Crime in Sports - #78 - Violent, Stupid & Beloved - The Heedlessness of Bernard King

Episode Date: July 25, 2017

This week, we look into a man that has somehow managed to sweep all of his many crimes, ranging from the idiotic to the downright disgraceful, under the rug. He screws up, and the world was always all too ready to forget the criminal behavior, and forgive him. He left a trail of disappointment, and police reports, leading all the way to unexpected places. Including the basketball hall of fame. Sometimes, bad people come out on top.Drop 60 points on a rival team, drive to the worst neighborhood you can find, and get forgiven all of your atrocities with Bernard King!!Check us out, every Tuesday. We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie WhismanDonate at...patreon.com/crimeinsportsCheck out or site: truecrimecomedyteam.comAll web support by Web and Writerwebandwriter.com or Facebook.com/webandwriterHelp support our show by supporting our sponsors...Post your jobs to over 100 sites with one click! Start your free trial today by going to ziprecruiter.com/crimeGet your first 3 meals FREE with FREE shipping by going to blue apron.com/crimeContact us on...twitter.com/[e-mail]/Crimeinsportsinstagram.com/crimeinsports#crime #sports #murder #police #prison #jail #cops #true #truecrime #trial #drugs #champion #assault #heavyweight #violence #kill #death #investigation #espn #foxsports #bloody #killer #firstdegree #braindamage #domesticviolence #nyknicks #washingtonbullets #utahjazz #goldenstatewarriors #sexualassault #cocaine #tennessee #30for30 #halloffame #hof #nba #playoffs   See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can listen to Crime and Sports early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Discover all the best in audiobooks, podcasts, and originals featuring authentic Canadian voices and celebrity talent, like Brendan Fraser and Luke Kirby's latest sci-fi adventure, The Downloaded. A first listen is waiting for you when you start your free trial at audible.ca. on the Mr. Ballin Podcast, now available wherever you get your podcasts, you'll hear strange, dark, and mysterious stories about inexplicable encounters, shocking disappearances, true crime cases, and everything in between. So go listen to Mr. Ballin Podcast,

strange, dark, and mysterious stories on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome back to Crime and Sports. Yay is, again, Jimmy, I say it often, but it's an understatement. I'm glad. This week is crazy. Good. It's going to be crazy. Thank you guys for joining us.

My name is James Petrogallo. I'm here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Wissman. We're pumped this week for good reason. Yeah. For good reason. Well, first of all, I want to thank everyone for their iTunes reviews first off the bat because you guys have, again, been coming through huge for us.

Over 1,000. It's crazy. Yes, for 77 weeks now. Yeah. You guys, 78 weeks now. Yeah. You guys have come through for us on this. So thank you guys so, so much.

It really means the world to us on the business end. If you have not done it yet, please, this is your chance. I know it takes 30 seconds to sign in, but this takes so long. It's ridiculous. It takes like 40 hours to put together the show. So please get on there. Tell us you're following instructions, following directions. It doesn't matter.

We don't need an ass kissing. We just need it for the business end. It really helps out a lot. If that's not enough for you, if this show brings you joy, if it brings you joy, then dig in. Dig in and show us that it brings you joy because we appreciate every dime that everybody donates. You can go to patreon.com slash crime and sports.

And honestly, we can't begin to tell you what it means to us. Not only does the money actually help us in our lives to pay bills and live and things like that, but from a psyche standpoint, from our hearts, it's amazing and it makes us – That money, just being able to to actually function and know that people that like us and like what we do are helping us like that's where it's at that's the part that matters we've said it for god a year and change now a year and a half that it's the crime and sports movement and that's what you guys are you guys have started this whole thing and you've you've carried us and we're just trying to we've had no ads i mean like

like promotion wise we. No, no one promoted us. We don't get any articles about us. The media doesn't give a shit about us. No, they can give a fuck. No, we're not niche. That's what it is. And I'll be fucking... You know what? Here, sorry if you're a new listener. I welcome a board, but we'll get to the crime and all that in a second here.

