Kohl's Cronies Begin to Fall: Walter and Burr Step Down

Two of former owner Herb Kohl's henchmen have taken their golden parachute in as many days.

It was announced on Tuesday that Ron Walter was stepping down from the position of Executive Vice President of Business Administration that he'd held under Kohl since 1999. 

This is pretty much the first domino to fall in line of dominoes that need to fall. There's really no telling how much of the last 20 years of mediocrity and losing was tied directly to Walter and the rest of Kohl's inner-circle but there certainly wasn't much winning in that time.

According to the story by Don Walker of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Walter had been a law partner at Milwaukee law firm Foley & Lardner before coming to the Bucks and had worked with the Selig family (when they owned the Milwaukee Brewers) as far back as 1992. 

Incidentally, 1992 was the last winning season for the Brewers before they became the laughing-stock of Major League Baseball from '92 until 2007 when they finally saw another winning season. Remember when the Brewers would trot out a lineup that included the likes of Jack Voigt, Matt Mieske and Jesse Levis? When they had no one (outside of Jeff Cirillo) even sniff a .300 batting average? 

I'm not saying, I'm just saying, he might have been involved in some of those decisions.

Anyway, as a member of the Bucks' front office, he said his best accomplished was joining forces with Kohl to help enact a league-wide revenue sharing plan to help small market franchises compete with the larger markets.

That's really great, guys. However, how well did they end up using said revenue sharing plan? 

Who's next?

Gery Woelfel tweeted out on Tuesday that Mike Burr could be the next of Kohl's lap dogs to take his golden parachute.

As expected, VP Ron Walter is leaving Bucks. Is another long-time Herb Kohl crony, CFO Mike Burr, next?
— Gery Woelfel (@GeryWoelfel) June 17, 2014

Then, on Wednesday, Woelfel took a victory lap and confirmed that Burr will indeed be searching for greener pastures himself.

Yesterday, I hinted Mike Burr, Bucks CFO and Kohl crony, could be leaving Bucks? Told today, he is indeed moving on.
— Gery Woelfel (@GeryWoelfel) June 18, 2014

It would appear that there are two remaining "cronies" are John Steinmiller and Theodore Loehrke. However, Steinmiller's son, John Steinmiller, Jr. announced via Twitter that he and his wife took new jobs were moving to Arizona. Steinmiller, Jr. had worked in the Brewers' PR department for the last several years.

Does this mean that Steinmiller, Sr. could be joining him out in the desert? I wouldn't count on it but I also wouldn't rule out him being the next to go.

As far as the basketball side of the organization, Lasry and Edens have been fairly coy about their intentions especially when asked about the fates of GM John Hammond and head coach Larry Drew. 

They've been adamant that they're working with Hammond on the draft and not necessarily promising anything after that. However, the longer this drags on, it would appear that the basketball side might make it out to see next year. 

While I'd be disappointed to see Drew retained, I could talk myself into being bad again next year for another high draft pick.

P.S. As I'm writing this, news breaks that Joel Embiid might have broken his foot. I'm glad the Bucks have the #2 pick so we're at least guaranteed one of Wiggins or Parker. We'll see what happens next Thursday night when the draft gets underway.

Lasry & Edens: A New Hope

We've had about a week now to digest the full transfer of ownership from long-time owner, former Senator Herb Kohl to New York based billionaires Marc Lasry and Wes Edens. I'll hopefully get into more detail later about these guys' comments later but I'll just say that the arrows are definitely pointing up with these two gentlemen.

The sale isn't officially approved by the NBA's Board of Governers yet but commissioner Adam Silver has stated that he doesn't foresee any issues with the sale. 

Full disclosure: I went out and celebrated the ownership transfer last Wednesday night (after Charlie and I attended the final game of the Herb Kohl era), because I had to. It was perhaps a bit too much in the end but it happens. 

