Psalm 49 warns us about not trusting in wealth, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t wealthy people who are also generous. Job comes to mind! (Please see the blog on Job 31.)

Last Saturday, the Denver Nuggets basketball team played the Los Angeles Clippers in Denver in a winner-take-all game 7. (Nuggets won handily and have advanced to the next round.)

That’s not what this blog is about. It’s about Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft and owner of the Clippers. Here’s the headline and sub headline from a surprising Denver Post article:

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer flies 125 L.A. fans to build ‘The Wall’ at Ball Arena

Before crucial Saturday Game 7, Nuggets met with a shock: 125 Clippers fans, sitting behind baseline, flown out on a charter by owner Steve Ballmer

The article starts:

On Friday, Los Angeles season-ticket holders David Evans and Paul Boulos — and 123 other bastions of “The Wall,” the Intuit Dome’s famed baseline section that specializes in free-throw distraction — had an email pop into their inbox from the Clippers. It stated, as they recounted roughly, that owner Steve Ballmer had selected them to fly out to Denver to invade enemy turf for Game 7.

Ballmer, they said, chartered a bus. Chartered a plane. Paid for 125 tickets. And so 125 Los Angeles agents met for a secret mission Saturday at the West Garage of the Intuit Dome, fan Mason Cook said and headed for LAX, where a jet awaited to bring a special dash of L.A. mania to Denver on Saturday.

Amazing. One of the recipients observed:

That’s unheard of, first off, for an owner of an NBA team to even recognize his fans like this. Second, who do you call to say, “I want 125 tickets, a charter plane, and three charter buses to get these people to the arena?“

“I’ll tell you who,” Boulos interjected, standing beside him. “Steve Ballmer does it. ‘Cause ain’t nobody else in the world can do that.”

There aren’t many who could have done that. In the secondary market, tickets in that section for Game 3 of the upcoming series with Oklahoma are going for around $250 (Game 7 would be much higher). But 125 tickets at $250 each would come to more than $30,000. Plus three charter buses, plus a plane.

I’m impressed.

Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever. Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man. Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice. (Psalm 112.3 – 5, NIV1984)