What happened to the NBA player who nearly killed an opponent on the court with a vicious
sucker punch?
Keep watching to find out.
Michael Jordan entered the NBA in 1984, and his rookie season started off with an amazing
contract.
After passing on Converse — the official sneaker of the league at the time – Jordan
signed a sneaker deal with Nike.
David Falk, Jordan's agent, said.
"Nike's expectation when we signed the deal was, at the end of year four, they hoped to
sell $3 million worth of Air Jordans.
In year one, we sold $126 million."
One problem: it turned out that Nike was using sweatshops to make the shoes, allegedly including
child labor.
But according to The Chicago Tribune, Jordan shirked any responsibility for the shoe bearing
his name, which had made him one of the richest and most famous athletes of all time.
He said,
"I think that's Nike's decision to do what they can to make sure everything is correctly
done.
I don't know the complete situation.
Why should I?"
Jordan also famously had issues with gambling.
Besides reportedly racking up over a million dollars in debt to a golfing buddy, Sports
Illustrated reported that
"[...] a $57,000 check from Jordan was discovered by the IRS in the bank account of convicted
cocaine trafficker James (Slim) Bouler; then $108,000 in checks from Jordan were found
in the briefcase of slain bail bondsman Eddie Dow.”
The NBA began an investigation about Jordan, which they dropped when he abruptly retired
to become a baseball player in 1993, leading some conspiracy theorists to suggest that
he quit basketball to avoid the humiliation of being suspended by the league for gambling.
But no proof of those claims have ever been established.
"Do you think you have a gambling problem at all?"
"No. because I can stop gambling.
I have a competition problem.
A competitive problem."
After retiring from the NBA, players are eligible for several perks from the league.
These include the NBA's Health and Welfare Benefit Plan.
The program provides "supplemental coverage" to complement their existing health coverage,
and it's funded by NBA teams.
While the plan sounds nice on paper, it apparently wasn't enough for some.
In 2021, NBC reported that 18 former players were caught and charged in an attempt to bilk
the benefit plan out of almost $4 million.
For example, one player claimed to have undergone a root canal procedure in Beverly Hills, while
he was actually playing basketball in Taiwan.
A few other players also claimed to have the exact same procedure on the same set of teeth,
which created suspicion by people processing the claims.
According to the report, Terrence Williams was the mastermind of the illegal group, submitting
false invoices and claims, and conning other players into paying him.
In return, Williams received an estimated $230,000, with the 18 players scamming about
$2.5 million in total.
In 2001, several players from the league were named in a trial involving a strip club and
mob scandal, all surrounding an establishment called The Gold Club.
The strip club in Atlanta paired strippers with professional players in order to attract
more high-profile clients.
The owner of the joint, Steve Kaplan, and six other defendants were charged with a number
of crimes, including corruption and prostitution.
A witness testified that Larry Johnson, the forward who played for the Charlotte Hornets
and later the New York Knicks, once "begged" Kaplan to provide him with a stripper to join
him at a hotel, which was allegedly the inspiration for Kaplan's entire operation.
NBA star Patrick Ewing, a 2008 member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, and MLB star Andruw
Jones admitted during Kaplan's trial that although no money exchanged hands, the dancers
did perform for them sexually.
None of the NBA players were charged with crimes.
According to CNN, Kaplan ultimately paid a $5 million fine and The Gold Club was forced
to shut down.
There has been a long history of shady owners in sports, and one of the most disgraced was
the former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling.
In 2014, TMZ released a recording of Sterling rebuking his personal assistant for posting
Instagram photos with Black people, as he didn't want Black people attending Clippers
games, not even NBA legend Magic Johnson.
In an interview with Anderson Cooper for CNN, Sterling said,
"I'm not a racist.
I made a terrible, terrible mistake."
"Am I entitled to one mistake?"
But it wasn't one mistake, it was the straw the broke the camel's back after years of
racial discrimination lawsuits from people, including both his own general manager and
the federal government.
Sterling was banned for life from the NBA and fined $2.5 million, and NBA fans and owners
ultimately pressured Sterling to sell the team.
As one of the best players ever in the NBA, Jason Kidd entered the Basketball Hall of
Fame in 2018.
But while he was great as a player, he's had a number of personal and professional issues
that have tainted his image.
