LAS VEGAS — The Bill Chisholm-led bid to purchase the Boston Celtics is expected to be officially approved this week in Las Vegas by the NBA’s Board of Governors. However, the owner-in-waiting has been active this offseason with the team alongside governor Wyc Grousbeck after agreeing to purchase the Celtics in March.
The Celtics have dealt with daunting circumstances ever since Chisholm’s group agreed to purchase the team for $6.1 billion. Boston suffered a stunning upset to the Knicks in May which coincided with Jayson Tatum suffering an Achilles tear. Second apron and severe luxury tax penalties have also led to the loss of several key members of the Celtics roster over the past month via trade and free agency.
Brad Stevens praised Chisholm’s presence this offseason in helping the team navigate those tough realities as Stevens tries to retool to put together another contender upon Tatum’s return amid CBA challenges. Chisholm is in Las Vegas and is expected to attend a Celtics Summer League game this week, a source tells MassLive.
“Wyc is obviously still the governor and has been obviously very, very active,” Stevens said Saturday. “But I think Bill has been in pretty much every meeting or Zoom that we’ve had with the governors and ownership and everything else. So, he’s been great.
“I’m a big fan and he’s got a great way about him. I think he’s very smart. He loves the Celtics. He didn’t take over at the easiest of times when you talk about the second apron issues that we talked about the other day and Tatum’s injury and everything else. But he’s so level-headed and he’s got such a good way about him. I’m really excited to have him around.”
Wyc Grousbeck will remain team governor until 2028, when the second and final part of the sale is completed for 49 percent of the franchise. This week, Chisholm’s group will purchase 51 percent of the franchise once the deal is approved by the league.
Stevens emphasized last week that Chisholm has instructed the front office to emphasize basketball assets and retooling the roster over luxury tax concerns when asked about potentially starting the process of resetting the repeater tax this season.
“I think there’s value in those things, obviously,” Stevens said. “You weigh those values and and the people at the top have to ultimately make those decisions, but it’s been pretty clear and Bill has been pretty clear from the get-go that he wants to make sure that we’re prioritizing basketball assets and the ability to retool this thing at the highest level that we can. Again, the most important acquisition that we’re going to be able to make in the next couple of years is getting Tatum out of a boot, right? We’re not beating that one, so that’s going to be the best thing that can happen for us. Everything else we wanna — we have most of our first round picks still other than the 2029 one.
“We have a lot of second [round picks] now so we have some flexibility there and we wanna just — we don’t want to take away our chance to use those to become the best that we can be over the next few years just to make a move to help save money. I think that that’s been very clearly stated to me. We’ll continue to look at how we can make things a little bit better or tweak things around the edges and maybe something comes up in the next couple weeks, but that’s been our mindset.”
The Celtics are currently projected to be in the luxury tax for the fourth straight season in 2025-26 with their roster.
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