The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 412 The sun also rises
Three hours after the announcement of the indictment, David Stern held an emergency press conference at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York, stating that the NBA would not tolerate drug-related issues.

David Stern explained that the league has always conducted drug tests on players, and based on the current test results, the urine samples of James Edwards and others have all come back negative, indicating no problem.

However, if the prosecution's charges are upheld, the league will not tolerate it, and several current Suns players will face lifetime bans.

When asked by reporters whether the large-scale drug incident would affect the Phoenix Suns' franchise, Stern firmly stood by the team, saying, "These are serious issues, but it looks more like a family that didn't realize there were problems inside. Now that the problems have been exposed, we will solve them, not break up the family."

Stern described the Suns as part of a large family and said he didn't want the negative news to affect the league's solid structure and wanted to keep it within limits.

Stern believes these are just charges for now, and not every charge will lead to a conviction.

If the prosecution lacks sufficient evidence, the player may be acquitted through the efforts of the defense lawyer.

David Stern, a lawyer by training, knew the intricacies of the situation and believed that if they could eventually reach a settlement with the prosecution, it would be a good outcome.

The NBA is under immense pressure from the constant barrage of public opinion attacks, and it's simply unbearable.

Stern didn't want to do this so close to the playoffs. He will be cracking down on drug use in the league later, but he hopes to resolve the current public relations crisis quickly.

However, things quickly took an unexpected turn for David Stern, and the situation became quite serious.

First, Walter Davis betrayed him.

In an attempt to exonerate himself, he acted as a witness, testifying that his teammates were involved in drug trafficking, which solidified the Suns players' criminal activities.

Fortresses are always easily breached from within. Police and prosecutors seized on Davis's desire to continue his career, leading him to "betray" his teammates.

This thwarted the alliance's attempt to downplay the incident, and things are bound to escalate.

Moreover, Stern quickly realized that the Marley Cooper County District Attorney's Office filed charges at this time in order to escalate the matter.

The regular season had just ended, and Gan Guoyang scored 81 points, which was a hot topic of discussion in the NBA and was widely discussed in major news media.

At this point, dropping a bombshell of negative news would have an amplified effect, so the prosecutor's office must have done it on purpose.

Secondly, the prosecutor's office uncovered more problems with the Suns, even more serious ones, namely, match-fixing.

The Arizona Republic reports that prosecutors are investigating players for match-fixing and have sufficient evidence.

Sources familiar with the matter revealed that Phoenix police began wiretapping players’ homes and the Malachi bar frequented by Suns players at the end of last year.

In March, a Marie Cooper County jury indicted Charles Keenan, a bartender at the Marachi Bar, on charges of extortion and accepting bets.

Keenan then dragged in Suns players, which involved issues related to match-fixing.

Police have requested the league to provide video footage of the Suns vs. Bucks game on February 21, as they have information suggesting the game may have been involved in match-fixing.

The odds for that game to go over were 226 points, and the Suns lost 107-115, keeping the score below 226 points.

Sources say that someone told him before the game that he should bet on the under, and he ended up making thousands of dollars.

For the league, player betting has always been a red line.

Cocaine was previously overlooked due to concerns about individual freedom and societal norms.

Since match-fixing is fundamental to the league's survival, it has always been strictly controlled.

Stern saw the reports about betting on football and knew things were definitely getting bigger.

Third, Stern tried his best to protect the Suns and prevent them from losing their franchise because of this, but the situation was deteriorating.

Although the Suns' management held a press conference claiming they were completely unaware of the charges and that the actions were solely the players' personal decisions.

However, according to news from Phoenix, the Suns have been severely impacted, as they have been accused of potentially covering up and condoning players' drug use, drug trafficking, and gambling for an extended period.

After the regular season ended, the Suns' management gave several executives involved in the case a leave of absence. Several of them were former Suns players who stayed on as Suns employees after retiring.

They will all be summoned and investigated by the police, which shows that the Phoenix police and prosecutors are planning to pull off a major case that will shock the entire United States.

After learning about the situation, David Stern immediately contacted his old rival, Larry Fleischer, president of the players' union.

The two traveled together to Phoenix to personally handle this extremely thorny case before the playoffs began. Fleischer and Stern were already at loggerheads over the 1988 collective bargaining agreement, and Fleischer was preparing a major surprise for Stern, ensuring their continued, dramatic battle.

But when it came to the Phoenix Suns' drug scandal, Fleischer knew very well that they were in the same boat at this moment.