Now that that's out of the way, I must first pay tribute to one Herb Kohl. While he was very unsuccessful during his 25+ years of ownership, Kohl has single-handedly ensured that we've had NBA basketball in the 414 for the past 25+ years and (hopefully) for the next 30+ years. I cannot deny him of that fact. However, during the standing ovation the BC crowd that I was a part of last Wednesday gave, I had my fingers crossed a bit. It was almost like a "thank you, Herb, you son of a bitch" type ovation, at least from me.

The fact that he was really doing his best to drive the franchise into the ground by his constant push for the eight seed in the East had grown absolutely tired and the entire fanbase was completely sick of it. With these new owners, I have to believe the black veil that Kohl had over this franchise has been lifted.

One thing Herb did that may prove to be invaluable, is the provision in the contract that if a new arena deal isn't at least in place by November 2017. This should force the owners, who seem like highly competitive guys, to get the ball rolling as soon as they can. It should also prevent them from pulling a half-hearted attempt at an arena and then throwing their hands up and moving the team to wherever they please.

However, no matter how much young talent this franchise had accumulated over the past 12 months, it was still owned by Herb Kohl and the guise that he/they would do something stupid to screw up the foundation, was always there. Now, given the new billionaire owners, a new arena on the horizon and some young talent, Milwaukee might not be the wasteland of the NBA that it has seemed to be over the last approximately ten years.

Kohl flanked on the left by Edens and the right by Lasry

Who are these new guys?

Marc Lasry and Wesley Edens are each worth over a billion dollars. They are hedge-fund managers based in New York City.

Lasry is the co-founder and CEO of Avenue Capital Group and actually bought the penthouse at the top of the 55 Central Park West in Manhattan, commonly known as the "Ghostbusters Building". He has been a highly successful businessman in his life but while I can't find anything, I've heard he doesn't have the cleanest of hands. Let's face it though, you don't get to be a billionaire with out being a King Cobra sometimes. You can't make a cake without breaking a few eggs, if you will.

Edens is worth a little more than Lasry and is the one with a few ties to the state of Wisconsin. He stated in the introductory press conference that his mother was raised and educated in the state and he also employs approximately 700 people in the state.

He is the co-founder and co-chair of Fortress Investment Group, Inc. and has a bachelor of Arts and Sciences from Oregon State working against him (I'm a Ducks guy).

As I previously stated, some of these guys' initial comments make them seem genuine about keeping the team here and building a championship caliber basketball team and that's really all fans want. I feel a new arena would contribute directly to that idea but the fans will come back in droves if you can just give them hope. With Kohl there was no hope.

In a Q&A with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the two expressed their deep interest in basketball and that they both seem to understand that you need to have the right people in place, especially in management, to be success. That's music to my ears and says that they're not here to just collect the gate profits from making the eight seed in a sh*tty Eastern Conference to get buried by the Miami Heat twice at home. They are basketball fans and they are winners; a potentially great combination.

We'll see who they bring on as front office personnel on both the business and the basketball side. You'd have to think they'd at least consult with Milwaukee Brewers' personnel on what makes them so popular, if not plucking someone from the Brewers' organization to run the business side. That'd be the smart move, in my opinion.

Arena situation

Lasry & Edens are together putting down $100 million toward a new building from the jump. Couple that with Herb Kohl's $100 million he's vowed to leave toward the building and that's $200 million right away, approximately half of what it would take for a state-of-the-art, multi-purpose arena in Milwaukee.

That should be more than enough right? Well, I'm not sure it is. I could see "Ledens" needed to throw down a bit more, possibly Kohl throwing in a bit more (what else is he going to do with it?) and the parties needing to bring in other investors to get this thing entirely privately financed. Lord knows, getting any public funding for what fans think is exclusively an NBA (Bucks) arena is going to be an absolute bitch, but I digress.

The problem I have with a totally privately financed arena is that the city won't get a cut of any profit. The only way the city would then benefit is the bars and restaurants surrounding the new facility thriving.

I genuinely believe they will get this down at this point in time. The two new owners have said they plan on having a deal in place in the next 12-18 months. So if we get into that period and it's still crickets, I'll be worried but for now, I'm alright.

With new owners, Giannis Antetokounmpo and another top pick in the upcoming draft, the future looks a lot brighter than it did just one year ago.