But yeah, it's just a matter of that. We're niche. We're not niche. We're just not. We're just homegrown. We're not niche. We're just not. We're just homegrown. We're not bros. And we're not, like, hipsters. And we're just a couple of comedians that are telling you a story. You can say assholes.

It's okay. So it doesn't matter. Yeah, we're assholes, not scumbags. So that's all we are. And so, no, that's not attractive to, like, you know, an article. They need to be like, oh, this one is all this kind of thing. And this is all. So it's just we're without a home when it comes to that kind of ship.

One more thing before we get to our announcement here. Also, you can donate not only on Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports, but you can also do it at PayPal by using our email address, Crime and Sports at gmail.com to make a one time donation there. Again, insanely appreciated. We have a big announcement to make. Speaking of trying to find a home, like I said a second ago here. It's kind of cool. We have found a home after all of our rantings and ravings and complaining and telling people back in episode, I think, 41. And you can lay that fucking tile or else we're not interested.

We have found a home and a network, actually. Crime and Sports is going to be moving to Podcast One, which we're very excited for. So excited. So excited. It means a lot for us. Hopefully it'll get a bigger audience, that sort of thing, and maybe we'll get a little more noticed rather than you guys have been amazing, but it's just you guys that are pushing us. We want to take a little bit

of burden off your shoulders of running out and telling six people every week. The show isn't going to change. It's going to be our show. Same shit. Same shit. Part of our deal is they're not telling us what to do or what to put The show isn't going to change. It's going to be our show. Same shit. Same shit. Part of our deal is they're not telling us what to do or what to put in our show or anything like that. So nothing will change. One little thing. Next week, not this week that you're listening to, obviously, but next week, we will not have a Crime and Sports episode for the first time.

It is the first one in 78 weeks. Yeah, we have not missed. We haven't even been a minute late. No. Like, I've had it 12.05 a.m. It shows up right fucking there. Every time. I do it on every Tuesday morning on Arizona time. But this, we have to take a week off because we're switching the networks and the feed's going to be up in the air.

And I'm not sure if we can get an episode in time then. Give James a break. I promise you. Yeah, please. He needs a week. This is amazing to not have to do a crime in sports for a week but i love it and i honestly i'm gonna miss it i don't care about the research it's just great and i don't care it's so much fun but uh yeah we're not going to

be around that week but i can promise you this the week we come back will be with a goddamn vengeance because i have a really entertaining story lined up for that day all right and even more i have a really entertaining story lined up for tonight all right are right. And even more, I have a really entertaining story lined up for tonight. All right. Are you ready? I am. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

Oh, boy. Let's get into it with our asshole of the week. All right. Bernard King. Bernard King, the basketball player. I don't know if you know him. If you're from the New York area, you probably know him. He is from New York.

He played for the Knicks and the Nets. And the 76ers? No, no. We'll get into it. Golden State, Utah. Okay. He got around. Everybody except and the Nets. And the 76ers? No, no. We'll get into it. Golden State, Utah. Everybody except the 76ers. Everybody except the Sixers. He got around. He's born. Let's get

into the beginning here. Did you say Clippers? He did not play for the Clippers either. You have never gotten a team right when you say, did he play for this team? What about the Spurs? He definitely didn't play for the Spurs either. One more shot? No, that's alright. Did he play for Milwaukee? No, that's all right. We'll go from Milwaukee.

I see. What do you got? Did he play for Milwaukee? No, he did not. Absolutely not. No, I seriously saw his face in red, white, and blue. That's why I was asking about Clevers or Sixers. Well, let's find out exactly what he did here.

