Dwyane Wade had a tremendously successful career as an NBA superstar, and his life after retirement hasn’t been any different. He has purchased stakes in two basketball teams since hanging his boots up, the Utah Jazz in the NBA, and his hometown Chicago Sky over in the WNBA. His reason for buying the teams was different both times, and he revealed that his daughter Kaavia was the one who motivated him to buy a stake in the Sky.
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Wade revealed in a 2024 interview that he went ahead with his WNBA ownership plan in order to motivate his daughter and to provide her with a role model. He explained that his son Zaire had always wanted to be an NBA player because of him, and he wanted Kaavia to have similar role models growing up.
By buying a small stake in a WNBA team, Wade essentially ensured that should Kaavia ever decide to pursue a pro-basketball career in her life, he would be able to provide her with a slew of idols to look up to.
As he told Jericka Duncan of CBS News, “The big part of that is that my son, Zaire, grew up and he had a dream of being in the NBA. He had a dream of being like his favorite players. You understand the importance of role models and so, I want my daughter to have that same feeling.”
D-Wade has always been an admirer of women’s basketball, and his decision to become part-owner of the Sky was not a surprising one to people who knew him well. However, he revealed later that he wanted to be an investor in the Unrivaled league as well, but certain issues with timing meant he never was able to get in the door there.
As he revealed after Unrivaled’s uber successful debut campaign came to an end, being a retired player makes it harder for him to invest willy-nilly in things he believes in. “I had just invested in the WNBA league. One, I’m a retired player, my money only going to stretch so far,” he said on his podcast. “Two, I go back and I’m like damn I wish I would have invested in the league early on I just didn’t know a lot about it and I didn’t because of my investment in WNBA I didn’t understand what it was.”
Dwyane Wade is, of course, talking about his investment in the Sky, and how it came just a few months before Unrivaled was announced as a league. He wasn’t able to invest in Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart’s league, but that didn’t stop him from supporting the ladies in every way possible.
He and his wife Gabrielle Union were spotted outside at playoff games in Miami, and he shares a close relationship with Unrivaled’s first DPOY Angel Reese too.
