Steinmetz: Lacob Still Not Warriors' Owner

Oct. 28, 2010STEINMETZ ARCHIVEWARRIORS PAGEWARRIORS VIDEOMatt SteinmetzCSNBayArea.com

OAKLAND -- Well, turns out Joe Lacobisn't going to be the owner of the Warriors by Friday, which wassomething NBA commissioner David Stern had wanted.Looks like it's going to be November.Over the past two weeks, all the word was that the completion of theWarriors' sale was imminent, and that the deal was a lock to go through -- and Stern confirmed all of that in a conference call last week.Stern said that he expected the deal would likely be done by today orFriday. He also said at the time there was a "signed contract," andthat "the deal is going to close."It still will, if you ask anyone involved in or even around theprocess. On the one hand, yes, there's been a little bit of a delay,and yet on the other there is still plenty of time.Stern said during last week's call that he originally had hoped Lacoband his partner, Peter Guber, would be in place by Wednesday'sseason-opener against the Rockets. He then said Thursday or Friday.Back in July, Lacob talked of a 60- to 90-day process. We're over 100days now since Lacob agreed to buy the team from Chris Cohan for arecord 450 million.But the reality of the situation is that the deadline for the deal to be completed is Dec. 31.Here's Stern's whole quote from last week's conference call:"We had hoped thatthere's a signed contract, the deal is going toclose. There are all kinds of related agreements that have to beexecuted in connection with it, and there are some detailsfinaldetails being worked out. So we had hoped that it would have closed byWednesday. That would have required us to get the vote out today (Oct.22). It's probably not going to happen. We haven't gotten the finalword on a couple of documents. So it's going to go out sometime nextweek, and it'll likely close by Friday of next week."Doesn't look like that's going to happen.I touched base with Lacob before Wednesday's game, and he declinedcomment. But he indicated the sale was unlikely to happen by Friday,but everything was on track.And there's no reason to believe it isn't. Just going to take a little while longer.What's on your mind? Email Matt and let him know. He may use it in his Mailbag.