Basketball: the main stories of 19.09.2026

The buyers who took the Lakers off Mark Walter in July at a $12.5bn valuation got a club that, by Bloomberg's account, was only purchasable because the league had quietly rewritten who may own one: the rule change on investment vehicles let Josh Kushner's Thrive Eternal stack its money behind his own bid. The Wall Street Journal has since set out what the new owners intend to do with the asset — cut the brokers out of ticket sales and lift the average price by close to 70% inside 2 years. Kushner's company has been telling investors it expects the franchise to reach $30bn within 10 years, and the route to that figure runs through the gate, not the roster. The people who will notice first sit in the building.

Brian Windhorst spent the day on three teams at once. He does not accept that the Jaylen Brown sale has finished Boston, putting them at a 5th or 6th best record this regular season — a day earlier ESPN's three-year power rankings still had them in the top three — and Brad Stevens, asked about the same summer, called the roster smart, versatile and deep. On the champions he was less warm: talks with Karl-Anthony Towns are going nowhere, which lands in the same week that Ben Golliver set out why New York's three-point numbers look unrepeatable. He also expects Houston to move someone, now or within a year.

• Kelsey Mitchell scored 33 in Indiana's 103-85 win over Toronto and now holds the WNBA single-season scoring record; the same night Breanna Stewart's 24 in a 93-81 win over Minnesota took her past Sue Bird into 9th all-time.
• Detroit gave Osar Thompson 5 years and $155m; Shams Charania names Brandon Miller as the next of the 2023 class to sign early.
• Miami and Pelle Larsson agreed 4 years at $60m, with a mutual option on 2030/31.
• Lokomotiv-Kuban, who beat CSKA 90-82 on Friday, meet Igokea for a VTB Super Cup final place; Anadolu Efes play UNIKS in the other tie, having plainly not travelled to Moscow to make up the numbers.
• Dario Šarić, back at Efes a decade and two EuroLeague titles later, says the club now has a different body language.
• The French federation rejected Monaco's emergency appeal, closing off the third division.
• Venice beat Derthona 98-90 and Milan saw off Virtus in the Italian Super Cup semi-finals; Real face Olympiacos in the first EuroLeague Super Cup final tonight.
• Brett Siegel reports Tyrese Haliburton is fully fit after a lost season with a torn Achilles.
• Roma Maxima took Hunter Tyson from the Denver system; Nick Johnson, 33, joined Split.
• Phoenix signed and waived David Stockton on an Exhibit 10; New Orleans did the same with Marquis Nowell, back from Baskonia.
• Payton Watson says James Harden pushed for his move to Cleveland.
• Gleb Firsov, at Lokomotiv-Kuban from Parma, names first place as the target; Gary Payton wants Kevin Durant back in Seattle when the franchise returns.
• Dallas host Phoenix and Atlanta play Chicago in the WNBA tonight.