Red, white, and blue would have been the Bullets back in the day. Maybe that's what- Or not the Bullets, the Nets back in the day. That's what they were. That's where it is. Yeah. I have an old Dr. J jersey that's red, white, and blue with stars on it and everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, the 70s Nets jerseys. The fucking Petrovich one. Yeah and everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, the 70s next year. The fucking Petrovich one. The Petrovich jersey. The throwback. That's the one. Yeah, exactly. Well, our crazy began way back on December 4th, 1956 in Brooklyn, New York.

Brooklyn, New York. He grows up in the projects. I was going to say the hood. He grows up in the hood. This is the hood. When he was very little, it wasn't really the hood yet, but it fell apart over the course of the 60s and 70s, as we've talked about with a lot of cities. There was a lot of urban decay at that point, and shit went bad.

This is the no radio time. This is, yeah. And this is exactly. The ones that said they had a poster board. No radio. No, no. When I was a kid, and you go to like- People overseas listening.

There was a time in New York, people would actually put a sign in their window that said no radio. So you wouldn't steal it. So don't break into this fucking car. Don't break my fucking window because I don't have a radio. Literally, that would be like half the cars. No radio. And people wouldn't have a radio.

They would specifically buy cars that didn't have radios so they wouldn't get them broken into and taken. That's how crazy shit was back then. That's the crime in New York at this time. It was bad. He grows up in the Walt Whitman housing projects, which it's funny that you name a housing project after a poet. Right. Which is fucking hilarious.

So artsy. It's the oddest thing ever. You can tell they didn't expect it to be like what it turned into. Right. You know what I mean? They're poor. Yes, they're lower income. We understand that.

But let's give them some culture. Let's name it Walt Whitman. Right next door to the Normanan rockwell center yeah cut to cut to 20 years later there's a guy selling crack out in front of the walt whitman sign going yeah i got walt whitman dimes motherfucker like a walt whitman turned into a brand of like a their brand of cracker heroin i got blue tops again watch the wire jimmy jesus so bernard uh Bernard, he's growing up here with his subtitles in the Walt Whitman Projects. He has five brothers and sisters, mother and father, all in a tiny apartment on the 12th floor. So, I mean, it's just...

No elevator. Fucking walk up. That is rough, man. Or a broken elevator, either way. He falls in love with basketball early. Third grade, he falls in love with basketball. That's great. He says he remembers the day.

And a lot of this, too, this beginning part, anyway, not the rest of it, believe me, but just this beginning part. A lot of this came from a pretty good 30 for 30 documentary called Bernie and Ernie, which is about his years at Tennessee. And it touches on some of this. So a few of these things are from that, some of these quotes. And it's a pretty interesting documentary, actually. It's a lot about 70s Tennessee, kind of their different experiences, a white guy and a black guy down there. And who was Ernie?

Ernie Grunfeld, who is an NBA executive at this point. He remembers when he fell in love with basketball. He said he was in the gym and all the kids were doing the underhand granny shot, trying to get the ball in and nobody could get a ball in the hoop. And he said he just wasn't going to take no for an answer and tried and tried and finally got one in and he said that was like the most exhilarating feeling of his life yeah and he said this was like but this was like his thing this is like when a crackhead gets the first hit of crack yeah like i found my calling chasing the dragon this guy yeah he's been chasing He chases the basketball dragon from here on out.

When I play at the gym, I'll rain long distance ones. When you make one deep. Oh, it feels great. It's amazing. It is. Amazing. It worked. You're like, I've still got it. It worked.

Yes. I can still do this. That's the thing. It's like, yeah, you don't expect to hit them all. So when you hit one, you're like, I did it. I'll make one out of 20. I don't give a shit. Then you can straight away feel good because that one one, you're like, I did it. I'll make one out of 20. I don't give a shit. Then you can straight away feel good because that one's pretty.

You know what I mean? And I do that one at the end. Like, that's the one that I want the walk off. Yeah, you want to walk off. All right, feeling good. With the arm up in the air still. You can go home feeling all right. You can go home and tell your kids what to do with confidence.

