The NBA has had some crazy locker room stories over the years. What happens behind the scenes rarely ever comes out. The players are with one another and traveling throughout the season, which takes up a significant part of their lives. Not a lot of the stories are ever told until after players retire too, like Grant Hill telling stories about how Shaquille O’Neal behaved with his teammates.
So when they do come out, they become incredibly interesting just because of how bizarre they end up being. The Indiana Pacers were once among the contending teams of the 90s and the early 00s. Reggie Miller was the main man behind a lot of this success, his team almost beat the prime Chicago Bulls in the playoffs. But with great success come great stories, and the one that went viral recently might not be what people expected it to be.
Jamaal Tinsley Accumulated And Paid $250,000 In Fines For Refusing To Shower After Practices And Games
A perfectly acceptable and normal part of sports is for teammates to all shower and bathe together after practice and games. The Pacers had a player, though, that didn’t quite conform to this. Jamaal Tinsley reportedly wanted to go have a bath on his own time in his own house. This didn’t go too well for him, as his former teammate Bruno Sundov revealed (via Basketball Network).
“Tinsley wouldn’t shower after practices or games. We easily enter or exit the shower, and he would be dressed already exiting the locker room. Once, twice, three times… And Reggie Miller says to the team manager: ‘Bring the team rule book, we have to add one change that every player must shower after every training session, especially after every game, otherwise he will be punished.’ The first fine was $500, and it would be doubled every other time he didn’t take a shower.
“Guess how much Jamaal Tinsley paid in fines for not showering? He paid $250,000 in fines because he did not want to shower after practices. It’s like he’s taking a shower at home; he doesn’t want to be naked among everyone… We counted at the end, and he paid $250,000 worth of fines for not showering; in the end, a scandal broke out, and he had to speak with his agent, and his girlfriend.”
Tinsley enjoyed a long career in the NBA, so it’s not like this hampered him too much. But in any case, that is a massive amount to pay for the choice to not shower in the locker room. Reggie Miller might have been scary on the court, with his choking signs and all that, but he was also no picnic off of it.
