Canzano: Who's at the wheel of the Trail Blazers sale?
“So much is happening behind the scenes.”
On the same day Tom Dundon agreed to buy the Trail Blazers for more than $4 billion, a 68-year-old convicted felon who lives in Arizona sold more than $33 million in Carvana stock.
It was one of more than a dozen recent stock sale transactions by Ernest Garcia II, the biggest shareholder of the used car e-commerce company. Garcia II has liquidated more than $1 billion in Carvana stock since June, according to SEC filings.
He appears to be gearing up for a big-ticket purchase.
The NBA’s advisory finance committee may soon poke around those stock transactions. They’re also likely to be interested in the activity of Garcia’s son, Ernest Garcia III, the CEO of Carvana.
Garcia III has liquidated $175 million in company stock since late May. Multiple sources say the father-son duo is poised to be a substantial investor in the ownership group that aims to purchase Portland’s NBA team.
The NBA Board of Governors will vote on whether to approve Dundon’s ownership bid. That process is expected to take months. One source told me not to expect news until late in the first quarter of 2026.
Meanwhile, there’s growing curiosity about Dundon’s NBA investment group and questions about the potential involvement of Garcia II. It may explain why Dundon has been recruiting other investors to join his bid.
As one source told me: “So much is happening behind the scenes.”
Garcia II was convicted of criminal fraud in 1990 at the age of 33 for the role he played in the Charles Keating scandal involving Lincoln Savings & Loan. He was sentenced to three years of probation and agreed to cooperate with U.S. government lawyers prosecuting Keating. Garcia II also filed for bankruptcy protection.