Michael Jordan sells majority stake in Charlotte Hornets, ending 13-year reign

Michael Jordan is finalizing a deal to sell the majority stake of the Charlotte Hornets, the franchise announced Friday, taking the 30-team NBA from being a black majority owner.

Jordan is selling to a group led by Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall, the Hornets said. Plotkin has been a minority shareholder in the Hornets since 2019. Schnall has been a minority owner of the Atlanta Hawks since 2015 and is in the process of selling his investment in that team.

It is not clear how long the sale process will take to be finalized by the NBA board of directors. Jordan plans to keep a minority stake in the Hornets, the team he bought in 2010 for about $275 million.

Jordan’s decision to sell ends his failed 13-year run overseeing the organization.

“Just as it’s great that one of our greats, Michael Jordan, can become the chief governor of a team, he has an absolute right to sell at the same time,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver told the NBA earlier this month. Final. “Values ​​have gone up a lot since he bought that team, so that’s his decision.”

In that same press conference during the finale, Silver said the Board of Directors is focused on diversity in ownership groups.

“I would like to have better representation in terms of chief governors,” Silver said. “It’s a marketplace. It’s something that if we were to expand, the league could focus directly on that, but in individual team trades, the market gets us where we are.”

The sale price was not immediately announced; ESPN, citing sources, said the franchise was valued at $3 billion. The most recent sale of an NBA team came when Mat Ishbia bought the Phoenix Suns, a deal that, when closed in December, valued that franchise at $4 billion.

Jordan declined to comment on the sale through his spokesperson, Estee Portnoy.

Unsuccessful results on the track

Because as good as Jordan was on the court — North Carolina national champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist, six-time NBA champion, and in the endless talk for greatest player ever — the Hornets have never reached a championship level as the owner in his day.

Charlotte went 423–600 in his 13 seasons in charge, the 26th-best record over that span in the 30-team league. It has never won a playoff series in that time and has not even made the postseason in the last seven seasons.

Other members of the new potential Hornets ownership group — pending approval — include recording artist J. Cole, Dan Sundheim, Ian Loring, country music singer-songwriter Eric Church, Chris Shumway, and several local Charlotte investors, including Amy Levine Dawson and Damian Mills. .

In addition to the Hornets, HSE also includes the NBA G League’s Greensboro Swarm and the NBA 2K League’s Hornets Venom GT, as well as the management and operation of the Spectrum Center, each of which is part of the sale.

When Jordan, who grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina, bought a majority stake in the team, it caused quite a stir.

But the struggle and the Hornets’ inability to turn things around bothered Jordan. The first inclination he wanted to get out of the NBA ownership business came in 2020, when he sold a minority stake to Plotkin and Sundheim.

Difficult campaign 2022

Coming off an injury-plagued 27-55 season, the Hornets are ranked No. 2 in the NBA draft. Victor Wembanyana is expected to finish first overall on Thursday night, leaving Charlotte with a choice between G League star guard Scoot Henderson or Alabama’s Brandon Miller.

Charlotte’s biggest star is LaMelo Ball, and the team still has some decent core pieces to build around, including Terry Rozier, Gordon Hayward, PJ Washington and Mark Williams, the team’s starting center who played well as a rookie last year.

He took over a team in 2010 that had won 44 games the previous year but had been swept in the first round by the Orlando Magic.

From there it went downhill.

Charlotte – then still the Bobcats – was 34-48 the first year under Jordan and then an NBA worst 7-59 the following year. But despite the abysmal record, Charlotte failed to land the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft lottery and Anthony Davis.

Charlotte returned to the playoffs in 2013-14 but was swept by the Miami Heat. Two years later, the Hornets won 48 games, but again lost to the Heat in the first round, this time in seven games.

In the seven years since then, Jordan’s Hornets have had just one winning season and have twice retired early in the play-in tournament as the 10th seed.

Charlotte has not won a playoff series since the 2001–02 season and has never won an NBA championship.