The Tom Thibodeau–era Chicago Bulls were a special team, a rockpile collection of asskickers dedicated to playing a rapidly obsolescing style that nonetheless proved extremely effective. Thibs surrounded a young Derrick Rose with a bunch of incredible defenders, most notably avant-garde jump shooter and 2014 Defensive Player of the Year Joakim Noah, in an endearing attempt to win every game 70-57. It didn't quite work, but did earn the Bulls the respect of a nation. I loved those teams, as did the anti–LeBron James bloc, defense enthusiasts, and apparently, according to emails released by the Justice Department a few weeks ago, Jeffrey Epstein.
Unlike many NBA-affiliated people, whom we will get to shortly, Noah himself appears in the emails only as a subject, and only twice. The first time was in 2010, when Eva Dubin—Epstein's ex, friend of Ghislaine Maxwell, and wife of hedge-fund billionaire Glenn Dubin—sent a Real GM article (for the record, this is the only time a RealGM.com URL appears in the files) about Noah's 2010 contract extension to a bunch of people, including Epstein. One of them responded, "He better take care of momma!!"
The reply, along with the decidedly Swedish nomenclature of the partially unredacted list of recipients, is a clue as to why Dubin would care. Both she and Noah's mother Cécilia Rodhe are from Sweden, and they worked as models around the same time, with Rodhe being named Miss Sweden in 1978, two years before Dubin won the award in 1980. The pair appear to have been friendly enough for Rodhe to have sent an email in 2018 (in Swedish) that reads "Eva needs a good doctor for a family friend who is not feeling well. Jeffrey lives in Paris."
Seven years later, Epstein sent an ESPN.com link around about Joakim Noah's 20-game suspension for PEDs. Dubin, in her reply, confirms that she spoke to Noah. We don't know who else Epstein sent the link to, though someone with a redacted email address wrote back "Took testosterone."
Unlike the case of RealGM.com (by far the ball-knower-ier choice), the 2017 PED story is not the only ESPN.com link that shows up in the files, nor is it the only ESPN.com story concerning an all-star center from an Eastern Conference team. At 3:29 a.m. on March 31, 2019, someone emailed Epstein a link to an ESPN story about Kristaps Porzingis being accused of rape, noting that Porzingis's attorneys reported an alleged extortion attempt before the accusation became public and writing, "It is potentially a double edged sword but it is definitely one move to consider."
Several hours later, Epstein sent the link to someone asking if they had "an investigator you trust." After a back and forth, Epstein says that he wants someone to look into an accuser's digital footprint.
One of the first things I did upon release of the latest tranche of Epstein emails was search the names of every NBA owner (TrueHoop's guide here is great). Apollo Global Management co-founder and Sixers co-owner Josh Harris is in there, which is not too surprising given that one of his co-founders is Leon Black, who paid Epstein $158 million for "tax advice." Harris and Epstein corresponded several times between 2013 and 2016, and a spokesperson for Harris told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Harris sought to limit Epstein's business ties to Apollo. In 2014, Epstein emailed Black's executive assistant Melania Spinella about an unspecified and unelaborated-upon payment from Harris.
Another NBA figure whose name pops up is Tom McMillen, the ninth overall pick in the 1974 NBA Draft, Olympian, and former U.S. House member. Late last year, Pablo Torre confronted McMillen about why he was, for example, asking about setting up a meeting with Epstein in 2013.
Finally, David Stern is all over the emails, though it's not former NBA commissioner David Stern. The David Stern in the emails is a Franco-German businessman who was in tight with Epstein and Prince Andrew (well, now just regular Andrew). I bring this up to note something to be careful with as it pertains to using Jmail to search through the emails. Jmail is a decent simulacrum of the Gmail interface and has earned tons of praise, though in the case of Stern, something odd happened where the following email address pops up only on Jmail.
In all the relevant Justice Department files, the email address is redacted, but subsequent replies make clear that, despite the "david.stern@nba.com" in the above screenshot, Epstein is not referring Mandelson to the former NBA commissioner: For example, the Franco-German businessman David Stern emailed Mandelson a few days later saying it was nice to meet him. So while the prospect of the former NBA commissioner meeting the now-arrested Peter Mandelson for coffee (or, as Mandelson jokes in reply, green tea) is eyebrow-raising, it's definitely not him. Best guess: Jmail used some kind of AI vibe coding–style stuff here, and it got its Davids Stern wrong.
