If Irv passes before the 1st closing, maybe he doesn't have to?
If Irv passes Real Soon Now, he and Anne inherit (I imagine), but then they have an immediate taxable event with a massive bill and probably equally massive litigation over it once the IRS takes a look, the NBA wants to avoid the whole mess, and Anne (so Red Averages says) wants to get out of the whole business anyway since it's not her passion. But suppose that gets resolved somehow - he then, as the team's Governor, still has to somehow manage the necessary cashflow injection of the coming luxury tax bills. We know he doesn't have the outside sources of cash to do so. He might be able to issue new shares to Pags to get him to cover it, but it's possible doing so would make Pags the new majority owner. But the sale now actually solves several problems at once:
1. Team cashflow for luxury tax
2. Anne wants out
3. Minimize estate-tax / gift-tax planning
4. What valuation would you issue new shares at anyway, and would Pags like it, and would the NBA clear it? Would that result in a change of control?
...while still giving him a chance to continue as Governor, at least for a while. So yeah, in theory he could still end up a minority partner here and continue on in ownership, as is his passion. But without Irv owning the majority stake and letting Wyc manage the team without actually owning it, he doesn't have the juice to keep doing that. So if Irv decides he needs to sell, Wyc is no longer really in a position to move ahead. He probably
could, if he really, really insisted on it and talked his dad into it. But it's cleaner to do it this way, and the process doesn't have to result in him being turfed out entirely, not necessarily.
Irv clearly knows that him passing right now would mean chaos for Celtics ownership. So selling right now is, in his view, the correct thing to do. Wyc is just managing the PR and natural consequences from that decision, while Irv remains behind-the-scenes. And I have to say, I don't recall seeing Irv in person at the moment of triumph for his $5B+ asset, nor at the parade. You'd think that a majority owner, even one that is very hands-off, would at least show face for that and enjoy some of it. So my conclusion is, Irv probably isn't well enough to travel to see the team, even in a moment like this. Who knows what his personal timeline is like, but it can't be all that pretty a picture, imo.