The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 459 - 76: The Sun Also Rises

Three hours after the prosecution’s announcement, David Stern held an emergency press conference at the Grand Hyatt New York, stating that the NBA would never tolerate drug issues.

David Stern explained that the league had always conducted drug urine tests on its players, and so far, the test results for James Edwards and others had come back negative, showing no issues.

However, if the charges brought by the prosecutors were established, the league would show no clemency, and several active Suns players would face lifetime bans.

When asked by reporters whether this large-scale drug incident would affect the franchise rights of the Phoenix Suns, Stern firmly stood by the team, saying, "These issues are serious, but it seems more like a family that didn’t realize there was a problem inside. Now that the problem has been exposed, we will solve it rather than break up the family."

Stern described the Suns as members of a large family. He didn’t want such negative news to affect the league’s stable structure and sought to contain it within certain limits.

Stern believed that these were still just allegations, and not every accusation led to a conviction.

As long as the prosecution didn’t have sufficient evidence, there was a possibility of acquittal with the operation of defense attorneys.

Being a lawyer himself, David Stern knew the ins and outs, and signing a settlement agreement with the prosecution, in the end, would be a satisfactory outcome.

The so-called downplaying major issues, and dissolving minor ones, the NBA was truly unable to withstand the constant barrages of public opinion.

Stern didn’t want to deal with this right before the playoffs. He would crack down harder on drug prohibition in the league in the future, but for now, he wanted to quickly resolve the current crisis of public opinion.

Yet, the development of events quickly escaped David Stern’s expectations and became quite serious.

Firstly, Walter Davis turned traitor.

To exonerate himself, he acted as an insider witness, accusing his teammates of participating in drug trafficking, which solidified the Suns players’ illegal activities.

Bulwarks are often easily breached from within, and the police and prosecutors seized on Davis’s desire to continue his career, inducing him to "betray" his own teammates.

This negated the league’s desire to "downplay the matter," ensuring that it would certainly blow up.

Moreover, Stern soon sensed that the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office’s timing in bringing charges was deliberate to escalate the situation.

The regular season had just ended, and Guoyang scored 81 points, with NBA public opinion being at its peak and widely discussed in the major news media.

Throwing out such a negative news bombshell at this time would definitely have a super magnifying effect, so the prosecution was surely deliberate.

Secondly, the prosecution uncovered even more, and more severe, problems with the Suns, namely gambling on games.

The Arizona Republic reported that the prosecutor’s office was investigating the gambling issue among players and had sufficient evidence in hand.

Insiders revealed that since the end of last year, the Phoenix Police had been wiretapping the residences of the players and the Maraki Bar frequently visited by Suns players.

In March, the Maricopa County grand jury indicted Maraki Bar’s bartender, Charles Keenan, on charges of extortion and accepting bets.

Keenan then implicated the Suns players, which included issues related to gambling on games.

The police requested the league to provide the video of the Suns vs. Bucks game on February 21, as they had information suggesting possible game-fixing.

The over/under betting line for that game was set at 226 points, and the Suns lost 107:115, keeping the score below 226.

An insider claimed that someone told him to bet on the under before the game, and as a result, he won thousands of US dollars.

For the league, gambling by players has always been a red line.

Cocaine, because of individual freedom and social trends, was looked on with one eye open and the other closed.

Gambling, however, touching on the very foundation of the league’s survival, has always been strictly controlled.

When Stern saw reports of gambling, he knew the issue had just gotten bigger.

Thirdly, Stern tried his best to protect the Suns, to prevent them from being stripped of their franchise rights, but the situation was deteriorating.

Although the Suns management held a press conference claiming they were completely unaware of the content of the charges and it was all personal behavior of the players.

But news from Phoenix indicated that the Suns faced a major impact, being accused of possibly having long-term condoned or covered up drug use, trafficking, and gambling by players.

After the regular season ended, the Suns management gave leaves of absence to several executives involved in the case; many of them were former Suns players who stayed with the team in roles after retirement.

They were all to be summoned and investigated by the police, revealing that the Phoenix Police Department and the prosecutor’s office intended to make a significant case that would shock all of America.

Upon learning of these developments, David Stern immediately contacted his old rival, Players Union President Larry Flesher.

The two proceeded to Phoenix together, to personally handle this incredibly thorny case before the playoffs began.

Flesher and Stern were at a standoff over the 1988 labor agreement issue. Flesher had a ’big gift’ in store for Stern, and the two were set to continue their titanic struggle.

However, facing the drug scandal involving the Phoenix Suns, Flesher was well aware that at this moment they were in the same boat.

