The Lewis family, who own Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur, are exploring a bid for the NBA Europe team in London.

It would represent a foray into other sports for the family, who have owned Spurs since Joe Lewis acquired a controlling stake in 2001. The Lewis family own 70.12 per cent of ENIC, Tottenham’s parent company, which in turn owns 87.62 per cent of the club. They are primarily represented by Vivienne Lewis, Joe Lewis’s daughter, and Nick Beucher, Vivienne’s son-in-law and co-chief executive officer of Tavistock Group.

Joe Lewis ceased to be a person of “significant control” at Tottenham in October 2022. In 2024, he pled guilty to insider trading and was fined $5million by a New York judge, before being given a presidential pardon by President Donald Trump the following year.

The Lewises are part of a consortium alongside two other families with experience in sports investment. One of these is the Checketts family, who have previously owned MLS team Real Salt Lake and the NHL’s St. Louis Blues. David Checketts, a businessman and executive from Salt Lake City, Utah previously served as general manager of the Utah Jazz and president of the New York Knicks in the NBA.

Also part of the proposed bid is the Eccles family, who, like the Checketts family, are investors in English second-tier team Burnley and Spanish club Espanyol, and also invested in venues, facilities and events for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, and the upcoming 2034 games in Utah.

NBA Europe, organised by the NBA and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), is a proposed basketball league made up of European franchises that is slated to begin in 2027. It is set to be made up of 12 permanent teams, plus four sides that qualify on an annual basis.

London has been earmarked as one of the league’s 12 target cities, alongside Manchester, Paris, Lyon, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Munich, Athens, Istanbul, Rome and Milan.

The Athletic reported that American technology billionaire Nikesh Arora, leader of consortium that purchased English cricket’s most lucrative franchise in the Hundred competition, has assembled a consortium of investors prepared to offer more than $1billion (£740million) for the London team.

Battersea Power Station’s undeveloped estate has also been touted as a potential arena for the franchise.

Under the Lewis family, Tottenham have regularly recorded finishes in the top half and top six of the Premier League, qualifying for the Champions League through their league position on six occasions and finishing as high as second in 2017. However, silverware has been hard to come by, with just two trophies during ENIC’s tenure: the 2007-08 League Cup and the 2024-25 Europa League.

Nick Beucher (left) alongside Vivienne Lewis and club CEO Vinai Venkatesham (Ian Kington / AFP via Getty Images)

The team finished 17th last season for the second year in a row, narrowly avoiding relegation, prompting the family to issue a rare statement.

“The problems we found were deeper than we realised and were allowed to build over the last few years,” the family said at the end of the season.

“We know that has eroded trust and we have to win that back. As owners, we take ultimate responsibility for the situation in which the club finds itself.”

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Fever vs. Sky … and all that ensued

Blink, and the play was over. But we’re still talking about it.

In the final two minutes of the first quarter of Saturday’s Fever-Sky matchup, Sophie Cunningham and Tyasha Harris trapped Sky center Elizabeth Williams in the corner and forced a turnover. Monique Billings made an outlet pass to Cunningham in the fastbreak with an open lane to the rim, but as she elevated, the Sky’s DiJonai Carrington attempted to block her shot and instead took her out by her head and neck.

From purely a basketball standpoint, this foul was exactly what officials said it was: a Flagrant 2. Carrington was subsequently ejected, and what followed was another politicized moment in the WNBA.

Minutes after heading to the locker room, Carrington posted on Threads, saying, “White Privilege” and tagged the Fever.

The fact is, this was simply a bad basketball play, and should be treated as such. 

Allow me to cite the NBA for a moment. Charlotte Hornets guard Grayson Allen has a reputation in the league as being a dirty player after countless examples of making overly physical plays on the ball. But there was one example from the 2021-22 season in which he took out then-Bulls guard Alex Caruso, who was midair on a fastbreak layup, that is somewhat similar to Carrington’s play on Cunningham. Allen was called for a Flagrant 2, ejected and subsequently suspended one game. In the weeks that followed, Allen received a smattering of public scrutiny because many believed he broke an unspoken code that you don’t make an overly aggressive play on the ball with a player in midair, because of the risk of injury.

Why is this relevant now? Because unlike Allen’s play in the NBA, Carrington’s has become about everything but basketball. 

Many WNBA players continue to ask that the league not get politicized, and that the discussion centers around the game itself. Cunningham herself said, “The WNBA media, all we ever do is cover everything except basketball,” in response to a heightened level of reporting on transgender women in sports that followed her public comments on the topic.

However, when these athletes use their platforms to highlight non-basketball related topics, the news cycle will reflect that. 

Since its inception, the WNBA has been a league that embraces advocacy of social issues. But it’s only in recent years that players are experiencing what it means to be part of the mainstream sports landscape.

To be a public figure that takes a public stance means there will be a public response, and that’s what players in the W need to reconcile.

More: The WNBA feels less like a sport and more like a “societal powder keg,” and it’s taking a mind-numbing toll, our Candace Buckner writes.

Is WNBA leadership improving?

In response to the increased discussion around transgender women in the WNBA, commissioner Cathy Engelbert sent a memo to team presidents, general managers and coaches last week.

