{"id":590483,"date":"2026-06-03T21:36:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T21:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/590483\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T21:36:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T21:36:13","slug":"and-ones-seattle-murray-canada-aspiration-extensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/590483\/","title":{"rendered":"And-Ones: Seattle, Murray, Canada, Aspiration, Extensions"},"content":{"rendered":"

In addition to announcing that Melinda French Gates is joining the Seattle Kraken\u2019s ownership group as a minority investor, Samantha Holloway, the majority owner of the NHL team, confirmed that she\u2019s assembling a group that will make a bid for an NBA franchise based in Seattle, writes Emily Kaplan of ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Holloway also pointed out that the Kraken\u2019s ownership group has strengthened its case to bring the NBA to Seattle by acquiring a majority stake in Climate Pledge Arena, where the Kraken and the WNBA\u2019s Seattle Storm play.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe City of Seattle certainly could use an NBA team, and the fans here are ready for it,\u201d Holloway said. \u201cIf that happens, they will all buy their Kraken friends beers because it wouldn\u2019t happen without them. So we are hopeful, we are working on it, and stay tuned.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have more odds and ends from around the basketball world:<\/p>\n

Exploring at greater length why Jamal Murray<\/a> isn\u2019t expected to play<\/a> for the Canadian national team in international competition anytime soon, Josh Lewenberg of TSN.ca<\/a> explains that Canada Basketball was seeking three-year commitments from its players, and the Nuggets guard wasn\u2019t able to commit to being available for each of the next three summers. \u201cIf guys don\u2019t commit this summer, they\u2019re not in,\u201d new national team coach Gordon Herbert said. \u201cWhen I was with Germany, we had six or seven NBA guys and three guys didn\u2019t come, they didn\u2019t want to come. All of sudden they wanted to come (in) year two. Sorry. You can\u2019t be successful in anything without commitment, in my opinion.\u201d
\nJoseph Sanberg, the co-founder of the now-bankrupt green banking company Aspiration, was sentenced this week to 14 years in federal prison, writes Baxter Holmes of ESPN<\/a>. Judge Stephen V. Wilson described Sanberg as \u201cgreedy, brazen, callous\u201d and said he would \u201cput the grade of his fraud at the zenith,\u201d as Holmes relays. Kawhi Leonard<\/a>\u2018s sponsorship deal with Aspiration and Steve Ballmer\u2018s investment in the company are at the center of the NBA\u2019s investigation into possible salary cap circumvention by the Clippers. In advance of his sentencing, the league said in a letter to Wilson that Sanberg \u201csubstantially assisted<\/a>\u201d its probe, while Ballmer\u2019s attorneys advocated against leniency for the Aspiration co-founder, writing that Sanberg \u201cflagrantly defrauded\u201d the Clippers owner.
\nSpurs big man Victor Wembanyama<\/a> is the only player eligible for a rookie scale extension who is likely to sign a maximum-salary contract this offseason, in the view of Keith Smith of Spotrac<\/a>. However, Smith \u2013 projecting possible deals for each member of the 2023 draft class \u2013 view Hornets forward Brandon Miller<\/a> (five years, $200MM), Rockets guard Amen Thompson<\/a> (five years, $185MM), and Jazz guard Keyonte George<\/a> (four years, $152MM) as strong candidates for lucrative extensions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In addition to announcing that Melinda French Gates is joining the Seattle Kraken\u2019s ownership group as a minority…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[53487,65700,5,3976,17992,51400,4188,4,3134,2686,234,5318,32115,27666],"class_list":["post-590483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-seattle-kraken","tag-amen-thompson","tag-brandon-miller","tag-hockey","tag-jamal-murray","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-keyonte-george","tag-kraken","tag-nhl","tag-samantha-holloway","tag-seattle","tag-seattle-kraken","tag-seattlekraken","tag-steve-ballmer","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116688334643407866","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}