In 2001, Kidd was arrested for domestic violence against his wife at the time.
He pleaded guilty and had to attend anger management sessions.
In 2013, he pleaded guilty to drunk driving charges, earning probation and a two-game
suspension from his job coaching the Brooklyn Nets.
And later that year, he was fined by the league for intentionally spilling a beverage on the
court in order to get a free time out.
In 2021, Kidd returned to his old Dallas Mavericks team as head coach.
According to The Dallas Morning News, the team's CEO Cynt Marshall, herself a domestic
violence survivor, decided to hire him after long discussions about his past.
She said,
"I didn't find any reason not to hire him."
Sports and gambling have long been intertwined.
Unfortunately, sometimes this caused sketchy behaviors like the infamous case of Chicago
White Sox baseball players throwing the World Series in 1919.
So it was a major scandal when, in 2007, allegations emerged that veteran NBA referee Tim Donaghy
was intentionally making wrong calls to influence the outcome of games he and his friends had
bet on, sometimes under pressure from the mafia.
Those allegations, it turned out, stemmed from an FBI investigation.
Ultimately, the league's official stance was that Donaghy was a rogue ref, working alone
without participation from any other refs, and that he had never actually fixed any of
the games he worked.
And the FBI officially agreed.
In the end, the disgraced ref resigned from the league and was convicted for criminal
acts, serving time until 2009.
"I was not actually in these games fixing the games and throwing calls to win a bet."
The relationship between the NBA and fans in China became better established with the
success of Chinese player Yao Ming.
The basketball star was 7 feet 6 inches tall and became enshrined in the Basketball Hall
of Fame in 2016.
Ming played for the Houston Rockets, but after his retirement, his former club caused controversy
with China.
In 2019, in response to protests in Hong Kong, the Rockets general manager at the time, Daryl
Morey, tweeted
"Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong."
The backlash from China was quick and strong — all of the Rockets' Chinese sponsors paused
their deals, and the country threatened to block the team's games, which was a big deal
given the millions of dollars coming in from the market.
In addition, a couple of exhibition games with the Rockets were canceled.
All the emphasis on the NBA losing money angered many fans, especially after star Lebron James
seemed to criticize Morey for supporting the Hong Kong protestors at the cost of the NBA.
"He wasn't educated on the situation at hand, and he spoke."
Basketball fans in Seattle had a long history with the local team, the SuperSonics.
With the signature green and yellow jerseys, the Sonics won their first and only league
championship in 1979.
In the next era, the team's prospects looked promising once again with the arrival of the
college standout from Texas, Kevin Durant.
The future star delivered – Durant won the NBA Rookie of the Year award.
Sadly, this was the last time hometown fans could watch the young player, as the team
suddenly relocated, leaving fans in the lurch.
The Sonics were sold to a new owner in Oklahoma, who moved the franchise to Oklahoma City and
renamed it the Oklahoma City Thunder.
It's hardly the only time an NBA team has suddenly abandoned a city or entire region
in the search for more money.
The Charlotte Hornets, for instance, relocated to New Orleans and became the Pelicans.
It can be easy to forget that, in the midst of all the action on court, there is more
going on with the players than just basketball.
Mental health has been a topic that had long been taboo around sports, but that has changed
in recent years, as more and more athletes are speaking out about the difficulties of
performing at the highest level.
In the basketball world, Kevin Love was one of the first huge stars to open up about the
private difficulties that come with being an NBA player, writing for The Players' Tribune,
"Everyone is going through something that we can't see."
Love recalled having mental health struggles starting in high school.
Though he was a gifted athlete, his depression often drove his performance on the court,
and he saw himself as just a basketball player instead of a well-rounded individual.
Love tried to distract himself by focusing even more on being one of the best in basketball,
but he discovered this wasn't the right approach.
He explained,
"You can't achieve yourself out of depression.
You can't achieve yourself out of that high level of anxiety."
Love told ESPN about a panic attack he had during a big game, saying,
"I basically ran to our trainers room, fell on the ground, collapsed, my heart was jumping
out of my chest."
As a result of Love's story, and others, the NBA became proactive to help its players and
further stepped up efforts amidst the pandemic to help their players cope with the mental
health challenges caused by COVID-19.
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