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Christopher Boan has been covering sports and sports betting for more than seven years, including stops at ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.
Top 5 Most Cringe NBA Owners According to Fans
As the NBA 2024-25 season wraps up, BetVirginia.com polled Reddit.com users under r/NBA to see who fans think the top five âmost cringeâ team owners are. We ranked the top five owners based on the total number of votes. Interestingly, the Clippers' Steve Ballmer was viewed as the most âcringeyâ primarily as a result of his âweird celebrationsâ and overall personality.
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Top 5 Most Cringe NBA Team Owners Revealed
Rank | Owner (Team) | Votes |
1 | Steve Ballmer (Clippers) | 31 |
2 | Adelson Family (Mavericks) | 16 |
3 | Vivek Ranadivé (Kings) | 14 |
T4 | Ted Leonsis (Wizards) | 10 |
T4 | James Dolan (Knicks) | 10 |
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Steve Ballmer Tops the List of Cringeworthy NBA Owners
While longtime Wizards owner Ted Leonsis has achieved his fair share of infamy for the Eastern Conference clubâs on-court failings over the years, at least he can say heâs far from the most cringeworthy owner in the 30-team league ... though he did crack the top 5.
That honor belongs to Steve Ballmer of the Los Angeles Clippers, who has been cringeworthy for decades dating back to his days with Microsoft, netting him a laundry list of âcringeâ callouts on social media sites like Reddit over the years. While Ballmer has been far less problematic than the man that preceded him in owning the Tinseltown franchise, that wasnât enough to keep the billionaire tech mogul from ranking atop the NBAâs cringeworthy owners list, with 31 votes in total going towards Ballmer, nearly double that of the next closest ownership group (the Adelson family, with 16 votes, who of course traded away Luke Doncic this past season).
Further down the NBA cringe list, youâll find names like Vivek RanadivĂ© of the Sacramento Kings, who scored 14 votes in total, while Leonsis finished in a tie for fourth with the New York Knicks' James Dolan, with both scoring 10 votes apiece from Reddit voters.
Still, for all of Leonsisâ failings as the owner of D.C.âs professional basketball franchises (including the WNBAâs Washington Mystics), at least the 68-year-old can say heâs far from the most cringeworthy owner in the NBA today, with Ballmer taking home that distinction in 2025.
USA Today photo by Brad Penner.
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