Michael Jordan’s Air Jordan shoe brand through Nike dominates the market — 58 percent of basketball shoes sold last year were Jordans. That 13 times more than LeBron James, who has the best selling shoe among active players. Nike owns 95.5 percent of the basketball shoe market (according to Forbes).  One of the NBA’s concerns with Michael Jordan as the owner of the Charlotte Hornets is that he could supplement players’ salaries with shoe deals.

So the NBA cut that option off, reports Darren Rovell of ESPN.

NBA says MJ can’t choose who gets Air Jordan shoe deals because of cap rules. (At least 6 Hornets have gotten Jordan deals in last 7 years.)

It’s easy to understand the NBA’s concern — if Jordan could say “I’ll pay you a couple hundred thousand extra to wear my shoes” it would be an unfair recruiting advantage. So they are trying to tie his hands.

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source: ProBasketballTalk