Two of D.C. United's owners are looking to get back into basketball, with Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports reporting that Erick Thohir and Jason Levien are set to partner with Steve Kaplan to purchase a 20% stake in the Minnesota Timberwolves. Levien and Kaplan are old business partners, having tried to buy all of the Atlanta Hawks together as part of a large ownership group in January. This minority stake purchase is supposedly the first step towards buying the entire team when Glen Taylor decides to sell the rest of the team.
We all know that Jason Levien loves basketball as well; he was assistant general manager and general counsel for the Sacramento Kings back in 2008, and helped construct ownership groups in Philadelphia and Memphis. He has also served as a sort of unofficial advisor to the new Sacramento Kings owner. Erick Thohir loves basketball as well, owning several teams in Indonesia, having served as the Indonesian basketball league's president, and having formerly been a co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers.
Overall, this doesn't mean much for D.C. United. Thohir has always had a diversified investment portfolio, and this won't affect the money that he is already committed for the D.C. United stadium (unless some sort of catastrophic market collapse happens). Levien was a point man for getting the stadium deal done, but now that it is the mechanics of the day to day are left to the people on the ground.