These Are Our Owners - NBA

Check out the NFL version here.

Want to own an NBA franchise? Start by joining a shadowy consortium!

Atlanta Hawks - Atlanta Spirit LLC (3 divisions)

Team Boston:

Steve Belkin - Boston businessman sells travel packages to the Caribbean via his 1990's style webpage when not trying to get you to sign up for store-branded credit cards.

J. Michael Gearon Sr - Longtime Ted Turner croney and real estate developer.

J. Michael Gearon Jr - Son of croney builds communication towers all across Latin America. Junior is also director of TV Azteca, the second largest Mexican television network (but the largest one charged with fraud).

Team DC:

Bruce Levenson - Co-founder of United Communications Group, a B2B information service provider. Levenson Was accused of anonymous posting on Atlanta-Journal Constitution articles critical of his teams. Screenname? "Whammer."

Ed Peskowitz - The other co-founder of United Communications Group. Ed served in Vietnam, as evidenced by his mustache.

Todd Foreman - Partner of Bruce Levenson and Ed Peskowitz. He's the CPA of the posse.

Team Atlanta:

Bud Seretean - Former board member of Ted Turner's TBS, and temporary GM/President of the Hawks during Turner's ownership.

J. Rutherford Seydel - Ted Turner's son-in-law.

Beau Turner - Youngest son of Ted Turner

Boston Celtics - Boston Basketball Partners LLC

H. Irving Grousbeck - Former faculty member of Stanford Business School, Irv founded Continental Cablevision. Cablevision was one of the earliest providers of cable modem Internet service. After co-branding with Time Warner, the company was renamed to RoadRunner (a company famous for bandwidth caps and being inferior to FIOS in every conceivable way).

Wyc Grousbeck - Son of Irv Grousbeck was a partner of Highland Capital Partners. Highland has invested in various outdated Internet portals (Lycos & Ask Jeeves) and other sites lacking concrete business models (MapQuest & Digg).

William P. Egan - Founder of Alta Communications which invests in everything from Direct Marketing firms to radio stations in the Netherlands. This has includes Grousbeck owned and invested companies. Manufactured wealth, FTW.

Steve Pagliuca - Duke alumni is the managing director of Bain Capital, a company started by Mitt Romney. Bain Capital invests in the likes of Burger King, Domino's Pizza and dollar stores. Pagliuca unsuccessfully tried to run for Ted Kennedy's senate seat last year (likely due to his inferior truck).

Robert Epstein - Took over as The Abbey Group's representative to the Celtics after John Svenson passed away. The Abbey Group builds office buildings and condominiums on historic property and the back bay. That being said, the company has under $2 million annual profit.

Charlotte Bobcats - Michael Jordan

Endorsement aficionado and Hitler-enthusiast. Also was once pretty good at basketball, I think.

Chicago Bulls - Jerry Reinsdorf

Former IRS attorney turned tax shelter lawyer took advantage of a Supreme Court ruling allowing a property owner to sell his or her property, lease it back, and write-off the depreciation as a tax deductible. This was corrected 8 years later in the Tax Reform Act of 1986, but it was already too late. Reinsdorf had sold his company to what would later become Lehman Brothers. Suckers.

Cleveland Cavaliers

Dan Gilbert - His company, Quicken Loans, provides home loans over the internet. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?! (See 2007, credit crunch). Has a monopoly on the overpriced poster market with his other company, Fathead.

Gary Gilbert - Brother of Dan Gilbert, founded Camelot Pictures. Camelot is responsible for "Garden State," "The Making of 'Garden State'," and Zach Braff being in movies.

Albert Hung - Chinese investor in eco-friendly technologies paid for David Katzman's share of the team in cash. Hung is a member of the Football Betting and Lotteries Commission of Hong Kong. Oops, you were not supposed to know about that.

Gordon Gund - Former majority owner, Gund has been blind since 1970. Thusly, he has never seen LeBron win a championship either. His venture capitalist firm paved the way for Gund to serve on the board of directors of Kellogg's and Corning.

