Who are the 3 final bid groups to own NBA’s Las Vegas expansion team?

The modern NBA is all about the 3-pointer.

Fittingly, the owner of the NBA’s Las Vegas expansion team will be chosen from a list of three finalist groups whose bids are estimated at $12 billion to $13 billion for the franchise and a new arena, according to ESPN.

Here is a look at the remaining Las Vegas bid groups.

Nancy Walton Laurie and Bill Laurie

— Walton Laurie, 75, is a Walmart heiress with a net worth of $17.2 billion, according to Forbes. When her father, James “Bud” Walton — who co-founded Walmart with his brother, Sam Walton — died in 1995, she and her sister, Ann Walton Kroenke, inherited a stake in the retail giant that made them billionaires. She and her husband, Bill Laurie, grew up in Versailles, Missouri, began dating when they were students at Memphis State (now University of Memphis) and married a year after graduation. They live in Henderson.

— Laurie, 74, was the starting point guard for Memphis State in its 1973 NCAA championship game loss to UCLA, which was led by Bill Walton’s 44 points on 21-for-22 shooting. Laurie, who is a member of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, is the former owner of the St. Louis Blues. He came up empty on three previous bids to buy an NBA team, failing to acquire the Denver Nuggets in 1999, the Vancouver Grizzlies in 2000 and the Charlotte Hornets in 2001.

Steve Apostolopoulos and Marc Lasry

— Apostolopoulos, 46, a Canadian billionaire, discussed purchasing the Hornets from Michael Jordan in 2023 before focusing on buying the Washington Commanders. He missed out on that bid, as well as one to purchase the Ottawa Senators. A Toronto native who attended Harvard, Apostolopoulos is managing partner of Toronto real estate firm Triple Group of Companies, founder of venture capital firm Six Ventures and co-founder of fintech firm Caary.

— Lasry, 67, was born in Morocco and moved to the U.S. at age 7 with his family. He was co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks when the team won the 2021 NBA title. He sold his stake in the team in 2023 to Cleveland Browns co-owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam at a valuation of $3.5 billion. His net worth is $2.2 billion, according to Forbes.

Bill Foley and Jerry Colangelo

— Foley, 81, owns the Golden Knights, who have advanced to three Stanley Cup Finals in their first nine NHL seasons, winning the 2023 Stanley Cup. The chairman of Fidelity National Financial also owns the English Premier League club AFC Bournemouth. He paid a then-record $500 million in 2016 to purchase the Knights and has a net worth of $2.5 billion, according to Forbes.

— Colangelo, 86, is a former Phoenix Suns owner and member and chairman of the Basketball Hall of Fame. The four-time NBA executive of the year sold the Suns in 2004 for a then-record $401 million, then guided USA Basketball to four Olympic gold medals as managing director from 2005 to 2021. The Las Vegas Jacks group led by Colangelo also includes former Turner Sports president David Levy, NBA player and coach Vinny Del Negro, ESPN basketball analyst Jay Williams and Scott Colangelo, a managing partner at Prime Capital Financial.

If the Foley/Colangelo group wins the bid, plans are for a new arena to be built to house the NBA expansion team, with the Knights still playing at T-Mobile Arena, according to ESPN’s report.