Steph Curry ain't so good. I did it, too. I just did that, too. Walked right off the court. Now, he was really good at basketball. First of all, he's a tall guy. If you look at his height, he ends up being 6'7". What?

Total. So he's a tall guy always. He's a tall kid always. So he gets into basketball heavy. He recalls, this is how bad his neighborhood was. This is a crazy story. He won a basketball trophy when he was a young kid. I can already guess.

He was walking home with the basketball trophy. Fuck yeah. And he said he turned a corner and someone punched him in the face and stole his basketball trophy when he was a young kid. I can already guess. He was walking home with the basketball trophy. Fuck yeah. And he said he turned a corner and someone punched him in the face and stole his basketball trophy. Who the fuck would steal a trophy that they didn't win? What are you going to do with that trophy? It's not solid gold. How old was he? He was just a little kid.

He didn't know his age. Somebody drilled a kid in the face. Jacked him and stole his trophy. Like, you can't sell that for drugs. No one's buying a trophy. For the two square inches of marble on the bottom? That's what I mean. It's shitty metal painted gold.

It's terrible. It's not even metal, probably. It's plastic. Yeah, a lot of times. Maybe back then it was metal, though, I assume. At least there's aluminum painted gold. My son wins swim trophies. They're plastic with, like, that tin sticker wrapped around it that makes it reflective.

And then there's, like, two square inches of marble on the bottom. And it's not even etched. It's a fucking metal sticker that they put on it. It's nine cents worth of material on there. So someone took that. Someone felt the need that they should punch a child for that. That's how badly they needed it. They tried to smoke rock out of the hoop.

Maybe that's what it was. Yeah. They had the hoop or the ball up in his hand. He hollowed it out. You never know. Now, his parents didn't help him out with stuff like this. He had a rough upbringing with his family life. His family is a little odd, these people.

But later on, they don't seem as odd as he makes them out to be. They're from the hood in Brooklyn. Yeah, we'll get into how they met in a second, too, in the whole deal here. But we have an in their own words about his parents and generally how things worked in his family. Here we go. In their own words about his parents and his generally how things worked in his family. Here we go. In their own words, quote, my parents did not know how to be expressive to the extent that I love you, son. I never heard those words from my parents. We never received a hug.

We never had anyone visit us. We never had any friends that would come over, so we did not socialize. My way of dealing with all that was I'm going to go take a ride on the subway. That's his thing. He just wanted to get out of his house was I'm going to go take a ride on the subway. Okay. That's his thing. He just wanted to get out of his house. I'm going to go take a ride on the subway. You like to ride around. I'll get a random hug from a homeless guy down there.

Either that or get punched for whatever award you're holding that day. Whatever I happen to be carrying. Would you get a B on that test, kid? Pow. He takes it. Give me that test. Now I'm good at science. The guy walks away.

What the hell is that? Hilarious. So, yeah, he would take it and just he'd take the subways. He'd go to the basketball courts. He'd go to different playgrounds. The playground was his refuge from everything. Now, the funny part is the fluff pieces that are out on him in college, because this is all in the 70s, talk about how he shunned the playgrounds. And he only cared about schoolwork.

And what his school coaches thought. Meanwhile, it is the exact opposite. Opposite of what he says. Hes and he only cared about schoolwork and what a school coach has thought. Meanwhile, it is the exact opposite. Opposite of what he says. He didn't give a shit about school. Who told them that? Well, but back in the day, probably Tennessee. They were just trying, oh, he's a good upstanding kid. Yeah, don't worry about it.

Like they didn't want, oh, he's a kid from the playgrounds like down back in the South back then that wasn't okay. Right. So they're like, oh, he just cared about schoolwork, which the exact opposite all he did was he's doing the opposite and doing like he's the first and one fucking dribbler on the that's yeah no he's a great he's a legendary guy street guy really he's legendary and everything in terms of skill yeah we don't have too many guys that we cover that are as good as this really this guy honestly without his fuck-ups and most of all a giant injury and his fuck-ups, they go hand in hand.

