Glen Rice, Sarah Palin and the Weirdest NBA Revelations of the Last 25 Years

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In case you completely zone out any time you hear the name Sarah Palin like I do at this point in her overexposure to the world, some very strange news came out about a week ago involving her and a former NBA star.

Apparently, Palin and Glen Rice had some sort of intimate affair back in 1987 when Rice was still playing basketball in Michigan before Palin was married.

Sure, this has no real connection to anything that happened on a basketball court, but NBA players are so visible and accessible that there are constantly things like this coming out about basketball players and people involved with the sport as a whole.

It is an integral part to the history of basketball, as it gives a personality to the stars that we see play the game every night.

Then there are those things that come out that rattle basketball to the core because of the scandal involved, which also account for how strange the league is.

So, for your reading pleasure I've decided to relive all of the interesting, strange and sometimes depressing things that have happened in the league in the past two and a half decades.

20. Tony Parker Scandal

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The most scandalous thing to come out of this season came from San Antonio, a place people don't usually hear much about until the Spurs start dominating in the playoffs.

However, early on in this season a report came out that threatened to put a bump in the road for the usually stable Spurs.

First, a report came out that Tony Parker had apparently cheated on Eva Longoria, something that in itself seems like an insane thing for any red-blooded man to do.  Then it came out that the person he had an affair with may have been Erin Barry, former teammate Brent Barry's wife.

Really, we had two revelations come from this news.

First, Tony Parker is the craziest man alive for cheating on Longoria.  Don't get me wrong, Erin Barry is a good looking lady, but she is no Eva Longoria.

Second, this was swept under the rug so quickly that I think it's no longer news that a millionaire Frenchman is an international playboy.

19. Isiah's Leading the Knicks

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We all know that Isiah Thomas was one of the worst general managers in the league in his time with the New York Knicks, but up until he fired Browne Sanders, that's all we thought he was.

Well, Thomas fired then-Vice President of Marketing Sanders in January of 2006, at which point she promptly filed a $10 million lawsuit for wrongful termination.  What was the reason she stated that she was fired?  She claimed that when she hired a lawyer to pursue a sexual harassment lawsuit against Thomas, he fired her.

Isiah Thomas and the Knicks were found in violation and the Knicks were ordered to pay millions in damages, later settling out of court for $11.5 million.

18. Gilbert Arenas Incident

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On December 24th, nearly two years ago now, it was revealed that Gilbert Arenas was storing unloaded weapons at the Verizon Center that he recently surrendered to police.

Why was it that he ended up having to surrender them?  Well about a week later it was revealed that Arenas and teammate Javaris Crittenton were in an altercation over some gambling debts, at which point Arenas pulled a gun on Crittenton.

Both players ended up being suspended for the rest of the season after the league did a full investigation.

17. Marv Albert Case

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You know your league is a bit crazy when Marv Albert's sex scandal is about the sixth most controversial in the league's history.

Well, in 1997 the longtime NBC announcer was accused of forcible sodomy by a 42-year-old woman who claimed to have had a 10-year sexual relationship with Albert.  So what finally made her end it?  Just a bit of crazy from old Marv.

She accused Albert of calling her into his hotel room to fix his fax machine (seems shady already, right?). When she came into his room he was wearing only a belt and ladies underpants (in Marv Albert's voice, "YES!").

Then she says he threw her on the bed, bit her back 15 times, sodomized her and forced her to perform oral sex.

Albert countered saying that she was seeking revenge for ending their relationship, claiming that she, "couldn't imagine life without him."

DNA tests later revealed that the bite marks were from Albert, at which point he pled guilty to assault and battery charges.

16. Bison Dele Disappearance

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One of the most eccentric, yet not well known players in league history, Bison Dele vanished in the South Pacific Ocean a decade ago.

After suddenly retiring in 2000 at the age of 30 with more than $30 million left on his contract with the Pistons, Dele disappeared from the headlines until he took a boating trip in 2002.

After Dele disappeared, his brother Miles Daboard who had been on the boat with Dele and the only one on the boat who was seen or heard from again, fled to Mexico using Dele's passport after buying $152,000 in gold under Dele's name.

The boat was found in Tahiti registered under another name with its license plates removed and bullet holes in it.

Deboard, fearing prison, intentionally overdosed on insulin, causing him to slip into a coma and eventually die in September of 2002.

