For a supposed non-basketball country, Saudi Arabia sure knows how to full-court press

It's not yet clear how much interest the Saudis have in the business of basketball, but we saw in one day their potential to unsettle the NBA more than any rival has since the days of the ABA

For the first time in 13 years, J.J. Watt did not have an NFL training camp to attend in late July.

So Watt found another target to rush in after Monday, taking to Twitter or X or whatever we're now supposed to call that buzzy social media platform where NBA news is typically first disseminated to ask a question that countless basketball stars surely have a sudden yearning to ask, too.

"Saudi Arabia interested in American football by chance @FabrizioRomano?" Watt wrote.

Watt's query, posed to my fellow Substacker and ace world soccer newsbreaker

Fabrizio Romano

, came in response to the worldwide rush of headlines about the Al Hilal football club in Saudi Arabia offering PSG star Kylian Mbappé a one-year deal worth a reported $776 million.

Answer: They currently do not and presumably will not care much about gridiron football in the Arabian Peninsula any time soon. Soccer is the only football played in the Middle East ... something I suspect that the very soccer-savvy Watt, who has taken on a minority ownership role at Burnley of the English Premier League as a key element of his post-playing career, instinctively knows.

They very much do, however, have a professional basketball league in Saudi Arabia.

And given the widespread interest that a number of NBA stars also expressed on Twitter or X (or whatever it's called) in Mbappé's very lucrative offer, I think we can safely conclude that the Saudis have likewise quickly gained the attention of numerous hoopers and Adam Silver's Olympic Tower office in Manhattan and all sorts of constituents throughout #thisleague like never before.

Romano, for the record, subsequently reported that the offer from Al Hilal to purchase Mbappé from PSG actually calls for the dynamic 24-year-old French striker to be paid closer to $220 million for the coming season — with additional money to be paid through commercial licensing deals.

By then, though, visions of an annual salary approaching $800 million had already generated a slew of awestruck public reactions from some prominent NBA figures:

All of this Mbappé-related hoopla demanded three instant reactions from me on this Newsletter Tuesday:

Concern about the optics of doing sports business with the Saudis appears to be on the wane.

It was roughly a year ago, you'll recall, that TNT's Charles Barkley faced a good amount of criticism for meeting with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour about a potential broadcasting job.

Barkley ended the talks with LIV before an offer was made, but there was little comparative "blowback" Monday — to use a term The Chuckster acknowledged he was bracing for in July 2022 — when Giannis and LeBron and Draymond so enthusiastically tweeted about taking the Saudis' money.

Was that because the idea of top-level NBA players leaving #thisleague to play in faraway Riyadh feels so far-fetched at this juncture and is thus easy to joke about?

Or was it, as I believe, because the influx of Saudi wealth into so many different sports worldwide has become so normalized?

In addition to the PGA Tour's stunning June merger with LIV, we’ve seen a flurry of superstar signings made by Saudi soccer clubs already in 2023 to import the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, N'Golo Kanté, Riyad Mahrez, Jordan Henderson and, as a manager, Steven Gerrard.

It doesn’t take much, after reading those names, to wonder if big-time basketball will be next.

This conversation, until now, had always focused on the prospect of the Saudis buying their way into the NBA through team ownership ... but the proverbial goalposts might have just moved.

We've written multiple times already this year about the NBA's growing presence in the United Arab Emirates, which has extended to include USA Basketball's three-team exhibition series in Abu Dhabi next month alongside Greece and Germany as a warm-up event for the FIBA World Cup.

Silver said last year, when the NBA staged its first-ever exhibition games in Abu Dhabi, that it’s “important to us [as a league] that we create a permanent presence in the region.”

(Full disclosure: My favorite soccer team for more than 40 years, newly crowned Champions League winners Manchester City, has been owned by an investment company for the Abu Dhabi royal family since September 2008 and has faced many of the same criticisms that the NBA now faces because the UAE has criminalized the LGBTQ+ community and is rife with “significant human rights issues” according to a report in 2020 from the United States Department of State.)

Then in June, mere months after those exhibition games, Washington became the first NBA team to cash in on new NBA rules that allow a sovereign wealth fund from abroad to purchase a minority share of up to 20 percent in NBA franchises. The Wizards sold a 5% stake to the Qatar Investment Authority and similar interest from the Saudis is widely regarded as an inevitability. The Saudis' Public Investment Fund that created LIV Golf has used its seemingly limitless spending power to transform Newcastle United into a Champions League team in a span of less than two seasons since buying the Premier League club.

