This year, once the induction ceremony is done, Dwight Howard will add another title to his name—Hall of Famer. Initially, he doubted the Hall nod—still smarting from his 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. A fraudulent scheme scuttled his plan to co-own the Atlanta Dream.

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. The NBA forbade active players from outright WNBA ownership.”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, Charles Briscoe, wasn’t the mastermind—Calvin Darden Jr. orchestrated the fraud. Calvin, a Georgia businessman, worked in cahoots with the former Lakers star’s agent to rip him off. Dwight Howard first learned of the sale when ESPN reported the Dream’s purchase by 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.

He received a 151‑month sentence in April 2025, and the court ordered forfeiture of $8 million plus a $3.7 million mansion, luxury cars, and Basquiat art.  Typically, the offender makes payments to the court, which then distributes the money to the victim(s). That process delays Howard’s recovery of the $7 million he lost. Briscoe, too, faces six months’ house arrest, three years’ supervision, and a $1.5 million fine.

Howard’s Atlanta ambition was deeply personal

As an Atlanta native, Howard dreamed of turning hometown pride into a lasting impact. 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.

Dwight Howard even mapped out how an ownership stake would become a multigenerational legacy: “I wanna really do this ‘cause I got two daughters. One day they’re gonna wanna play basketball. I can set it up to where they can play for the Atlanta Dream one day when they get older,” he told fans on his podcast, DH18 Abocw The Rim.

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. Darden exploited that family vision for profit.

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 the 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.