NBA salaries have skyrocketed, with the top players in the league making north of $40 million per year. For rookies, though, the wage scale is a bit different and always has been. Young players, with very few exceptions, need time before they start earning that real money, and this can sometimes lead to some questionable decisions in the pursuit of some extra scratch.
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Seventeen-year vet and three-time Sixth Man of the Year award winner Lou Williams recently appeared on The Underground Lounge podcast, and he spoke about a time during his rookie year when he let the pursuit of the almighty dollar cause him to act out.
Williams was making $450,000 as a rookie, so when Chris Webber challenged him to drink three bottles of beer for $15k, he said, “$15,000 sound like $15 million at that time.” Despite never drinking before, he accepted the challenge and did it, after which his teammates had to actually carry him onto the team plane.
Williams wanted to fit in with the team’s veterans, especially Allen Iverson, who he said was his idol growing up. So when Webber offered him another $15,000 once they were on the plane to take his shirt off and go slap head coach Mo Cheeks upside the head, Williams, whose judgment was compromised after downing his first three beers in rapid succession, obliged.
“Mo is looking at me, and I’m getting closer and closer to him, and he’s looking at me, and I say, ‘Sorry Mo,’ [slap sound] smacked the s*** out of Mo Cheeks,” Williams recalled. “That’s probably the craziest thing I did on a dare.”
The Sixers had decided that the drunk Williams was “the entertainment for the night,” which is perhaps why Cheeks wasn’t upset when the shirtless rookie came running to the back of the plane to slap him.
Cheeks could only laugh after being slapped, which is just another piece of evidence in his case for being the coolest head coach of all time.
Many NBA fans will remember when he helped a nervous young girl sing the national anthem as head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers in 2003.
As an 18-year-old second-round draft pick, Williams’ long NBA career was far from a guarantee. He credits Cheeks with giving him his first real opportunity, despite a little bit of peer pressure-induced assault. The moral of the story? Mo Cheeks is the best.
