Eight years ago, NBA Hall of Famer and minority owner of the Utah Jazz, Dwyane Wade, revealed in a 2018 interview with Bloomberg that he wanted to be part of NBA ownership.
“I definitely want to be a part of ownership in the NBA. I’m not going to try to buy a team. I don’t have that kind of bread, but I definitely want to be a part of a great ownership group. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is all about players being involved in an ownership capacity. You’ve got players like Grant Hill involved in the Atlanta Hawks. Shaquille O’Neal is involved in the Sacramento Kings. It’s definitely something that I’ve talked about, some of my friends have talked about. But, first of all, I’d have to be retired. When that time comes…”
The team he was interested in at the time had relocated to Oklahoma City after the 2007-2008 season, so it was no longer in the Pacific Northwest.
“Seattle. I want Seattle’s team, the Sonics, to come back,” he told Bloomberg. “I think Seattle is a great basketball town. I would love to be a part of that.”
The future Hall of Famer was a year away from retiring. So, he was looking to build a career away from basketball.
Later in the year, both former Seattle Storm guard Sue Bird and forward Breanna Stewart were asked whether they would be interested in throwing their hats into the ring for ownership of the Sonics when the franchise returns.
“If by hat you mean money, that’s a different question, I think. But as somebody who was here when the Sonics were here, I love that people are talking about it. I love that, not just Dwayne Wade, but other people throughout the NBA, even Russell Wilson and the NFL,” said Bird.
“I mean, people are talking about they want the Sonics back. I mean, it’s obviously been the conversation since they’ve left. So I think for us, it’s like anything we could do to help. I don’t know if it would be, you know, a monetary thing or not.”
“I don’t know if it is so much a monetary thing, like, I feel like enough people would invest into it. It’s just like actually getting them [The Sonics] here,” said Stewart.
Bird added, ” Yeah, I think it’ll happen, you know, and the fact that people are talking about it, it’ll probably just make it happen sooner. But yeah, I would love to be a part of anything, of anybody trying to bring the Sonics here. I’d love to be a part of it.”
Stewart: “We will co-own it with Dwyane Wade.”
Bird: “He must have, like this trip or something. He liked the Seattle trip. He wants a team back here.”
Bird has since retired from the WNBA, been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, and is now a minority owner of the Seattle Storm and Gotham FC in the women’s soccer league. As for Stewart, she is a co-founder of the Women’s three-on-three basketball league ‘Unrivaled,’ which generated $45 million in revenue in 2026, according to Yahoo.
Last week, the NBA voted to explore NBA expansion in Las Vegas and Seattle.
