The Minnesota Timberwolves are an on-court phenomenon and an off-court farce.

Driving the news: Team owner Glen Taylor announced that the T-Wolves and WNBA's Minnesota Lynx are no longer for sale, after Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore missed a March 27 deadline for completing their purchase of a control stake.

• Rodriguez and Lore pushed back, saying they "have fulfilled our obligations, have all necessary funding and are fully committed to closing our purchase as soon as the NBA completes its approval process."

Catch up quick: Taylor once viewed Rodriguez and Lore as saviors, two recognizable names who pledged to keep his beloved but beleaguered team in Minnesota.

• He agreed to sell in 2021 via a tranched transaction that began in 2021 and ended in 2024, at a $1.5 billion valuation.
• But relations are said to have soured over the past year, to the point that Taylor didn't give Rodriguez or Lore a heads-up about yesterday's announcement. Even though they already own nearly 40% of the team.
• It's unclear how much of the strain was caused by Taylor's belief that the pair weren't living up to their obligations, his concerns about their financing, or seller's remorse as the club improved and NBA franchise values soared. You might recall that Carlyle had been prepared to back Rodriguez and Lore at a $2.3 billion valuation, before failing to get NBA approval.

Fast forward: This may come down to the letter of the contract vs. spirit of the contract.

• The March 27 deadline was indeed missed, but all of the relevant paperwork was sitting in the league office.
• This included a financing commitment from Blue Owl (fka Dyal), which replaced Carlyle. Blue Owl has NBA pre-approval, but a source says that even its deals go through a league diligence process.
• Blue Owl could be in a very uncomfortable situation were Rodriguez and Lore to sue, given that it's part of other NBA ownership groups.

The bottom line: Last week I wrote that Taylor "must be privately praying that Rodriguez and Lore falter." The question now is if lawyers and the league office agree with Taylor that they did.

Sam Bankman-Fried yesterday was sentenced to 25 years behind bars, for his role in defrauding FTX customers, investors, and lenders.

Why it's the BFD: This is the final chapter of crypto and venture capital's most embarrassing story, in which FOMO overtook acumen.

Key moment: Defense attorney Marc Mukasey said: "Sam Bankman-Fried doesn't make decisions with malice in his heart. He makes decisions with math in his head."

• Prosecutor Nicolas Roos countered: "What it says is that if Mr. Bankman-Fried thought the mathematics would justify it, he would do it again."

Reality check: SBF could get out about five years early, if he behaves and gets credit for time served. Either way, he'll be in his 50s.

Go deeper: Axios' Brady Dale, who wrote a book about SBF, was inside the courtroom.

The bottom line: Judge Lewis Kaplan said that in his nearly 30 years on the bench, he'd never seen another defendant be as evasive and disruptive. It makes me wonder how many extra years SBF cost himself, both by his courtroom antics and his almost total lack of contrition.

• Brandtech Group, a marketing tech firm led by ex-Havas CEO David Jones, raised $115m in Series C funding at a $4b valuation, per the FT. Backers include Fimalac, Nendo Labs, Mousse Partners, and the Bansk Group. https://axios.link/3TEr0G2

• Skyflow, a Palo Alto-based data privacy vault, raised $30m in Series B funding led by Khosla Ventures. https://axios.link/43AWykG

• Vizcom, an SF-based industrial design startup, raised $20m in Series A funding led by Index Ventures. https://axios.link/3vnzZnc

• Peaq, a Layer 1 blockchain developer, raised $15m in Series A funding co-led by Generative Ventures and Borderless Capital. www.peaq.network

• TurbineOne, an SF-based provider of government machine learning solutions, raised $15m in Series A funding. Bessemer Venture Partners led, and was joined by The General Partnership and XYZ Ventures, and Pallas Ventures. www.turbineone.com

🚑 Float, an SF-based nurse staffing and pharmacy referral startup, raised $10m in Series A funding. Canvas Ventures led, and was joined by Wave Capital, Y Combinator, Burst Capital, and Also Capital. https://axios.link/4axiCyX

• Midas, a startup bringing real-world assets onto the blockchain, raised $8.8m co-led by Framework Ventures, BlockTower, and HV Capital. https://axios.link/3IXLp3Y

🌎 Terragia Biofuel, a Hanover, N.H.-based maker of ethanol from waste biomass, raised $6m in seed funding co-led by Engine Ventures and Energy Impact Partners, per Axios Pro. https://axios.link/4acSSYS

🚑 Goodbill, a Seattle-based startup focused on reducing errors in hospital bills, raised $2m from Founders' Co-op, Maveron, and Liquid 2 Ventures. https://axios.link/3TJfp90

• Ayora, a London-based revenue management platform, raised $1.6m in pre-seed funding led by J12 with participation from Twin Path Ventures. https://axios.link/4afgzA6

🌎 Agteria, a Swedish biotech focused on reducing livestock methane emissions, raised €1.4m in led by Norrsken Launcher. https://axios.link/49fEFtd

• Abrigo, a portfolio company of Carlyle and Accel-KKR, acquired TPG Software, a Houston-based investment accounting and management company. www.tpgsoftware.com

