The acquisition still needs to be approved by the NBA’s Board of Governors  but still Ballmer says that he will be honoured to have his name submitted to this Board as he “loves basketball”!

The bid for the team was formed by 2 groups : a group of LA investors that offered 1.2 billion $ and a group led by Davod Geffen (media) that offered 1.6 billion $ and that included Oprah Winfrey and Larry Ellison from Oracle

Merrill Lynch was the financial advisor in the deal.

Apparently a lot of billionaires want to buy NBA teams but the offer is very limited and this is a key driver for this huge price.
Sterling paid around 12 million $ in 1981 for the team that was located then in San Diego.