This year, once the induction ceremony is done, Dwight Howard will add another title to his name—Hall of Famer. At first, he was not sure if this would come true, as he was skeptical after the NBA 75 snub. But it was the same year in 2021, when the 3x DPOY got another title taken away from him. At the time, he was still playing but wanted to sow seeds for his post-retirement initiative. Because of a scam, that dream of becoming a co-owner of an Atlanta franchise never materialized.
Previously, the 39-year-old had already shared his plans for investing in the WNBA team, Atlanta Dream were dashed due to his former agent. Since he was an active player, the NBA told him he couldn’t be a direct owner.” And so the NBA tell me that I can’t actually own a WNBA team outright because I still play in the NBA. And I’m like, well, that don’t make sense. It’s two different entities. But I said, okay, I’ll get an investment group. My agent and investment group, they kind of basically run the show until I’m done playing. So that was kind of the whole goal.”
His agent previously was Charles Briscoe, who was not the ringmaster behind this scam. It was Calvin Darden Jr., a Georgia businessman who worked in cahoots with the former Lakers star’s agent to rip him off. Howard only got to know when he saw ESPN’s news about the Dream’s sale to an investor group led by former WNBA player Renee Montgomery. Naturally, the former Center was upset.
“All the stuff that he’s bought before I can get any money back, the feds get the money first. So it’s like, why did I? I should have just, I should have just went about it the street way, how I was thinking. But I can’t, I can’t do nothing like that. That’s how I was like, man, I should have just went and beat him up.” In frustration, Howard revealed he won’t recover his money now because Darden is currently behind bars.
I won the case don’t even get to see the $ pic.twitter.com/7cqFQbjgBO
— Dwight Howard (@DwightHoward) May 16, 2025
Yes, the court sentenced him to 12 years, months ago, ordering him to forfeit $8 million and several luxury assets purchased with stolen money. Typically, the offender makes payments to the court, which then distributes the money to the victim(s). That’s why there is a holdup for the 8x All-Star to receive his full sum. Even former agent Briscoe is facing six months of house arrest, a three-year supervisory period, and a penalty of $1.5 million.
Dwight Howard connected his dream for Atlanta to his family.
The Atlanta native had eyes full of hope when he talked about the idea of owning a team that was close to his heart. Plus, his mother was even a season ticket holder for the Dream. Yet that never materialized as Darden apparently used the money to buy luxury items for himself. It included a $3.7 million mansion in Atlanta, a Lamborghini, a Rolls-Royce, and $600,000 worth of artwork by famed artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Instead, it took away the moment from Howard, which he wanted for his daughters.
About his dream and the scam that broke it, the ex-Los Angeles Lakers player said, “I was like ‘man, I want to really do this ‘cuz I got two daughters, one day they’re going to want to play basketball, I can set it up to where they can play for the Atlanta Dream,’” on his podcast. He would have something to pass down as his legacy. But Darden capitalized on these emotions for his own greed.
Dwight Howard was not the only one that Darden scammed money from. In a second fraudulent scheme, Darden teamed up with an unlicensed sports agent to defraud Chandler Parsons. Darden claimed that then NBA prospect James Wiseman had agreed to work with them, and he convinced Parsons to invest $1 million to help fund Wiseman’s training and development.
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