Silver said during summer league that he does not expect the rules changing in the foreseeable future to allow a sovereign wealth fund to acquire majority control of an NBA team. Yet it's not difficult to the imagine that the Saudis not only harbor such aspirations but, after seeing the way so many marquee NBA stars have reacted to a mere reported offer to Mbappé, will start to ask themselves if they should be trying to lure actual players to their unheralded league.

The NBA hasn't faced true competition for its top talent since the ABA in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Pretty much all of the world's best players play in #thisleague in this sport — unlike international soccer and its distribution of stars into leagues all over the globe. A certain Lionel Messi, as we've just seen, turned down a reported $1.6 billion (yes, with a B) over three years from Al Hilal to sign with Inter Miami of Major League Soccer.

The Saudis could be the ones to truly change that dynamic in the NBA. Rest assured that they will not be dissuaded by their inability to land Messi or Mbappé's apparent lack of interest in spending a season with Al Hilal before making the move he wants to Spanish giants Real Madrid. They have already broken through in golf, boxing, Formula 1 and WWE wrestling and are sure to keep pursuing the starriest possible names in world soccer amid a belief that they will soon start trying to spend their way into tennis as well. Rest assured, again, that they will not ignore the absolute stir among NBA stars sparked by their mere pursuit of Mbappé.

The Saudi government has been accused of trying to use splashy sports investments as a means to divert attention from claims by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that it denies equal rights for women and girls as well as practicing other forms of repression. The government has also been accused of killing Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018.

In a June interview with The Dan Patrick Show, when asked about the looming PGA/LIV merger, Silver described the prospect of U.S. sports’ leagues and associations doing business with the Saudi, UAE and Qatari governments as a "two-edged sword."

“When the Saudis invest in sports, it gets outsized attention,” Silver said. “Now, I don’t want to complain about that, because we want to get outsized attention. On the other hand, somebody could go down the list there. They are investors in some of our largest American corporations. Some of the most well-known brands have investments from them.

“I hear the comments about sportswashing. On the other hand, you’re talking about it, others are talking about it. … The soccer World Cup brought enormous attention to Qatar. I think people learn about these countries, learn about what’s happening in the world in ways they otherwise wouldn’t. So I think the media does its job.

“… Now talking specifically about the NBA, where we’re such a global sport, I think people are a little too dismissive these days about the benefits that come from the commonality around sports. That with a sport like basketball — our Finals are distributed virtually everywhere in the world [and] the sport is played everywhere in the world — it’s an opportunity to bring people together.”

Closer to home: There is already considerable frustration circulating among some NBA players and agents about the new collective bargaining agreement and how it threatens to squeeze the league's middle class while also shortening deals for numerous players. Seeing the sorts of figures that are being thrown at athletes in sports that don't operate with a salary cap is bound to only exacerbate those frustrations.

NBA players are not exactly struggling.

The average salary in the league has risen to nearly $12 million.

Boston’s Jaylen Brown, meanwhile, on Tuesday agreed to a five-year, $304 million contract extension that (for now) ranks as the richest contract in league history.

A considerable amount of angst is nonetheless said to be bubbling among the NBA’s non-stars, who have quickly learned that, say, those same Celtics likely won’t have much to spend on the bulk of the roster in this new landscape once Brown and Jayson Tatum both possess contract extensions that exceed $300 million — with Tatum’s new deal en route next summer. The considerable team-building restrictions that will be imposed on teams that stray into second apron territory — meaning $17.5 million past the luxury-tax line — has already begun to curtail offseason spending on role players.

Minnesota’s Austin Rivers, who also is now podcasting for The Ringer, gave a voice to those frustrations last week when he blasted the new labor agreement as “top heavy” and “a joke,” asserting that players in today’s NBA “either make $50 million or $2 [million].”

The Phoenix Suns have four players scheduled to make at least $30 million next season … and everyone else on the roster will be making $3.2 million or less. As for free agency this summer: So far only Toronto has used its full $12.4 million midlevel exception on one player to sign Dennis Schröder away from the Los Angeles Lakers on a two-year deal valued at $25.4 million. The Raptors, mind you, did so only after Fred VanVleet signed a three-year, $128.5 million contract with the Houston Rockets in which Year 3 is a team option.