Without that, this guy is as legendary as anybody. All right. Honestly, he could be as legendary as a Charles Barkley or somebody like that because he never did win a title. Right. But not his fault, as we'll get into the whole thing here. Because they put him on shit teams. Shit teams wanted him and had him.

His parents met in 1949 at 141st Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem. That sounds terrible. It's in Harlem at the Savoy Ballroom. They met while Cooter Williams' band played. I'm not kidding. I shit you not. His dad's name is Thomas. He was from Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

He met the mother. Thelma Brown was her name. She was now – they're very religious, both these parents. And we're going to get into exactly how religious. But she, Thelma, his mother, was forbidden to go to dances. But she talked her mother into letting her meet some school friends early and she snuck to the dance. This is how it was. I picture their meeting like Harlem Nights, like the Eddie Murphy movie.

That's how it looked. That's how it kind of was. But she said she didn't drink. She never did. She didn't like any of the men who frequented the clubs or anything like that. But she thought that this guy, Thomas King, was a different kind of cat. She thought this was a guy. He seemed like a good guy.

He had the Lord in him. Despite being out at night, he was still filled with the spirit of the Lord, this guy. They're so happy. Two years later, they get married in 1951. And they lived in Harlem until 1960. So Bernard was actually born in Harlem. And then they moved to the Walt Whitman Projects in 1960, which is moving on up. And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that is in modern-day Williamsburg, we'll call call it Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which used to be terrible and now is nothing but

cupcake shops and white people with their kids that they care way too much about. That's all it is. That's all it is. Now, eyes. Fucking pretentious. Very pretentious. There's a lot of pretension there, a lot of unnecessary beards. Lots of toddlers in fedoras.

Shit like that. Yeah. That's exactly what you're going to deal with. Fucking jerks. Toddlers in fedoras and the lightly that. Yeah. That's exactly what you're going to deal with. Fucking jerks. Toddlers in fedoras and the lightly smoked sunglasses. I've seen that in a kid. I'm like, what is... The kid doesn't give a shit about the sun.

He doesn't care. Yeah, he doesn't care. Either protect him from UV rays or don't. Like, what are you doing? You've got your kid dressed in fucking Kingston clothes. That's that fucking... Stupid. What's that girl's name from the blonde girl that married Blake Shelton?

I have no idea. What is her name? Blake Shelton. Gwen Stefani? That's the girl. She from the blonde girl that married Blake Shelton? I have no idea. What's her name? Blake Shelton. Gwen Stefani? That's the girl. She has a kid named Kingston. And her kid has a fucking clothing line. Oh, for Christ's sake.

Every famous person has a kid with a fucking clothing line. They give them the clothing line. I have two kids. Mine are 10 and they're 15 and neither one of them can pick a fucking outfit out. Never mind design the clothes to start trends. Yeah, I'm sure they're designing shit. Picture her kid sitting there with a pad out. With his fedora and his smoked sunglasses. With his fedora and his smoked

sunglasses and she's like, I have Cheerios for you. And he's like, wait, wait, Mom, I gotta finish the fall line. Hold on a second here. And he's busting the shit out. Are you kidding me? And he's doing that with dry Cheerios in his teeth. And she comes over, oh, honey, capes are making a comeback this year. Yeah, mom.

The fuck are we talking about? Tom Cruise's kid, too. The same thing. Yeah. You don't know what the fuck she's doing. She's a weird Scientology hostage for years. You think she knows fashion? What the fuck?

I hate that I know these kids' names. They put out albums, too. Why don't you? Why don't they write books? Write novels, for Christ's sake. Just go the whole nine yards and we'll all pretend like you're not talentless fuckheads with rich parents. Okay. Unbelievable.

Anyway, his father, Thomas, a very devout churchgoer. Of course. He went to church every day after work. What? Imagine that shit, Joe. No. Imagine you going off of work every day. And you're like, whew.

