According to Forbes, Michael Jordan became the first basketball player and only current athlete in the Billionaire's club.

Via Forbes,

Our net worth figure for Jordan uses the $600 million figure. The Hornets have $135 million of debt, which makes Jordan’s equity in the team worth $416 million. After subtracting all the cash Jordan has invested in the team, we estimate his net worth outside of the Hornets to be $600 million, giving him a net worth of a $1 billion.

Since the Clippers sold (sort of) for $2 billion despite being valued by Forbes at "only" $575 million, all Michael Jordan has to do is say some things that will make fans and players not want to play for the Hornets (good luck) or wear his shoes (yeah right!) and then the team can also sell for 4 times it's worth and Jordan's worth would probably increase an addition billion dollars. Simple plan right?

IS LEBRON NEXT?

According to CelebrityNetWorth.com, Magic Johnson is worth $500 million, Shaq at $350 and LeBron James has the highest net worth among active NBA players at $250 million. It's also being reported that King James just added another cool $30 million off Apple's multi-billion dollar acquisition of Beats.

Last year James had earning of over $72 million with 53 of the 72.3 coming off endorsements.  The 72 was 19 million more than his 2012 earnings which was 5 million more than his 2011 earnings.  Considering all of James's new ventures, like producting the TV show "Survivor's Remorse, and existing deals with Nike, McDonalds, Coke, Samsung, Dunkin' Donuts and others, we just might see James challenging Jordan for richest basketball player of all-time one day.

But for now, with Jordan sitting on a billion, LeBron's just not in the conversation - just like another conversation I keep hearing about the two.