Usher Raymond - R&B artist on the wrong side of 30, yet feels no shame dressing up like tank-top Batman and singing songs called "OMG."

Dallas Mavericks - Mark Cuban

Joined broadcast.com, a web-radio company started by Cuban's college roommate, shortly before it IPO'd. Everyone became paper millionaires, but Yahoo foolishly thought this would translate to real money and bought the company for $5.7 billion. Suckers. Cuban has since invested in a myriad of other businesses including Brondell Inc, manufacturers of a high-tech toilet seat. There's a metaphor hidden somewhere in there.

Denver Nuggets - Stan Kroenke

His Sugar Momma is Anne Walton (a Wal-Mart heir worth north of $3 billion).

Detroit Pistons - Karen Davidson

Wife of the late Bill Davidson who earned a billion dollars making glass or stealing trade secrets (depending on who you ask). Karen plans to sell the team, the management company, the stadium, and get the hell out of Dodge.

Golden State Warriors - Chris Cohan

Started a cable outlet, Sonic Communications. Cohan sold the company for over $200 million but has since been accused of evading taxes to the tune of $160 million via three separate tax shelters. The sale of the team is imminent.

Houston Rockets - Les Alexander

Began an investment company, The Alexander Group, in 1980. Assets include your student loan and the gas in your car. That being said, his biggest source of income is likely Yao Ming jerseys. Les is an ardent animal-rights activist and amongst the top donors to PETA.

Indiana Pacers - Herb Simon

Real estate shopping mall baron is still reaping the benefits of Indianapolis' downtown Circle Centre Mall (having been there, I can verify it has a Johnny Rockets and barren parking garages). Oh, and Michael Jackson went there once. So there's that.

Los Angeles Clippers - Donald Sterling

Former personal injury attorney purchased a small Beverly Hills apartment building in the early 1960s. He has since blazed a trail of housing discrimination, sexual harassment, casual racism, frugality, and a sham charity.

Los Angeles Lakers - Jerry Buss

A former chemist, Jerry Buss got into real estate to supplement his income. Ironically, Donald Sterling provided the last $4 million for Jerry Buss to buy the Lakers in exchange for some properties. Buss is perhaps best known for dating women younger than his daughter.

Memphis Grizzlies - Michael Heisley

Heisley, like every other Alexandria, Virginia businessman, depends on the US Government to exist. HEICO sells aerospace and defense solutions to various governmental and paramilitary entities. Yes, this is the same Michael Heisley that vowed to keep the Grizzlies in Vancouver. He spent his time since then creating Stony Lane Partners, an investment firm specifically designed to profit in an economic downturn. Ka-ching. Heisley has been looking to sell the Grizzlies for the past 4 years. Good luck with that.

Miami Heat - Mickey Arison

Son of Ted Arison, the founder of Carnival cruise lines. Nepotism exists amongst NBA owners, too.

Milwaukee Bucks - Herb Kohl

Apart from being a current United States Senator, he started the department store that bears his name. Despite all this, the smartest thing he has ever done is not sell the team to a desperate Michael Jordan in 2003.

Minnesota Timberwolves - Glen Taylor

Turned a commercial printing business into a multinational commercial printing business. Was a State Senator, but it's Minnesota so that just means he has the biggest crossbow.

New Jersey Nets

Mikhail Prokhorov - Good ol' fashion Russian industrialist. Cash4Gold. Cash4Nickel. Cash4Palladium. May or may not have a harem.

Bruce Ratner - His Forest City real estate company owns 11 million square feet in NYC. Primary suspect in any Brooklyn arson cases over the next 2 years.

Sean Carter - Hip-Hop artist most notable for being the inspiration to "Ether." Carter hopes to inflate the value of the Nets more than he did with Memphis Bleek.

New Orleans Hornets - Gary Chouest

Chouest's chief income is through Edison Chouest Offshore which is a ship-building and offshore oil servicing company. Chouest recently purchased George Shinn's majority share of the Hornets but has been delaying on closing the deal. It's like there is some sort of poorly serviced offshore oil event that could use repair.