She emphasized a need to approach the topic with integrity and respect, but did not clarify whether trans athletes are allowed to compete in the WNBA. The memo said a task force of presidents and GMs are set to discuss the matter during an upcoming meeting.

But Engelbert has not spoken about it publicly.

In response, many media personnel and fans are once again questioning if Engelbert is the right leader to carry the league through what seems to be a recurring PR crisis. However, this appears to be the first time this season that Engelbert has taken a proactive approach to a league-wide matter of this magnitude.

Where do you guys stand on Engelbert? What would you like to see from her? Let us know in the comments below, or at NoOffseason@theathletic.com.

Fast Breaks

📈 Mystics up, Mercury down. See who else is trending which way in our latest power rankings.

🧠 Speaking of Phoenix, was acquiring star Kelsey Plum wise or risky? Fortune favors the bold, but it could go terribly wrong.

🏀 Caitlin Clark was suspended after her eighth technical foul of the season … for a few hours, at least. It was quickly rescinded.

🏙️ The Liberty waived Betnijah Laney-Hamilton. The Mystics were then awarded the 32-year-old forward off waivers.

🎙️ The “No Offseason” podcast crew breaks down Carrington’s ejection and the political climate of the league. Plus, is load management a necessary evil? Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Team USA: Star-filled World Cup roster, and a snub?

USA Basketball released its roster for the upcoming World Cup, which will be held in Berlin from Sept. 4 to 13, and it’s full of names that every fan will recognize.

Clark, Paige Bueckers, Aliyah Boston and Angel Reese are making their debuts for the senior national team, chasing its fifth consecutive world championship.

There is never a U.S. national team roster selection without controversy, and the omission of Sabrina Ionescu — who represented the USA at each of the last two major international tournaments — raised some eyebrows. But the talent pool in American basketball is too deep to accommodate everyone, and it will only get harder for new managing director Sue Bird to make these roster decisions.

There could be a secondary USA team with Ionescu, Olivia Miles, Kelsey Mitchell, Veronica Burton, Marina Mabrey, Sonia Citron, Allisha Gray, Kiki Iriafen, Dearica Hamby, Cameron Brink, Shakira Austin and Brionna Jones. Those 12 would compete with any other squad in the tournament.

The expectation is always gold or bust for Team USA. But as France proved at the Paris Olympics, the rest of the world isn’t far behind. You only need 12 players, and the French, Germans and Belgians (just to name a few) have enough to present a challenge, even against a group as stacked as the Americans.

Numbers Game

16: Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell set a WNBA record by scoring at least 20 points in 16 straight games, breaking the previous mark set by A’ja Wilson in 2024. During these 16 games, Mitchell is averaging 27.6 points while shooting 52 percent from the field and 49 percent on 3s. A couple of friends recently asked me for an NBA comp for Mitchell; when I plugged in her points and 3s per game and effective field-goal percentage into Stathead, I got five Stephen Curry seasons from 2015 to 2023. That’s the level of shooter and scorer Mitchell has been this season.

10: Speaking of shooting, Kayla McBride hit 10 triples to set a single-game record in Minnesota’s win over Dallas this past weekend. McBride is having the most prolific shooting season of her career, and the league is witnessing its highest-ever offensive rating (105.2 points per 100 possessions), field-goal percentage (45.5) and points per game (87.5). It’s cool to see players like McBride, 34, and Mitchell, 30, reach new heights at this stage in their careers.

0: That’s how many minutes A’ja Wilson, Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young combined for in Las Vegas’ nationally-televised rivals-week matchup against New York on Sunday, as the Aces elected to load manage their star trio on the second game of a back-to-back. Las Vegas was in the middle of a stretch of four games in six days in four different cities, and decided to punt the Liberty game, a tactic prominently associated with Aces coach Becky Hammon’s NBA mentor Gregg Popovich. If you’re worried about load management making its way into the WNBA, especially as the regular season extends to 50 games in 2027, don’t fear just yet. No other teams have adopted this tactic, at least not so aggressively with three players, and all three stars have extra incentive to stay healthy ahead of the World Cup next month.

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Adam Ramsay-Peaty was beaten for the first time at a European Aquatics Championships as he finished fifth in the 100m breaststroke final in Paris.

The 31-year-old, who has 16 European Championships golds, had previously never lost a heat, semi-final or final at the event.

Olympic champion Nicolo Martinenghi won the race in 58.58 seconds, with Ivan Kozhakin finishing second and Italy’s Simone Cerasuolo third.

Ramsay-Peaty finished 0.01secs and one place ahead of Great Britain team-mate Filip Nowacki.

The three-time Olympic champion, who is the 100m breaststroke world record holder, said “nothing makes sense” after a disappointing Commonwealth Games last month, where he won two bronze medals.

His time of 59.10 in Paris was 0.55secs faster than at the Commonwealth Games, where he was beaten by 18-year-old Nowacki, who made history for Jersey by claiming gold in the 200m breaststroke in Glasgow.

Elsewhere at the championships, Great Britain’s Katie Shanahan dominated the 200m backstroke to win gold by 1.49secs with a time of two minutes 06.13secs.

The 22-year-old won silver in the same race at the 2022 European Aquatics Championships in Rome.

GB’s Angharad Evans, 23, also claimed a new championship record in the women’s 100m breaststroke semi-final with a time of 1:04.97.