The NBA world was rocked a few days ago when eighteen former players were charged of defrauding the NBA. These former players, which include notable names such as Glen Davis, Tony Allen, and former lottery pick Terrence Williams, allegedly used the NBA's health care policy to make a quick buck.
Spencer Haywood, an NBA Hall of Fame inductee and chairman of the NBA Retired Players Association (NBARPA), spoke out against these former players. In an interview with the Boston Globe, Haywood talks about being “heartbroken” as this scandal likely undid years of work fighting for retired players' rights.
“What I was fighting for is we had no health insurance as retired players,” Haywood said. “Chris Paul and LeBron James and all those guys came up with a plan to come up with insurance for all of us. And what these guys [the alleged scammers] have done is taken advantage of that health insurance we worked so far for. And it’s blackened all of our eyes.”
Notably, these eighteen retired players aren't part of the NBARPA, but they benefit from the insurance that the current NBA Players Association fought for. Some of these guys were fringe NBA players, but there are a few notable names such as Davis, who was part of the championship Celtics team. Haywood called out Davis in particular, saying that:
“Some of the names I was saddened to hear, like Glen Davis, I was like wait a minute, I didn’t think he was that kind of a person. He’s made, what, $40 million in salary? What are you doing man?”
For the record, Davis is estimated to have made around $33 million in his NBA career according to Spotrac. Haywood laments at the fact that despite having already made significant money playing in the NBA, these guys went and exploited the system. The same system that helped ailing retired NBA players like Nate Archibald get medical help was used by these guys for their greed.
Hopefully, this incident doesn't hinder the NBA from helping their retired players.
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