No matter how much the players and owners fought, it was an internal conflict; the dispute was about who got a bigger slice of the pie, but the goal was to expand the pie so that everyone could get a larger share.

But the police and prosecutors didn’t care; their approach could lead to smashing your cooking pot, so how could the two not join forces against a common enemy?

On the evening of April 22nd, David Stern and Larry Flesher arrived together in Phoenix and behind closed doors at the hotel, they discussed how to handle the situation.

As the two most legally savvy, brilliant minds of the NBA, the erstwhile evenly matched contenders now had to face this tough challenge together.

The next day, both men went to the Phoenix Police Department to get a detailed understanding of the relevant facts and discuss strategies with the Suns’ lawyers and the defense attorney for the case.

At this time, the NBA playoffs had already begun, but Stern was completely preoccupied to care about the playoffs. He felt fortunate that the Phoenix Suns had not made it to the playoffs.

Otherwise, if the prosecution had caused trouble during the playoffs and rounded up a playoff team’s key players, that would have been a catastrophic blow to the NBA.

As seasoned legal professionals, Flesher and Stern quickly designed a strategy with the defense attorneys, and in the following months engaged in a war of attrition with the prosecutors and the police.

First of all, they targeted Walter Davis as a turncoat; since he could turn once, he could turn a second time.

During the trial, Walter Davis suddenly changed his story, claiming he had been coerced by the examiner into being a tarnished witness.

The defense pointed out that Walter Davis had long been a cocaine user and had a drinking problem. He had undergone multiple treatments, repeatedly relapsing and going through withdrawal, casting doubt on his mental state.

During the period he was under investigation, he was also undergoing withdrawal treatment and was far from rational.

Furthermore, some of his testimonies were inconsistent and even contradicted others’ statements, casting even more doubt on his credibility.

Regarding the alleged game-fixing, according to testimonies and investigations, the players had indeed placed bets, but they only gambled on sports unrelated to basketball like the NFL, never on games they played in.

Then, the defense attorneys turned their attention to the Phoenix Police and the district attorney’s office, accusing them of hastily bringing charges without sufficient evidence gathering right before the NBA playoffs in pursuit of sensational news.

Many of their charges and accusations lacked substantive evidence, some even pointing to drug use and trafficking from a decade ago with no trails to follow.

And a lot of it was based on Walter Davis’s recollections—all from a man who wasn’t even clear-headed. How could their words be taken as evidence?

The NBA and defense attorneys guessed right—the prosecution did want to create a big news story by initiating the lawsuit early, leading them to produce evidence that was not solid enough, rife with gaps and internal contradictions.

The prosecutors later regretted not bringing charges during the finals, acknowledging they should have solidified their evidence further.

Of course, this did not mean that the Suns and these players were off the hook and everything would return to normal.

Although some of the accusations brought by the district attorney did not hold, and the players were not criminally punished, their deep involvement with gambling and drugs was undeniable, and the team’s reputation had suffered greatly.

Therefore, the Suns’ franchise rights were forcibly sold by the league. Team general manager Jerry Colangelo pulled together a team to buy out the Suns from the original shareholders, ushering in a new era for the team.

When the new shareholders’ meeting was convened, Stern moved the venue from Phoenix to Los Angeles, as if sending a signal to Phoenix: if your local law enforcement keeps holding on to the Suns, we will leave Phoenix.

However, Stern consistently claimed that this move was in protest of Arizona’s governor for obstructing Martin Luther King Day as a holiday.

In June, during the NBA Finals, former Suns player and member of the management’s shoe operations, Johnny Hay, died in a car accident in downtown Phoenix.

Hay was involved in the case and testified as a prosecution witness in court. According to him, he had received numerous threats and intimidations, leading to tremendous pressure.

On the night of his death, he drove a Mazda straight into a lamppost. Attempts to save his life were in vain, and the police found no evidence of braking or attempts at self-rescue in the vehicle.

After an autopsy, the police announced that Hay’s blood contained alcohol, but not in high concentrations, leading them to suspect that Johnny Hay had committed suicide.

Hay’s death did not become an opportunity for the prosecution to delve deeper into the case. Instead, it weakened their charges even further, and the media ultimately touted it as a case of "political persecution."

In August, the Suns’ young center Nick Vanos died in a plane crash, becoming yet another person to lose his life during the Suns’ tumultuous times.

In the end, after a series of investigations, trials, and battles between the prosecution and defense, only one player received a suspended sentence in the grand lawsuit, the team franchise rights changed hands, the management was reshuffled, and players were traded.

And the Suns continued to rise in Phoenix as usual.