<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">DALLAS -- During the last regular-season game of the year at FedExForum, there was a tall, vaguely recognizable guy in attendance. He sat in the box with Jerry West. He met with Michael Heisley. No, Christian Laettner was not there to help solve the Grizzlies rebounding woes. He was there with former Duke teammate Brian Davis to talk about buying the team. Not just a small slice of the team, either, not the minority-stake that current owner Heisley has said he's been trying to sell forever. Laettner and Davis -- who are partners in something called Blue Devil Ventures -- have been visiting Memphis, looking at the books, doing the preliminary work in their effort to buy Heisley's controlling interest. So the team is for sale. Openly, for sale. Anyone want to buy an NBA franchise that can't seem to win a playoff game? And if this seems like an odd time to bring up the future of the club's ownership, stop and consider the team the Grizzlies are playing. The Mavericks. Owned by Mark Cuban. If the success of the Mavs reminds us of anything, it's of the importance of quality ownership. Cuban might be a geek, a showboat and a failed reality-show host. But he's everything you want in an NBA owner. He spends big money for players. He spends big money on fans, too. The other day, just for fun, he gave everyone at Fan Appreciation Day a free airplane ticket. Is that why the Grizzlies are down 1-0 to the Mavericks? Nope. But Erick Dampier ($73 million) sure helped. In his own, quieter way, Heisley has been every bit as good an owner for the Grizzlies. He persuaded Jerry West to move to Memphis. He plunged himself into the community. Along with his lawyer, Stan Meadows, and with the Public Building Authority led by Arnold Perl, he did a remarkable job of developing FedExForum. He hasn't stinted on payroll, either, even in the face of lukewarm attendance. In West's years in Memphis, Heisley has only once put the kabosh on a personnel move because of money. That's when he said West couldn't trade for Chucky Atkins and his $5 million contract. Not long after, the Wizards cut Atkins. The Grizzlies picked him up for a discount. So what are we to make of the signals that Heisley might want out, especially in light of his long-standing insistence that he doesn't intend to sell more than a minority interest in the team? Ron Tillery of this newspaper reported that Heisley's representatives have talked to as many as eight potential buyers in the last six months. Even if that number is high -- designed to create a market for the team -- can we at least drop the naive notion that the team is not being aggressively marketed? Think Cuban has listened to eight sales pitches in the past six months? Of course not. You don't spend that much time listening if you don't plan on selling. Heisley plans on selling. But at his price, and not a farthing less. A small story about Heisley, that fits right into this: Years ago, he and Meadows were negotiating a deal with a wealthy family in Europe. The family kept Heisley and Meadows waiting and waiting and waiting. So Heisley and Meadows found a Ping-Pong table. They commenced to Ping-Pong. At last, the family sent a minion to fetch the two Americans. "We have to finish our game," Heisley said. The minion stewed until, finally, the game ended. "No," Heisley said. "We always play two out of three." That's the kind of negotiator Heisley is, and why it's unlikely Laettner and Davis will wind up with his stake in the Grizzlies. Heisley is said to value the team at $350 million. Forbes recently valued it at $294 million. There's a lot of golden nuggets in between those two numbers. And yet, it's hard not to wonder if the team's recent struggles will have an impact on all this. Won't a buyer notice the Grizzlies profound attendance decline? A decline that can be attributed at least in part to -- how's this for symmetry? -- the effort to sell the team? </div> Source
