I don't know about you, but I like to gamble. Naturally on a blogger's salary, I drop those $5 bills at the blackjack table like nobody's business. But once it gets higher than $5, I tend to back off a bit. Not for NBA players. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel had a weekend article describing what gambling is like on NBA planes between games, and it's definitely another world. The main game is poker, and players can drop an amazing amount of cash in just a couple of hours. How much? Like $30,000+ much.
"I've heard guys who have lost $30,000 on an hour plane trip," Charlotte guard Derek Anderson says. "It's amazing — $30,000 in an hour. You leave Chicago, you have $30,000. You arrive in Detroit, you don't."
"You get a guy who likes to gamble," Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy says, "he can get on a plane and lose $10,000 and it's not a problem."
While the stakes sure seem high, and they are, NBA players earn an average of $5.4 million a season or nearly $66,000 per game, the highest average salary in pro sports. So it's not as bad as you or me dropping the same amount. Although still, dropping half a game's pay in one sitting would probably bother me a bit. You also have to remember that $66,000 is before a chunk goes to your agent and taxes. So the average NBA player isn't really pulling in $66,000 a game. "You get a guy who likes to gamble," Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy says, "he can get on a plane and lose $10,000 and it's not a problem."
While gambling came under intense scrutiny last summer in the wake of the NBA officiating scandal that linked referee Tim Donaghy with bookmakers, the review process eventually eased the restrictions on friendly card games among referees. That essentially sanctioned them throughout the sport.
"We don't have a policy on player card games, and we're not considering adopting a policy," league spokesman Tim Frank says.
The interesting thing is that most teams let this go on, even though some times it can lead to rather contentious arguments.
Legendary in NBA circles is the spat between retired power forwards Charles Oakley and Tyrone Hill over a dice game in 1999. Hill lost $54,000. He didn't pay quickly enough for Oakley's tastes. Interest was demanded. Finally, $108,000 later, contentiousness that had spilled over to the court ceased. I'm not sure what's more shocking, that Hill didn't pay Oakley quickly, or that Oakley didn't bust his kneecaps. Apparently Oakley was softer than we all realized.
Apparently most coaches at least keep an eye on the proceedings, since guys who earn a ton can more easily throw money around than a bench scrub. But if there was ever an indication as to why apparently 60% of NBA players are broke after 5 years of retirement, aside from the huge houses and cars, this would be up there on the list.
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