Wednesday, January 5, 2011

FROM THE ALOTT5MA WASHED-UP, FORMERLY BELOVED PHILADELPHIA ATHLETES DESK:  No, I don't know whether it's sadder that Lenny Dykstra bounced a check to an escort or that upon relocating to Istanbul for his dwindling basketball career, Allen Iverson's still hanging out at the nearest T.G.I. Friday's just as he did in Philadelphia.

(Actually, I know: the latter story is sadder -- he's clearly got issues with gambling and/or alcohol, plus it's just depressing to see an athlete whose skills have so diminished still chasing the sport.  Dykstra's a scam artist for whom I have no sympathy.)

4 comments:

  1. isaac_spaceman9:26 PM

    Agreed with your conclusion (bouncing a check to a hooker isn't sad; it's just sordid), but sadder than both is the story, linked in the escort article, that suggests that Dykstra lost his son's $737,000 signing bonus.  That's Dykstra hurting somebody else, not just hurting himself. 

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  2. The Iverson story is more upbeat than you sell it; Iverson claims to still have a good chunk of money, and he's making a pretty sizable salary.  Who else is going to pay him $2 million/year?

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  3. I don't believe that Iverson still has a good chunk of money.  I don't believe his denials regarding drinking and gambling.  

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  4. $154 million in salary, another $50-$100M from Reebok. Figure he loses half of that to taxes and agents and attorneys. Can one really burn through $100-$125M in fifteen years from drinking and gambling and TGIF?  Barkley's gambling problem cost him $10M, and he was doing his gambling at considerably higher-stakes places than Detroit casinos.  Jordan's and Wayne Rooney's gambling losses became scandalous around the $1M mark.  John Daly lost $50-$60M, but he was playing $5000 slot machines, rather than the slower-moving table games.  Ok, maybe, depending on how much his entourage and his wife are burning through, but the TGIF suggest lower-cost tastes.  It takes Dykstra-level incompetence or MC Hammer-level spending to burn through that much money. And rumor has it that the Reebok contract was structured as a lifetime annuity paying $5M, which, if true, provides a lot of second chances.

    I guess I'm less sympathetic, because I've always viewed Iverson as an overrated thug: the kind of player whose raw talent could get you to 45-50 wins, but who also put a ceiling on the quality of your team because he was such an awful teammate and wasn't good enough to be the best player on a championship team because he would have too many 8-for-27 nights for his team to consistently win, who never bothered to learn to be a 3-point shooter even as he was jacking up four such shots a game. (And the Iverson Sixers only got to 44 wins three times, so even that description may be giving him too much credit.)

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