No matter how much money you have, the prospect of losing $1.5 million at least has to sting. So, consider Michael Jordan stung.
Jordan, the NBA legend who now owns the Charlotte Bobcats, could watch that much money siphoned from his bank account with the possible foreclosure of a Chicago gym he invested in, according to multiple reports.
The Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune reported that a judge recently rejected a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by the company of Tim Grover, who owns Attack Athletics Gym on Chicago’s West Side. Grover filed for bankruptcy in April in order to stave off foreclosure, according to the papers, but a judge dismissed the filing on July 11.
Grover’s company, Attack Properties LLC, appealed the ruling, according to the papers, and that appeals process could take a month.
In the meantime, the mortgage holder is free to pursue a foreclosure sale, the papers reported.
How did Jordan end up investing? He was Grover’s first professional client.
“He said he’d try it out for a month, and it ended up being 15 years,” Grover told ESPNChicago.com in 2009.
The gym, formerly known as Hoops, was built in 2007. It is a 65,000-square-foot facility, according to its website, and has four NBA-sized basketball courts and a 10,000-square-foot weight room.
Grover used his relationship with Jordan to build a lucrative business and would work with some of the biggest stars in the NBA, including Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade and Tracy McGrady. Michael Finley also has been a client, and the Sun-Times reported Finley is listed as a creditor, having guaranteed a $2 million loan.
“It’s a first-class organization here with Tim Grover, first with Hoops and now with ATTACK Athletics,” Wade told ESPNChicago.com in 2009. “It’s a first-class thing we run. I say ‘we’ because I feel so much a part of it because I’ve been coming here since my rookie year.”
