The NBA world was shocked when 18 players were arrested due to a fraud of the NBA’s Health and Welfare Benefit plan. For years, Terrance Williams recruited several players, offered them fake invoices to support their claims, making a lot of money in the process.
After an investigation conducted by the FBI and the NBA, these players were arrested and face charges now. Some of these players remain relevant in the NBA community, including Tony Allen, one of the best defenders the league has ever seen. Darius Miles, co-host of The Players’ Tribune’ “Knuckleheads” show, and more are involved in this situation.
The reactions around the league didn’t take long to arrive and the people in charge of taking care of players have shown their disappointment with this scam. National Basketball Retired Players Association didn’t hold back his comments on this situation.
Haywood recently revealed how problematic this issue was for him. Former and current players fought really hard to take care of retired players, but a bunch of them took unfair advantage of that.
Via The Boston Globe:
Haywood, 72, was heartbroken, realizing how much work was required to encourage the NBPA to agree to fund a full health care package.
“What I was fighting for is we had no health insurance as retired players,” Haywood said. “Chris Paul and LeBron James and all those guys came up with a plan to come up with insurance for all of us. And what these guys [the alleged scammers] have done is taken advantage of that health insurance we worked so far for. And it’s blackened all of our eyes.”
Haywood mentioned former Celtics great Nate Archibald, who had heart transplant surgery using the insurance plan, and later coached in the Big3. All-time Celtics great Bill Russell, 87, is even covered by the league’s plan. Haywood pushed for health insurance after greats such as Moses Malone and Darryl Dawkins died of heart-related issues. The league began conducting heart screens for former and current players at the summer league in Las Vegas several years ago.
One of the biggest names in the investigation is Glen ‘Big Baby’ Davis, who made more than enough during his playing time and didn’t need to get more money from the league.
“I get stopped now and people asking about it and I’ve talked to some former players asking, ‘what is it going to do to us?’ ” Haywood said. “So it’s up in the air. It’s just sad, man. Some of the names I was saddened to hear, like Glen Davis, I was like wait a minute, I didn’t think he was that kind of a person. He’s made, what, $40 million in salary? What are you doing man?
“It hurts because all of these young guys, instead of working with the players’ union and trying to make it better, they’re trying to take away from it and all of these people’s reputations. Julius Erving is under this program, all of us are. People put it on the line so we can have a great league and on the 75th anniversary [of the NBA], this is what we’ve got?”
This is a very unfortunate situation. Players try to push to get more benefits after they finish their careers and a group of them taking advantage of that to get more money won’t benefit their future fights.
Obviously, this won’t be the last time we hear about this story. The authorities will determine the punishment and further consequences for all these players. This is terrible news for the league and those who fought to get bigger benefits after their careers finished.
