A Scandalous NBA Rivalry Among Jewish Team Owners Is Taking Shape
(ANALYSIS) Fourteen of the NBA’s 30 franchise owners are Jewish. Two of them absolutely despise each other. And it has nothing to do with basketball.
Instead, it’s about — wait for it — mortgages.
The rivalry between Mat Ishbia, owner of the Phoenix Suns, and Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, dates to long before Ishbia bought the Suns in 2022. Their companies — Ishbia’s United Wholesale Mortgage and Gilbert’s Rocket Mortgage — have for years battled to be the nation’s biggest mortgage lender.
But the sale revealed the depths of resentment between them. While the NBA’s other 28 owners voted to approve the deal, Gilbert, who has owned the Cavaliers since 2003, abstained.
A new report from ESPN describes the origins of the mutual disdain. The driving force: Ishbia’s cutthroat business tactics as UWM grew from a tiny office in Pontiac, Michigan, into a ruthless corporate behemoth that overtly blackballs brokers who work with Rocket.
Meanwhile, the two billionaires live 15 minutes apart in the same Detroit suburb — both are Michigan natives — and have reportedly never met in person. (We must ask: Do they attend the same synagogue)?
Ishbia, who was once named high school athlete of the year by his hometown Jewish paper, has seemingly made taking down Gilbert’s Rocket a singular focus. (Gilbert is a former board member of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit and a past president of JARC, a Detroit-based Jewish nonprofit).
When UWM passed Rocket in mortgage originations, Ishbia left a coworker a voicemail disparaging the company, saying, “I f—ing hate ’em with all my heart.” (The audio below contains further profanity).
So, whatever they have in common, Jewishly and geographically — and, it feels safe to assume, Jewish-geographically — has not translated into collegiality.
And while the business savagery has only really occurred in one direction — the closest Rocket has gotten to a counterstrike was covering independent brokers’ antitrust lawsuits against UWM — it doesn’t sound like Gilbert will invite the Ishbias to the next family simcha.
Maybe a bowl of red lentils will settle it?
This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
Louis Keene is a staff reporter at the Forward covering religion, sports and the West Coast. He can be followed on Twitter @thislouis.