Not surprisingly, there are tons of crazy NBA stories and crazy moments each season. Like I could talk about JR Smith throwing soup at his coach a few years ago or Chris Paul leading the Rockets through a secret tunnel to the Clippers' locker room, but I'll stick with the bigger stuff. This is kinda a power rankings as well, as the best story is at the bottom.
The first story I'm including because it just recently happened, not because it's one of the craziest NBA stories
First off, a pretty tame and recent one, Dion Waiters overdosing on edibles. On November 7th, 2019, Heat guard Dion Waiters was flying with the team from Phoenix to Los Angeles. Waiters experienced a "panic attack" after eating an edible or multiple edibles infused with cannabis. The Andy Slater Show first reported that Waiters had a reaction to gummies on Friday.
Before the fact that the edible(s) had cannabis, people had theories ranging from gummy bears to multivitamins to just straight weed, the latter being the closest, obviously. Before this panic attack, Waiters missed preseason due to "personal reasons" and hasn't played a minute in the regular season. I doubt that he will play a game for the Heat again this year, but he will be hard to trade with his contract being one of the most "toxic" ones.
6. Lavar Ball’s Failing Companies
There are a few things here. First, the Junior Basketball Association (JBA).
Lavar’s plan was to basically try to make a league for players that didn’t want to go to college but turn professional for a few years in a smaller league before trying to make it to the NBA. However, that plan kinda failed. The only people that actually played were players that couldn’t get into college ball or people who weren’t good enough for better leagues. The treatment of the players was worse than that of the WNBA, if you can believe it. But the league was charging US$40 tickets so people could see teams of 16-21 year olds that weren’t good enough for college. Also, since the league was mainly sponsored by Big Baller Brand, every team’s nickname was “Ballers”. Like there were the Houston Ballers and the Dallas Ballers and the Portland Ballers. The league lasted only a year.
That leads into the other company, the Big Baller Brand (BBB). Right from the beginning, people were predicting it to fail, and right from the beginning Lavar Ball insisted it wouldn't. It did. The BBB shoes that Lonzo Ball were wearing seemed to be messing up his ankles, and Lonzo sued Alan Foster for $1.5M because of a "fraudulent scheme" as well as covering the huge BBB tattoo. Right away the biggest star in the company jumped ship. The league went from selling shoes for $500 to selling a package that included socks, shoes, a hoodie and a t-shirt for only $100. The Better Business Bureau (another BBB) gave the Big Baller Brand 'F' rating, largely because people waited weeks and months for orders that weren't even theirs.
5. Jayson Williams Shoots Limo Driver
In 2002, former NBA All-Star Jayson Williams accidentally shot and killed his chauffeur, Gus Christofi. After a night out, which included other NBA players and lots of drinking, Williams invited Christofi to his mansion for a tour. This tour, unfortunately, included a look at Williams’ shotgun that was thought to be unloaded. It was not. The gun went off in Williams’ hands, killing Christofi.
Williams jumped into the pool and asked a teammate to get rid of his clothes, and Williams proceeded to hide what really happened for years. Eight years after the event, he was convicted of aggravated manslaughter and five accounts of hiding the truth. He served 18 months of the five years he was sentenced.
Williams dealt with alcoholism, suicidal tendencies and three other incidents with the law. In a 2016 interview he said he was “being a coward” for trying to hide what really happened, as well as noting that he is trying to stay sober and turn his life around.
4. Paul Pierce Getting Stabbed
On September 25th, 2000 Paul Pierce was at a private club in Boston, Massachusetts. As he was leaving, he had a bottle smashed over his head and was stabbed 11 times. At first, no arrests were made, but eventually a few men were accused and arrested. The details are a bit hazy, but pretty much a dude started a fight with Pierce, hit him over the head with the bottle, and then two others stabbed him in the face, neck and back. Luckily most of these were superficial, but he did need lung surgery.
