Investigative sports journalist Pablo Torre claims that Memphis Grizzlies majority owner Robert Pera threatened to buy out the team’s minority owners because a woman thought Justin Timberlake owned the team.
Torre spoke about Pera’s hilarious alleged threat while on The Dan Le Batard Show in an episode about the team owner’s potential ties to the Russia and Ukrainian War.
“He was once told by a woman he met one night that he, in fact, was not the owner of the Memphis Grizzlies because she read that Justin Timberlake was the owner,” said Torre around the 1:17 mark. “(Pera) was so mad that he threatened to buy out the rest of the minority owners, because how embarrassing it is to be the guy, only for Timberlake to get your shine.”
Pera reportedly bought the Grizzlies in 2012 at a $377 million valuation. Timberlake joined the list of owners that same year. Since he’s a Memphis native, Timberlake has made courtside appearances over the years to the point that fans now see him as an important part of the team.
Elsewhere on the show, reporter Sam Koppelman spoke about a six-month investigation that reportedly uncovered ties between Pera’s tech company, Ubiquiti, and Russian military units operating in Ukraine. “What this American company is doing is helping power Russia’s communications grid,” Koppelman said. “And what experts told us is that this enables precision drone attacks against Ukrainian civilians. The types of massacres of innocent people that the UN has called crimes against humanity.”
“We actually spoke to a Ukrainian soldier currently in the war zone who told us at Hunterbrook that without ubiquity, these drones from Russia, the ones leading to these massacres, they would not work. Quote, they’d be flying blind,” he added.
