Here’s a quick trivia question: What do the disgraced former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers and the third overall pick of the 2008 NBA Draft? Well, I mean, if you read the headline of this piece, you would realize we're about to talk about banned NBA players and banned NBA owners. It's NBA Blacklist season, friends.
Nonetheless, we forgive you.
If you didn’t read the title of this video, you’d be hard pressed to find any similarity between Donald Sterling and O.J. Mayo. But one that stands out is the fact that both these men are serving lifetime bans from the National Basketball Association.
That’s right. Moving forward, those guys will be as involved in the daily happenings of the NBA as you and I… and we’re not even billionaires of athletically gifted 6-foot-5 guards! Oh, banned NBA players (and banned NBA owners)! You guys are silly.
The NBA is a pretty lenient league in most cases. You can hit a dude in the stands with a right hook a la Ron Artest and still return to play basketball for your living. You can shove a player while sitting courtside in the biggest series of the year like Warriors minority owner Mark Stevens and only get slapped with a one-year ban. You can even choke out your head coach when he insults your passing ability and rejoin the NBA family—looking at you, Latrell Sprewell.
But there are some offenses the league simply can’t abide by, and they will slap you with a permanent ban. These reasons range from shaving points to repeated failures to pass a drug test.
As of 2023, there are 15 men who are banned from stepping foot in an arena when an NBA game is taking place.
Here are their stories.
Of the 15 blacklisted men, nine of them are on the list for gambling reasons. It’s certainly worth noting this isn’t a recent issue, as all nine last played from 1950-1970, which were apparently big years to shave points from college games.
In 1951, the NBA banned its first people ever from the league after catching wind of a massive college basketball scandal, known as the CCNY point-shaving scandal. It was revealed that players from seven different schools, including the University of Kentucky and City College of New York, had taken money from organized crime groups to play poorly in the biggest games of the season.
You would think that a school named City College of New York wouldn’t need to be paid to be awful at the shooty hoops, but the 50s were a weird time, kids. The mobsters would bet on the underdog, knowing that they had paid off the favorite to choke the game away. In the end, 33 players were convicted of getting paid to take a dive.
The most interesting part of this story might actually be how the scandal was finally revealed.
Junius Kellogg, the center for Manhattan College at the time, was a freshman when some men approached him with $1,000 and told him all the money would be his if he purposefully played below par in his next game. Kellog turned down the money, and it wasn’t because he was a rich man. He was working at a frozen custard place close to school and making minimum wage, but he still refused the quick cash and alerted the authorities instead.
You might be thinking, “Junius is a rat!” and you might be right, Martin Scorsese movie-marathon-watcher, but Kellogg had integrity and conviction! A man of the… people or something.
So props to Kellogg for being the most honest dude in this entire documentary.
By the end of the entire saga, seven men had been handed a lifetime ban for their role in the scandal. The banned NBA players list is growing!
NBA BLACKLIST COUNT: 7
Gambling ended up landing two more guys on the NBA’s bad side. Jack Molinas, who was actually a coach at the center of the previously mentioned scandal, managed to dodge the ban for three years. Eventually, he was caught and ended up in jail.
He was banned from the league, but that wasn’t the end of his story. It was far more nefarious than that. Our pal Jack was executed in his backyard by people who were heavily suspected to have mob ties. On top of that, Molinas’ business partner was beaten to death less than a year prior.
Don’t mess around with bookies, kids. And if you do, keep up-to-date with your payments, for the love of God.
Roger Brown, an ABA legend, had heavy ties to Molinas, and so he was banned too but not executed, bringing our banned NBA players list up to nine. That said, don't worry, banned NBA owners are coming!
NBA BLACKLIST COUNT: 9
Of the remaining seven banned players, six of them are banned for failing drug tests. In the 21st century, the league banned John Drew, Chris Washburn, Roy Tarpley, and Richard Dumas for multiple violations of the league’s drug policy.
Drew and Washburn were the first to go, victims of the 1980s cocaine craze and the subsequent NBA crackdown. One has to especially remember with them, while society is far more polite to users of drugs in the modern age, often wanting to help instead of ostracize, if anyone was involved with cocaine back in the 80s and not trotting about Studio 54, they were considered “bad eggs.”
Tarpley was next after he received a DUI while playing for the Mavericks and was caught again drinking heavily. Thankfully, the troubled center found success playing basketball elsewhere and still managed to carve out a career overseas.
Dumas spent his entire life dealing with addiction and failed three drug tests while playing in the league. Eventually, the NBA had enough and banned him. He was eventually arrested for stealing cigarettes and alcohol from an Air Force base and was sentenced to three years of probation.
NBA BLACKLIST COUNT: 13
Moving on to a recent name that readers are certainly familiar with: O.J. “Grocery List” Mayo.
Mayo was banned by the NBA prior to the 2016-17 season for substance abuse. Mayo later admitted to abusing painkillers. The NBA told Mayo that he could apply for reinstatement after two years. However, he never was able to return to the NBA.
Our banned NBA players list is growing yet again!
NBA BLACKLIST COUNT: 14
That leaves one man, and I think I speak for everyone when I say I would be just fine never seeing this guy enter an NBA arena ever again.
You know who it is… our banned NBA owners section portion of the program.
Donald Sterling was banned when he was caught spewing racist comments to his girlfriend, who is black. The irony was not lost on the NBA community, who quickly rallied to boot Sterling from his Los Angeles Clippers ownership. In 2014, commissioner Adam Silver banned Sterling and forced him to sell his team.
It actually ended years and years of Sterling using his power in awful, bigoted ways. This was just the last of far too many straws Sterling was allowed to drink from.
Nevertheless, Sterling’s exodus was historical.
The league was free of a gross racist and put a spotlight on Steve Ballmer, who seems to be perpetually hopped up on something but in a good way… we think?
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