Terry Foster: What Happens On The Road, Stays On The Road
By Terry Foster
@TerryFoster971
During my first weeks as Pistons beat writer during the Bad Boys era, the Detroit News asked me to write a story about what the players and coaches do on the road. I interviewed players and they told me about dinners and activities away from the court.
They bowled, went to movies and even organized bike rides in Venice Beach.
I made one mistake. I did a scene piece of guys waiting for rides or cabs in the lobby of a Denver hotel. I mentioned that one player waited outside with a female friend.
A few days later I got the "What goes on the road, stays on the road" lecture by two Pistons. It is no secret that young men with money and young women with hot looks is often a match in all of professional sports. There are probably thousands of secrets that are kept from spouses and girlfriends across the globe in professional sports and even in real life.
I shared a cab ride with women visiting players on the road. I've seen women slip into hotel rooms and saw a married player stumble drunk down a hallway with a woman who was not his wife. He saw me, smiled, and placed his finger to his lips.
Shhhhhhh!!!
As the great philosopher and former NBA bad boy Stephen Jackson said: "Snitches leave stiches." If I uttered one word or wrote about any of this my access to the team would be compromised forever. No one would talk to me and no one would trust me.
That is what makes the Los Angeles Lakers story so intriguing. Lakers guard D'Angelo Russell broke the "Bro Code" when he secretly recorded teammate Nick Young talking about women he was with besides his fiancée Iggy Azalea.
Worse yet, the secret recording became public and it caused turmoil in the Lakers dressing room. Russell cannot be trusted and did all he could Wednesday to begin the healing process with a public apology.
"I'm as sick as possible. I wish I could make things better right away but I can't," Russell told reporters prior to Wednesday's game against the Miami Heat.
"It wasn't something for everyone else to see. (Nick and I) talked a little bit. I let him know my apologies. I don't know if they were accepted. That was an incident of playing too much goes wrong."
Russell is 20 going on 14. He is immature and jokes around way too much. Russell secretly recorded Young while they sat in a hotel room. The joke was supposed to remain private but didn't.
People hack into cell phones and get photos. Maybe Russell sent it to a friend who leaked it. Who knows?
"I have no clue how it got out," Russell told the media. "If I did, I would definitely tell you guys. But I have no clue."
Russell apologized to Young. Lakers coach Byron Scott is upset this became an issue although the Lakers season was over weeks ago. When asked about the controversy his voice rose and he became angry.
"It's an internal problem, we'll handle it from in-house," Scott told reporters. "If you want to ask me about the Miami game that we're playing tonight, let's talk about Miami and basketball. If not, then this interview is basically over with."
Pro athletes mess around. That is no secret. You should have seen the arena loading docks in Los Angeles, New York and Miami. It was like a runway fashion show.
Russell's career in Los Angeles could be over with also. Put yourself in teammates' shoes. What if somebody did this to you and your relationship broke up? Yes, cheating is wrong but it is not your place to let this information slip.
I did have a conversation with a friend. If you know someone is cheating on a spouse what do you do? The consensus is if you are good friends with the woman, you tell. If not, you keep silent and try to convince the person that cheating is not right.
"We joke around and play around all the time and said crazy things," Russell said. "This just got in the wrong hands. It wasn't a prank or something for everybody to see. This was for my eyes and his eyes only. There's really no explanation for the topic of that discussion. But we play around and we joke and we laugh. We say things that we don't really repeat. That was just an incident of playing too much goes wrong. I take the full blame for that and recording the video. But leaking the video wasn't me."
There is one way to revive Russell's career. The Lakers must have a post-season press conference with Kobe Bryant, Russell, Young and the rest of the Lakers saying this is over, that the trust is back and they are ready to move on.
Good luck making that happen.
(Foster can be reached at Terry.Foster@cbsradio.com)
