The owner of the Washington Wizards, Abe Pollin, 85, died today, Tuesday, Nov. 24, of a rare neurological disease called corticobasal degeneration.

It impairs movement and balance.

Pollin the son of a Russian emigrant, brought professional basketball and hockey franchises to Washington, D.C.

He ran the National Basketball Association’s Washington Wizards and the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals as a family business.

“Abe Pollin reflects an ownership style that was forged in a different era,” NBA Commissioner David Stern, a longtime friend, once said of the league’s senior owner.

In 1997, Pollin changed the name of the Washington Bullets to the Washington Wizards as part of an anti-violence campaign.

As a housing developer in the 1960s, Pollin amassed an impressive amount of money through the construction of office and apartment buildings.

Pollin was born on Dec. 3, 1923 in Philadelphia, where the family moved in 1914 after entering the United States at Ellis Island. There, their name was changed from Pollinovsky by immigration officials.

Read an in-depth article about Pollin’s life and career here and view photos here.

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