15. Shawn Kemp's Kids

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There are a ton of basketball players out there that have illegitimate children, but few of them did it quite like Shawn Kemp.

As far as confirmed children, Kemp has seven with six different women, but many people say there are far more out there. 

14. NBC City Bias

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From 1990 to 2002, NBC had rights for prime-time basketball broadcasts and  NBA Finals games.

The three teams that NBC most often chose to put in its broadcasts just happened to be the New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, which makes sense because those are the three biggest television markets in the country.

However, it gets strange when you see that during that 12-year run in which NBC broadcasted the Finals, the Bulls, Lakers and Knicks played in 12 combined Finals, with one of the three teams being in the Finals every year except in 1994 and 1995 when the Rockets won both championships.

Seems more than just a little fishy.

13. SAT Scandal

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After a stellar season at Memphis in 2008, it was revealed that Derrick Rose had an invalid SAT score from the year before.  The NCAA charged that Derrick Rose had someone else take the SAT for him, and officials at Memphis knew about it.

Memphis eventually admitted that they had learned about the fraudulent SAT score shortly after Rose enrolled, but they also said after questioning him that there was too little evidence for them to justify filing a report to the NCAA.

Nonetheless, the NCAA ended up voiding the entire 2007-2008 seasons, not for the fact that Rose's SAT was invalid, but because his Reggie had been allowed to fly with the team for free, something that had the NCAA known about, would have made Rose ineligible for the season.

12. He's Not a Role Model

Today we know Charles Barkley as the mushmouthed, chubby guy on TNT who goes on rants from time to time about things that bother him.  He's basically the basketball version of Andy Rooney.

However, back in the 1990s, he was easily one of the most controversial figures in the NBA.

Throughout his career, Barkley had said that athletes should not be role models, and one of his commercials would inevitably create a media firestorm.

He claimed that, "Just because I can dunk a basketball, doesn't mean I should raise your kids."  He said in later interviews that parents and teachers should be their kids role models, looking up to someone that they can become.

11. Sarah Palin and Glen Rice

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It is a recent revelation, but possibly one of the most insane Sarah Palin-related news stories that I have heard since she became a national figure.

When the news first came out, the claim was that Palin and Rice had a one night stand back in 1987 before Palin was married and when Rice was still in college.  I assumed this was going to be another "LeBron's mom" controversy with people coming out against it and others for it.

However, with a week past and nobody really coming out against the claims from the new book, and Glen Rice almost confirming it himself by saying that Palin is a "sweetheart and is respectful," it seems that this one is almost undeniably true.

10. Anything Dennis Rodman Related

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Hmmm...what is it that Dennis Rodman hasn't done over the course of his insane, yet entertaining career?

Rodman has been married three times, had bouts with alcoholism that led to Phil Jackson stepping in and being a part of an intervention as recently as three years ago and has been to jail more times than can be counted.

It's hard to say if the media attention created Dennis Rodman or if Dennis Rodman played the country like a fiddle because he knew he had the media attention. Before coming to Chicago, Rodman was borderline normal.

Still, it's undeniable that he was one of the most entertaining players of the past 25 years.

9. The Decision

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So what, you may ask, was the revelation that came of The Decision?  Well, it was the single event that may have changed more people's opinion of a single person more than any other in the history of this country.

When LeBron uttered those now famous words, it was evident that he had dragged the Cleveland Cavaliers fans along behind him for the past month, culminating with a mistake-laden announcement that he was leaving for Miami.  The worst part, he seemed to be oblivious of any wrongdoing for months before he issued any kind of legitimate apology.

It changed the NBA more than any kind of event that happened off court since Magic Johnson was diagnosed with HIV.

8. Michael Jordan Conspiracy Theory

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I am a big fan of conspiracy theories, and I could actually see this one being true with a still power-hungry David Stern not wanting any one player to get bigger than the game (although MJ easily did this).

Anyway, back in 1993, Michael Jordan left the NBA to pursue a career in baseball.

Now, in the time leading up to his basketball hiatus, Jordan was gambling, that much is obvious and had been revealed in a trial a year prior, along with a revelation that Jordan had been seen playing baccarat at 2:00 in the morning before Game 2 of the 1992 Eastern Conference Finals. He had lost $900,000 to Richard Esquinas golfing.

So, conspiracy theorists will have you believe that Stern half advised, half ordered Jordan to take a sabbatical until the media firestorm calmed down.  

