden State.)
“If you just want to win now, you could ruin their future by trading away all our assets and just win now,” said Tsai. “But I think what I want to do with the Brooklyn Nets is take a longer-term approach and build a winning sustainable winning culture.”
For many fans, Tsai’s comments were seen as a signal that the Nets will not trade for Donovan Mitchell or does it mean Mikal Bridges will finally be traded for multiple Houston Rocket picks?
Tsai will have to make a number of key decisions that will affect that culture soon, including Ben Simmons’ situation. Simmons will make $40.3 million this season as a free agent but has played only 57 games the last three seasons. Mikal Bridges is also eligible to sign an extension this summer.
Tsai was more philosophical in his comments at the Yale event, part of the university’s INSPIRE speaker series. He began his discussion of the Nets and WNBA Liberty by saying sports teams are not about the owner, but those who the owners work for ... the fans. He added that fans at the arena or watching from home care about the players and specifically “star players,” not the owner. In his comments, Tsai seem to suggest he’s learned some lessons since taking control of the franchise in October 2019...
“I think being the owner sports team in a major American sports league is a rarefied existence because there are so few. There are 32 NFL teams, 30 NBA teams. That’s it,” he told a representative of
Tsai CITY,
Yale’s center for creative Innovative Thinking which hosted the May 8 event.
“So you can end up treating yourself too seriously. So my first principle is don’t treat yourself too seriously... don’t become the face of the franchise because it’s not about you. Fans don’t care about you. They care about the players. they care about the star players,” said Tsai (sporting a vest promoting Sportico, the sports business site.)
“And the second thing about owning a sports franchise is who do you work for. You work for the fans! So you have to come in with that mindset, especially when you own a major sports team in a major city, it’s an institution. It’s not about you. It’s something that’s much much bigger than you and I feel like I’m a custodian of the team. I want to make our fans proud. So that’s my mindset.”
Also, at the Yale event, Tsai was asked about his philosophy of leadership, what makes a good leader ... and what d not ... focusing first on what leaders shouldn’t do.
“A leader, they come into a room. They suck up all the oxygen and everybody is afraid of them, then all of a sudden, your employees start to cater to what the boss likes, not the customer and that’s the worst leader in the world.” Tsai also said that communications is the most crucial element in leadership and added that if a leader sees someone not meetings, he of she should immediately speak with that person “and not wait for the annual performance review.”
Ironically, Tsai was in New York that weekend to interview Jordi Fenandez for the head coaching job.
Although divining meaning from any or all of the three comments is a fan past time, it should be noted that all three comments represented a small percentage of his overall comments on Alibaba’s own revamp and and the Chinese economy. in other words, they appeared random, not something that was part of a Nets communications strategy.