No matter how much the labor and capital fight, it's still an internal conflict. The disagreement is about who gets more and who gets less, but the goal is to make the pot bigger so that everyone can get a bigger share.

But the police and prosecutors don't care. If they're going to do something, they'll smash your rice cooker. How can the two of them not unite against a common enemy?

On the evening of April 22, David Stern and Larry Fleischer arrived in Phoenix and discussed how to handle the matter behind closed doors in their hotel.

As two of the most legally savvy and intelligent minds in the NBA, who were once evenly matched, they now have to face this challenge together.

The next day, the two went to the Phoenix Police Department to learn more about the situation and discuss strategies with the Suns' lawyers, the defense attorneys in this case.

At this time, the NBA playoffs had already begun, but Stern had no time to pay attention to the playoffs. He felt fortunate that the Phoenix Suns did not make the playoffs.

Otherwise, if the prosecution were to launch an attack during the playoffs and arrest all the key players of a playoff team, it would be a devastating blow to the NBA.

As seasoned legal professionals, Fleischer and Stern quickly developed a strategy with the defense attorneys and engaged in a war of attrition with the prosecution and police over the next few months.

First, it's about Walter Davis, that traitor. If he can betray us once, he can betray us a second time.

During the trial, Walter Davis suddenly changed his story, claiming that he was forced to become a witness for the prosecution by the prosecutor.

The defense argued that Walter Davis had a long history of cocaine use and alcoholism, had undergone multiple treatments, and was constantly on the verge of withdrawal and relapse, making his mental state highly questionable.

While he was under investigation, he was undergoing withdrawal treatment and was not a rational person at all.

Moreover, some of his testimonies differ from, or even contradict, those of others, making his testimony even more questionable.

As for betting, according to testimonies and investigations, the players did place bets, but they only bet on sports unrelated to basketball, such as the NFL, and did not bet on the games they played.

Next, the defense lawyers turned their attention to the Phoenix police and prosecutors, claiming that they had rushed into filing charges before the start of the NBA playoffs with insufficient evidence, simply to create a big news story.

Many of their indictments and accusations lack substantial evidence, and some even point to drug use and trafficking activities from ten years ago, with no trace of them whatsoever.

Furthermore, most of this content is Walter Davis's recollection, and Davis himself is not even clear-headed, so how can their words be taken as evidence?

The NBA and the defense lawyers were right about this. The prosecution wanted to create a big story and file a lawsuit early, which resulted in their evidence being less solid and containing many loopholes and contradictions.

The prosecution later regretted that they should have filed charges during the finals and prepared more solid evidence.

Of course, this doesn't mean that nothing happened to the Suns and these players, and that everything has returned to normal.

Although some of the charges brought by the prosecution were not substantiated and they were not criminally convicted, their deep involvement with gambling and drugs is undeniable, and the team's reputation has been severely damaged.

Therefore, the Suns' franchise was forcibly sold by the league, and team general manager Jerry Colangelo assembled a team to acquire the Suns from the original shareholders, ushering in a new era for the team.

When holding the new shareholders' meeting, Stern moved the venue from Phoenix to Los Angeles, as if sending a signal to Phoenix: if your local law enforcement continues to harass us, we will leave Phoenix.

However, Stern has consistently claimed that this move was in protest against the Arizona governor's obstruction of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a holiday.

In June, during the NBA Finals, former Phoenix Suns player and executive in the shoe operations department died in a car crash in downtown Phoenix.

Hay was involved in the case and testified as a prosecution witness. According to him, he was subjected to a lot of intimidation and threats, which caused him great stress.

On the night of his death, he drove his Mazda straight into a lamppost and died despite attempts to resuscitate him. According to the police investigation, the vehicle showed no signs of braking and he did not attempt to save himself.

Following the autopsy, police announced that Hay's blood contained alcohol, though in low amounts, and they suspect Johnny Hay committed suicide.

Hay's death not only failed to provide an opportunity for further investigation by the prosecution, but instead rendered their accusations increasingly weak, and was ultimately portrayed by the media as a "political persecution."

In August, Phoenix Suns' young center Nick Vannos died in a plane crash, becoming yet another person to lose his life during the Suns' turbulent years.

Ultimately, after a series of investigations, trials, and clashes between the prosecution and defense, only one player in this major prosecution case received a suspended sentence, the team's franchise rights changed hands, the management was reshuffled, and the players were traded.

The sun rose as usual in Phoenix.

(End of this chapter)