As the editor of InsideHoops.com, I make more money in a month than Shaquille O’Neal makes in a year. I write this while flying on my private jet to visit one of my 29 mansions. Still, even compared to me, NBA players live a life of luxury. It’s also possible I’m hallucinating. Anyway, the Toronto Star (Dave Feschuk) reports:
In L.A. last night, for instance, the Raptors stayed at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, an ultra-luxe crash pad to pop-culture deities from John Lennon to Julia Roberts. The place is opulent enough that Jim Labumbard, Toronto’s veteran media relations guru who’s forgotten more nights in five-star hotels than most of the rest of us will ever experience, recalls bunking in a Wilshire suite lavish enough to have a bathroom on either end of its acreage. “Two bathrooms?” said Chris Bosh, the Raptors all-star, shrugging as though he’d know exactly what to do with such extravagance. “Have two baths, man.” If NBA players have grown blasé about their luxury lifestyle, consider that it’s been more than 20 years since the Detroit Pistons led the move to now-universal private-charter air travel. And even Sam Mitchell, the 43-year-old former player, can scarcely recall the days when a veteran had to pay a premium to secure his own room on the road. In this every-man’s-an-island league, a spacious room of one’s own is now an inalienable right written into the collective bargaining agreement.
Being an NBA player is cool.
The Boston Globe (Frank Dell’Apa) reports: Larry Brown has returned to the area where his professional coaching career started. Brown, now leading the Bobcats, guided the Carolina Cougars in the American Basketball Association for two seasons (1972-74). But Brown nearly became a Celtics assistant two years ago. “It was very close,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. “He said yes. That’s about as close as you can get. But, like I jokingly said, it was a Larry yes, not a sign-on-the-document yes. I knew what was going on, though. His wife’s parents were not doing well. He knew it was a tough decision. He said yes but he may not be able to do it. He just thought at the end of the day he needed to be at home. “He would be a great guy to lean on, he would have been great. I would have loved him. He is overqualified, that’s why I would have loved him. He’s a great mind, and the more you’re around him, the more you understand that.”