And he's not like an office guy. He works. He works hard. He said his first job, he made $6 a day. Jesus. So this guy works hard and lives on the project supporting six kids. He's going to go to the church and give a dollar of that away? He gets home at night from a hard day's work and he's like, I'm going to get changed and

go to church. Better put my good clothes on. No, sir. I can't work overtime tonight. I have to be at church. I have to be at church again. Weren't you at church yesterday? Yes. I'm always at church. Always. Bernard said that would have been fine with him except that he said his father could not converse about anything

else but church. Of course not. You'd say, hey, dad, blah, blah, blah, and he'd start telling you about church or Psalms or something. Well, the other thing he knows about is whatever he fucking did for work. Imagine having to work with that guy. You want to talk about that or you want to talk about his job? Imagine having that guy next to you on the loading dock. You're like, oh, for Christ's everything.

The truck comes in and he's like, yeah, he's telling you all about Leviticus. And you're like, dude, enough. All right. Jesus Christ. All right. Wait till lunch. Jesus. After lunch with the Psal like, dude, enough. All right. Jesus Christ. All right. Unload the heads. Jesus. After lunch with the Psalms, please.

OK. Before I can't handle it before lunch. I'm sorry. I can't handle it. I just started this coffee thermos. I don't need to hear this shit. Let me get my fucking lunch truck burrito in me first before I have to hear your bullshit, Mr. Thelma kept them as it's on a on a budget.

It's hard to, you know, six bucks a day. How else? Yeah. Well,'s on a budget. It's hard to deal with six kids. How else? Yeah, well, that wasn't now. That was at first. But with six kids, and they're tall, too. At least I know Bernard and his brother Albert are very tall. They're 6'7 and 6'6. They eat so much food.

So they eat so much food, and they go through clothes quickly and that sort of thing. So she said she would shop for a Regulars and five and dime and, you know, uh, salvation army and whatever the hell she could find to keep these kids close with. Hey, good for you. You know what I mean? That's tough. Yeah. These people worked hard, uh, but they just didn't know. They didn't know how to relate to their kids. They didn't know how to talk to their kids. They just want them to go to church, shut the fuck up and go, you know, go away. Just think about church. Dad probably just didn't even know the phrase I love you, son, because that shit isn't written in the Bible anywhere. That's the truth.

And his mother, who knows what kind of upbringing she had. She wasn't allowed to do things. They were very strict, religious, devout upbringings, especially back then in the 30s and 40s when they grew up. That's a different type of upbringing. There's no commandment that says tell your kids

you love them. No, there really isn't. Or hug them, for that matter. Hug your kids once in a while. That'd be a nice one. Yeah, he said, like, you know, a hug for his mother was like, what are you, crazy? Like, I'm not. She was like an old money wasp or something, which instead of a project, you know, church lady. That sugar's for your daddy.

Yeah, I saved the sugar up, honey, man. Thelma saves her sugar. Now, the kids were not allowed on Sundays. Not allowed out on Sundays. Like after church, they were allowed to go to church and come home and stay the shit home the rest of the day. What do you do? Think about church. Think about the Lord.

Bask in his reverence. There's no way to get away from him. We're in this tiny-ass apartment and dad's right there just shouting about him. What the fuck is wrong with you? Well, listen to it. That's what they want you to do. Jesus, Jimmy. This sounds terrible.

Christ almighty. Yeah, it does sound terrible. Doesn't it? But Bernard, he thought it sounded terrible too. He was the only one who couldn't handle it and would skip church and stay out all day playing basketball. He wasn't allowed out after dark, so he'd have to cram all his basketball in during the day too.

This is why you didn't get hugs. Yeah. Well, maybe it was. Well, he said, well, I'm not getting hugs anyway, so I might as well go out. This would cause his mother to beat the holy shit out of him. Really? Also. Oh, his mother was, as he put it, a very strict disciplinarian.