Yet there’s a reason that some of the NBA’s best-compensated players who are seemingly flourishing in the new system couldn’t resist chiming in on the Mbappé story. In a salary-capped league, there are severe limits on their earnings, too. This tweet from Clutch Points on Monday noted that, if Mbappé actually did land a one-year deal worth $776 million, that would exceed how much the top 17 NBA players will be paid next season. Combined.

You think James, even in his 21st NBA season and approaching his 39th birthday in December, would be content with next season’s $47.6 million from the Lakers if it falls more than $700 million short of Mbappé’s take?

Right.

We’ve only just begun to talk about Saudi Arabia and the NBA.

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Prayers for Bronny 🙏

Let’s go no further without joining the considerable chorus of best wishes for a speedy recovery to Bronny James.

The incoming USC freshman — LeBron James' 18-year-old son — suffered a cardiac arrest Monday during a workout on campus. Bronny was listed in stable condition after a brief stay in the intensive care unit, according to a James family spokesman.

Scary and sad don’t even begin to describe this news bulletin.

The family said in a statement: "Yesterday while practicing, Bronny James suffered a cardiac arrest. Medical staff was able to treat Bronny and take him to the hospital. He is now in stable condition and no longer in the ICU. We ask for respect and privacy for the James family and we will update media when there is more information. LeBron and Savannah wish to publicly send their deepest thanks and appreciation to the USC medical and athletic staff for their incredible work and dedication to the safety of their athletes.”

As LeBron proudly pointed out in May when his son chose to attend USC over scholarship offers from Ohio State and Oregon, Bronny is the "first one out of the James Gang to go to college."

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Numbers Game

🏀 2

There were two former NBA players in Saudi Arabia’s pro basketball league in 2022-23: Devin Ebanks and DeAndre Liggins. (Both are represented by Cleveland-based agent Andy Bountogianis.)

🏀 3

The Hornets made the playoffs just three times and never won a playoff series in Michael Jordan's 13-season ownership reign. 

🏀 6

Charlotte also never finished higher than sixth in the East in the MJ Era and — for all the riches Jordan walks away with now with the franchise valued at $3 billion after its modest purchase price of $275 million in March 2010 — I will never understand how he coped with such mediocrity knowing how competitive he still is.

🏀 338

Boston’s Jayson Tatum is eligible for a five-year contract extension worth an estimated $338 million next summer, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks, after Jaylen Brown secured a five-year, $308 million extension from the Celtics on Tuesday. (PS — Since we’re talking so much about the Saudis on this Newsletter Tuesday, we should note that Brown made a visit to Saudi Arabia in late June that was touted by Saudi basketball officials here.)

🏀 12

Less than two weeks to go now — 12 days to be exact — until the Aug. 6 debut of HBO's second season of "Winning Time." As I wrote in the enclosed heated wrap-up piece after Season 1 of the drama series based on the Showtime Lakers of the 1980: I will be watching no matter how much some of the factual inaccuracies enrage me.

🏀 3

Three very notable names will not play for Serbia at the FIBA World Cup from Aug. 25-Sept. 10: New Oklahoma City signee Vasilije Micić, former LA Clippers guard Miloš Teodosić and a certain Nikola Jokić from the newly crowned NBA champion Denver Nuggets.

🏀 1982

I was super sad Monday to hear that Trevor Francis has died at age 69. Francis was England's first million-pound player at Nottingham Forest, later played for my beloved Manchester City and scored twice for England at the 1982 World Cup — my first World Cup that I was truly dialed into as a fan. He was one of the foremost stars in the world game when I first started falling in love with soccer and I associate him so readily with the era when England, wearing those beautiful Admiral shirts, had what I considered the most enviable national team kit in the world.

Trevor Francis playing against the hosts Spain in the 1982 World Cup. (Getty Images).

🏀 97.1

Readers in the Dallas area — or those who want to listen online — can catch me live for an hour on Saturdays talking NBA on 97.1 The Freak. Saturday Sportsworld debuted on July 1 and can be found via both Apple Podcasts and Spotify.