7. Microfiber Ball

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The microfiber ball was the worst decision by the NBA in the past 50 years for many reasons; it was ugly, it was slippery, it bounced weird, players hated it, the list goes on and on.

It was revealed that the league switched to the new ball without consulting any players, and after complaints that the ball became slippery when it absorbed sweat (something it was supposed to avoid by absorbing sweat) and actually cut players hands when used for too long, the league switched back to the old ball after just half a season of use.

6. Gloria James Rumors

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Easily the strangest sexual story to come out in the past decade, the Gloria James/Delonte West rumors are too fun to pass up.

Rumor has it that West shacked up with Lebon's mom, and the alleged affair was revealed to LeBron prior to Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against Boston in 2010, destroying the Cavs' chemistry, dividing the team and absolutely killing Delonte West's playing time.

West went from averaging about 27 minutes in the first four games to playing nine and 13 minutes in the final two games of the series.

Interesting—very interesting.

5. Wilt Chamberlain's Women

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Back in 1991, Wilt Chamberlain released his second autobiography A View From Above, in which he claimed to have slept with over 20,000 women.

Many of his friends came out to support this claim, saying Wilt could be seen with three or more women on any given night and was constantly flirting with anything that moved.

However, former Lakers beat writer Doug Krikorian claimed that to be a complete hyperbole to sell books, even saying, " He was the worst guy I’ve ever seen trying to hustle women. I’m serious. I know bartenders that scored way more than Wilt. Please."

4. 1985 NBA Draft Lottery

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The most interesting basketball-related conspiracy theory to come out of the 1980s is without a doubt the one leaving the 1985 Draft Lottery in a mysterious shroud.

The rumor is that one of the envelopes containing the names of the teams (this one in particular being the New York Knick's envelope) was banged around on the inside of the tumbler, creasing the corner while the rest were put in cleanly.

Stern then stepped up, felt around for the crease, and voila, Patrick Ewing is a Knick and they are relevant again.

For a while you could even find video of the event taking place and see the shady dealings first hand (you can actually see the creased envelope if you pause it at the right point), but we all know that has probably been destroyed from every corner of the internet by Stern's goons.

3. Broke Players

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Back in 2008, the Toronto Sun reported that the players association was beginning to counsel players on how to manage their money, citing that nearly 60 percent of players go broke within five years of retirement.

When you see the lavish spending and the entourage that some players carry around with them, that's actually not that hard to believe, but it does give the league a bad reputation.

Some of the most extreme examples include Antoine Walker, who blew the more than $100 million he made in a little over a decade in the NBA so quickly that he had to play basketball in Puerto Rico less than two years after he retired. 

Other players included in the long list of guys blowing through insane amounts of money in short periods of time include Allen Iverson, Kenny Anderson and even Scottie Pippen.

2. Gold Club Scandal

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Ladies and gentlemen, the Gold Club Scandal.  By far the best sex scandal in the history of the NBA.

Without going into a 2,000 word wrap up of exactly what the Gold Scandal was, basically it involved a strip club in Atlanta where owner Steve Kaplan was indicted on charges that included racketeering and  many NBA players were called in as witnesses.

It was alleged that the club would use some of their strippers in an overly-friendly manner to get NBA players to come, or they would just outright send them to their hotel rooms in order for the club to make a name for itself.

Dozens upon dozens of NBA players were reported to have had some kind of contact with the club, including Patrick Ewing who testified about one visit he had to the club saying, "The girls danced, started fondling me, I got aroused, they performed oral sex. I hung around a little bit and talked to them, then I left."

The club ended up paying around $5 million in fines to go along with a few more minor penalties, and we were all left with some of the most entertaining testimonies in ages.

The NBA, where amazing happens.

1. Tim Donaghy

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The Tim Donaghy Scandal is so troubling and so far reaching that there is no question it is my No. 1 here.

Back in 2007, Donaghy was arrested for his involvement in a gambling scandal in which he was betting on games to control the point spread. 

After his arrest, Donaghy alleged that he was not the only bad apple in the bunch of referees and in fact that the league did employ some "company men" who would do the league's bidding whenever asked, meaning they influenced the outcomes of games.

One such game was one that had always been shrouded in controversy and saw Donaghy himself as a referee. Donaghy claims that the officiating in Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals was biased in order to extend the series to seven games and drive up ratings.

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