Somehow, he still played all 82 games that season, the only one on his team to do so. Unfortunately, he said he suffered depression and anxiety for some years afterwards.
“I couldn’t be near crowds,” Pierce said. He also added that he hired 24-hour security to guard his home after the attack. “If I got in a crowded place, I’d start shaking inside. It took me years to get over that. If I was walking and someone bumped into me or rubbed against me, I’d freak out.”
3. Charles Barkley Threw Someone Out of a Window
In 1997, then Houston Rockets big man Charles Barkley got into a fight at an Orlando bar. At around 2 am, after Barkley had signed autographs for hours, 20-year old Jorge Lugo, standing at 5 foot 2 and 125 pounds, was throwing cups of ice and yelling curses at Barkley, said Karen Carrington. He supposedly ignored Lugo, at least until Lugo hit Carrington with glass in the face.
Lugo’s attorney claimed that Lugo did not in fact throw ice or glass. He didn’t deny that no one did, just that it wasn’t Lugo. After throwing Lugo through a window, Barkley ran outside to continue the altercation, but officers held him back. Barkley stepped back to Lugo and said, "For all I care, you can lay there and die."
The judge at Barkley trial asked Barkley if he had any regrets, to which Barkley responded, “Yeah I regret we were on the first floor.”
Classic Charles Barkley.
2. The Dennis Rodman-Kim Jong-Un Bromance
There’s so much to unwrap and so little words to unwrap it in. Mainly, there are three main things that have to be included in this story.
First, Kim Jong-Un is a huge Chicago Bulls fan (🤷♂) and loved Rodman because of his time with MJ’s Bulls team. This causes the first meeting, when Jong-Un invited Rodman to North Korea in March of 2013. Rodman was accompanied by a few Harlem Globetrotters and journalists. However, he was criticized heavily when he told Kim, “You have a friend for life.”
Dennis Rodman actually sang “Happy Birthday” to the North Korean leader, during Rodman’s January 2014 to North Korea. Rodman also apparently bowed to Kim as well. Rodman has made various trips and spent an unbelievable amount of time with Kim Jong-Un.
Lastly, Rodman claims to be the reason Kim knows so much about Donald Trump, for better or for worse. Rodman gave Kim a copy of Trump’s 1987 book “The Art of the Deal” as a gift in 2017. Of course, this Kim is North Korea’s Sports Minister Kim II Guk, but I don’t doubt Jong-Un read it if he didn’t know much about Trump. Rodman’s relationship with the North Korean leader is so strong that Rodman had a huge part in Kenneth Bae, an American missionary who was imprisoned from 2012-14, being released from prison.
1. Arenas-Crittenton Locker Room Showdown
On the team plane, Gilbert Arenas, Javale McGee and Javaris Crittenton were playing cards, killing time, on December 19th, 2009. It started when McGee won a pile of money from Crittenton, and Arenas started trash talking Crittenton. After the plane landed, Crittenton got after McGee for not letting him earn his money back, saying “this is the type of [stuff] that gets you [messed] up in the streets.”
Arenas jumped in with more trash talk, saying he would burn his car while Crittenton was in it. Crittenton replied with, “Well, I’ll just shoot you, then.”
“I said, ‘Man, I’ll bring you the guns to shoot me!’ ” Arenas recalled saying.
That’s exactly what Arenas did, bringing four guns with him to the locker room the next day. But Crittenton already has his own, which he pulled out. The locker room was evacuated, and thankfully no shots were fired. Both were suspended and put on probation. Crittenton never played again and is serving a 23-year prison sentence for manslaughter (unrelated), Arenas retired a year or so later and hosts a sports show, and McGee now plays with Lebron and the Lakers.
There's a lesson to be learned here. Since most of these crazy and unfortunate scenarios included alcohol or some sort of drunkenness, it's probably best to stay away from intoxication.
Also, Part III of the 'Most Disrespected NBA Superstar' should be posted sometime Saturday, so if you haven't checked out Parts I or II, now's as good a time as any.