• Apollo agreed to buy a majority stake in auto parts supplier Panasonic Automotive from Panasonic Holdings (Tokyo: 6752) for around $2b. https://axios.link/3vyEYkW

• Axcel Learning, a portfolio company of Alpine Investors, acquired KMK, a provider of optometry board exam test prep and coaching services. www.axcel-learning.com

CES Power, a Memphis-based portfolio company of Allied Industrial Partners, acquired ABird/Apex, a British supplier of portable power solutions from HSS Hire Group (LSE: HSS). www.cespower.com

•Flexpoint Ford agreed to buy a majority stake in Accuserve, a property repair services platform, from Aquiline Capital Partners (which retains a stake). www.accuserve.com

• Madison Dearborn Partners invested $35m into Zilliant, an Austin, Texas-based B2B price optimization company it bought in 2021. www.zilliant.com

• Rubrik, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based data management company, is planning to file for its IPO by as soon as next week, per Bloomberg (which previously reported the company could go public last October). It has raised around $1b in VC funding, including at a $4b valuation in 2021, from firms like Microsoft, Greylock, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, IVP and Khosla Ventures. https://axios.link/3ITCWyZ

• Blackstone sold 48 Southern California warehouses to Rexford Industrial Realty (NYSE: REXR) for $1b. https://axios.link/49falPh

• ChowNow, a VC-backed online ordering platform for restaurants, acquired Cuboh, a restaurant POS platform for consolidating delivery app orders. Cuboh was backed by YC, AltaIR Capital, Dash40 Ventures, and Good News Ventures. https://axios.link/3vknnxa

🚑 Avalo Therapeutics (Nasdaq: AVTX) acquired AlmataBio, an Atlanta-based developer of a monoclonal antibody for hidradenitis suppurativa, for $22m. Avalo also agreed to raise up to $185m from Commodore Capital, TCGX, BVF Partners, Deep Track Capital, OrbiMed, Petrichor, and RA Capital Management. https://axios.link/49hJz91

• Blue Yonder, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based subsidiary of Panasonic Holdings (Tokyo: 6752), agreed to buy One Network, a Dallas-based provider of intelligent control towers for digital supply chains, for $839m. www.blueyonder.com

• Descartes Systems (Nasdaq:DSGX) acquired OCR Services, a Rockville, Md.-based provider of global trade compliance solutions and content, for $90m. https://axios.link/4cDfrrg

• HSBC (LSE: HSBA) completed the C$13.5b sale of its Canaian unit to Royal Bank of Canada (TSX: RY). https://axios.link/3VGe3ya

🚑 Labcorp (NYSE: LH) will pay $237.5m to buy the lab testing business of BioReference Health, a unit of OPKO Health (Nasdaq: OPK). https://axios.link/49hgPgC

• Liberty Media (Nasdaq: FWONA) is in exclusive talks to buy MotoGP rights-holder Dorna Sports for €4b, beating out a rival bid from TKO Group (NYSE: TKO), per the FT. https://axios.link/43DSkZV

• Take-Two (Nasdaq: TTWO) agreed to buy Gearbox Interactive, the gaming studio behind Borderlands, from Sweden's Embracer Group for $460m. https://axios.link/4aazlsl

🚑 UCI Health, the clinical enterprise of the University of California, completed its $975m acquisition of four hospitals from Tenet Healthcare (NYSE: THC). www.uci.edu

• Walmart (NYSE: WMT) withdrew and refiled paperwork for its proposed $2.3b acquisition of Vizio (NYSE: VZIO), to give antitrust agencies more review time. https://axios.link/3ISEoSa

• Grafine Partners raised $600m for its debut PE fund-of-funds. www.grafine.com

• Hunter Point Capital, a GP stakes firm co-founded by Blackstone vet Bennett Goodman, raised $3.3b for its debut fund. https://axios.link/3VDsBi1

• Matter Partners, a "hard tech" firm led by ex-Kleiner Perkins investors Wen Hsieh and Haomiao Huang, raised $300m for its debut fund. https://axios.link/3TUC0Ar

• Gregor Feige is joining UBS, after having been co-had of tech and communications ECM for Citigroup, per Bloomberg. https://axios.link/3IZOReo

• Kyle Kuzma, an NBA player with the Washington Wizards, joined Scrum Ventures as an adviser. www.scrum.vc

The corporate debt maturity wall is crumbling, just a year after appearing daunting, Axios' Kate Marino writes.

• Thanks to a flurry of refinancing activity, the amount of high yield debt coming due in 2024-2026 has been cut by 40%, or $329 billion, from where it stood a year ago, BofA Global Research calculates.
• There's been so much refinancing that "this episode represents one of the most aggressive instances of maturity extension in the history of leveraged finance," BofA analysts wrote in a research note.

Zoom out: "The fact that yields are now consistently in that 7.5%-9.5% range makes a big difference for someone's portfolio," says Ken Monaghan, co-head of high yield at Amundi US.

• Those nice yields make the risk-reward tradeoff against equities look much more compelling than they did in the days of rock-bottom rates.
• Go deeper