New York Knicks - James Dolan

Son of Cablevision founder Charles Dolan. Thankfully for Cablevision, James didn't put Isiah Thomas in charge of that, too.

Oklahoma City Thunder - The Professional Basketball Club LLC

Big Fish:

Clay Bennett - Chairman of a capital investment fund and CEO of Hell.

Aubrey McClendon- CEO of Chesapeake Energy, the largest Natural Gas provider in the country. Donated $250k to the Swift Vets for Truth asshats.

Little Fish:

G. Jeffrey Records Jr - Son of banker

Bill Cameron - Insurance

Robert E. Howard II - Investments

Tom Ward - Natural Gas

Everette Dobson - Communication

Jay Scaramucci - Son of oil valve manufacturer. Really.

Orlando Magic - Richard DeVos

Founder of legal-pyramid-scheme and home products retail service Amway (now Alticor).

Philadelphia 76ers - Comcast Spectacor

CEO Ed Snider's majority share of premium cable networks and radio stations were sold to notable bandwidth blocker Comcast. Snider is one of the founding contributors of the Ayn Rand institute. Blind belief in political objectivism would explain his reasoning for trying to build a casino in Chinatown.

Phoenix Suns - Robert Sarver

Son of Tucson banker/developer, Jack Sarver. Robert sold his Bank of Arizona to Zions Bancorporation, which has since announced record losses. Suckers.

Portland Trailblazers - Paul Allen

As referenced in the NFL owner post, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is who every owner should try and emulate. Hands-off and philanthropic.

Sacramento Kings

Joe & Gavin Maloof - Imagine if Brook & Robin Lopez owned an NBA franchise. Pretty chill, bros (except for that whole move the team to Las Vegas thing). Also the only NBA owners to let Lil Wayne shoot a video in their mansion. Take that, Gary Chouest.

Robin Hernreich - Former director of K2 Sports, an outdoor sports retailer. His Guy Fieri looking son wears his WNBA ring.

San Antonio Spurs - Peter Holt

Took a more NFL-esque route to wealth with a Caterpillar dealership that would become the largest in the United States. Holt has served in Vietnam but his most impressive feat is that he's a Texan and a conservationist.

Toronto Raptors - Maple Leafe Sports & Entertainment

Richard Peddle - CEO of MLSE. Richard parlay'd his success in the junk food industry to become president of basically every Toronto sports team and facility. He adopts a "Winning isn't everything as long as you're making money" approach. This is something he has been quite succesful at.

Larry Tanenbaum - Owner of Kilmer Sports Inc. After Larry's wealthy father passed away, Larry and his mother fought his brother Joey for the quickly diminishing family fortune. He used his remaining share to assume control of his late father's construction business. Larry is best known for being Vince Carter's BFF.

Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan - You down with OTPP? You should be. This organization administers pensions for public school teachers in Ontario. They're only worth over $90 billion.

TD Capital - The Toronto-Dominion bank's investment wing. Yes, they're the same TD whose name is displayed on, in, and all-over the Boston Garden.

Utah Jazz - The Estate of Larry H. Miller

Larry Miller built his fortune with Toyota Dealerships and eventually movie theaters. Larry is remembered for significant charitable contributions, likely second only to Paul Allen. If you are wondering, Larry did pull Brokeback Mountain from his theater (though he apologized for it later). Larry Miller's son Greg Miller has assumed day-to-day operations of the Jazz and has already had a public disagreement with Deron Williams about the direction of the team.

Washington Wizards - Ted Leonsis

Leonsis founded a marketing company, Redgate Communications, which was purchased by AOL. He was instrumental in AOL's dominance in the 90's and their, well, not dominance afterwards. Content with already owning the Capitals, Leonsis retired from AOL in 2006. Ted has since partnered with AOL co-CEO Steve Case on other investments you will never hear of again (Revolution Card? Snag Films?).