News broke on Friday morning that Michael Jordan is finalizing terms on a sale of his majority stake in the Hornets to an ownership group led by billionaires Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
The impending sale would end Jordan’s 13-year run as the majority owner. Jordan will continue to oversee basketball operations through the NBA draft next week and the start of free agency on July 1.
Once the sale is finalized, Jordan will keep a minority stake in the franchise.
As far as the new owners are concerned, Plotkin is the founder of Melvin Capital and Schnall is the co-president of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, a private equity firm in New York.
Jordan began slowly selling off his ownership stake in 2020 to Plotkin and Daniel Sundheim, who is the founder of D1 Capital. At that time, Jordan sold off a significant minority stake in the franchise, which was perhaps a signal that the day would eventually come where the NBA legend would take a step back from leading the team.
Predictably, NBA fans had much to say about the development. Here are some of the best reactions from Twitter as the news broke on Friday morning.
Was low key an awful owner but nothing bad sticks to MJ… imagine the reaction if/when LeBron takes ownership of a team and runs them into the ground. https://t.co/5yRGO88jTf
— Joe Osborne (@JTFOz) June 16, 2023
Key note in here from Woj:
— Evan Sidery (@esidery) June 16, 2023
“Jordan will continue to oversee basketball operations through next Thursday's NBA draft and the start of free agency on July 1.” https://t.co/9hqEFkJyWC
Anyone calling MJ a failed (team) owner either don’t understand, or are misinformed. MJ purchased the Hornets back in 2010 for $180M. They’re currently worth $1.7B https://t.co/Oiob1yp8Ex
— Jory Dreher (@JDreherLN) June 16, 2023
Jordan played in 179 playoff games in a 15-year career.
— Dan Primack (@danprimack) June 16, 2023
As an owner for 13 years, his team played in only 15 playoff games. https://t.co/HVSzYt9GFt
