Ray Allen on in-flight card games, paying debts, and everything
Jan 7, 2011, 3:16 PM EDT
Once upon a time (Wednesday, to be exact), we told you of the Magical Memphis Grizzlies Team Flight, in which teammates Tony Allen and OJ Mayo engaged in fisticuffs over a bet they made in a card game. The Grizzlies have now banned gambling on team flights, and all is well … we think. Anyway, the guys at 98.5 radio in Boston asked the Celtics’ Ray Allen about it on Thursday.
Do other NBA teams gamble on team flights? And if so, does everyone pay their debts? Allen:
“Yeah, it’s tough because if you think about our schedule, we’re on the plane probably two or three hours, probably some of the most time of our time together is on a plane. You watch movies, you read, you play cards. … There’s so many things that you do to pass the time and cards is one of them. … Your competitive juices never turn off and it turns into playing cards. It all about the culture of the team you have. I would never try to fight one of my teammates.”
On how the Celtics handle things when someone is owed money:
“We just have a committee. We always talk about, you have this amount of time to pay your debt, whether it’s the next trip or whatever. So if you’re playing cards and you lose, everybody’s like, ‘You owe this dude that much money, you’ve got to pay him by the next time we get on the plane.’ It’s kind of like out of shame that we get guys to pay each other back. I, personally, stopped gambling.”
What ever happened to “If you two don’t knock it off, I’m turning this plane around and we’re going home!” Or, you know, ‘I Spy.’
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Ray Allen Thinks Payment of In-Flight Gambling Debts Separates Men From Boys [Sports Radio Interviews]
Wake Up Call: Grizzlies should never be allowed to gamble [Off the Bench]