Jesus. And this was in the form of beatings back then. Good God. In the name of the Lord, I assume, obviously. Jesus tells you to pummel your kids. Beat the shit out of them. Yeah. If they go out after church, I believe, well, in the Bible, it assume, obviously. Jesus tells you to pummel your kids. Beat the shit out of them. Yeah.

They go out after church, I believe. Well, in the Bible, it's probably stoning. Right. But, you know, in modern day. I bet that part's in the Bible, though, for real. Probably, yeah. It probably is. They left out love your child and hug them, but beat the living shit out of them, for

sure. Beat the living shit out of them. Yeah, they got that part in there. So, yeah, maybe that's, they were just following the word of the Lord. I don't know what to say. He said that he learned at a young age from these beatings that crying was a sign of weakness. So he said he never cries when he was a kid and he wouldn't cry after that anymore because that's for weak people, apparently.

Basketball was his escape. He escapes all the way up to six foot seven, like I said, 205 pounds. So he's a tall, skinny guy. But I mean, that's a tall dude and an amazing athlete. Got him all the way to being a star at Fort Hamilton High School. His tears fueled him to basketball greatness. His stored-up tears. His parents never attended any of his games, even though he was an All-American.

Well, they were at a fucking church. They were at church. But he was an All-American. You'd think they could have, like, hey, not only is our son playing games, he's, like, really good at this shit. When it doesn't conflict with church, we'll be there. It always conflicts with church because his dad goes every day to church. So, come on. Can you do it on a day that's not during the week, like between Monday through Sunday?

Do it on a different day. Do it on a different day. Can you find another day in that? Because I'm at church those days. Monday through Friday, you work and you go to church after work. Sunday, you go to church. So, what about Saturday? No, special church Saturday. Special church. Saturday is a special church edition where we plan the next week's church. That's church after work. Sunday you go to church. So what about Saturday? No, special church Saturday.

Special church. Saturday is a special church edition where we plan the next week's church. That's how it is. Very much. Every day. It's important. Fuck. So he's being recruited now by major universities are recruiting this guy.

So he tells a funny story about the University of Tennessee recruiting him, the volunteers. And if you don't know, they have like these bright orange. Their gear is bright orange. It's very, it's kind of a peachy orange. It's like a light. Fucking orange. Yeah, it's like an orange. Their orange makes Syracuse like so jealous.

They're like, we're the orange men and you guys took that much orange. You've taken it. You've conquered orange, guys. You have all the orange. They are the orange conquerors. We have to put a little bit of blue in ours because you guys have all the orange. We have to go away from you because we're like, we don't want people to just think we're copying your superior orange. You guys are the volunteers.

We're literally the orange men. Orange men. And you took all of the orange. That's how you beat the orange men. You take their orange. It's their power source. All of it. So the Tennessee guy, he said, the guy he heard somebody from the neighborhood said he was downstairs

waiting for him. And so he said he looks out the window and he sees this little five foot three, like older white guy in bright orange Tennessee gear standing in the middle of the Walt Whitman projects. And he's like, wow, that dude's out of play. Like, holy shit. That guy don't belong. Yeah, he's like, I better go meet him. I don't think he knows where he's

at. He said like, I don't think he knows where he's at. He's dressed like a crossing guard. He's going to get himself shot. Oh, he's just advertising. better go meet him. I don't think he knows where he's at. He's dressed like a crossing guard. He's going to get himself shot. Oh, he's just advertising. Please rob me. I'm not here for drugs, but I do have money. And I'm not from around here at all. Not here for drugs, but I clearly lost.

Definitely have money in my pocket. Perfect guy to rob. Not even a customer. So they're recruiting him. And this assistant coach for Tennessee takes Bernard out to a restaurant, and he says he had never been to a restaurant before and didn't know what to do. He had no idea? He didn't know what to do because he'd never been to a restaurant before.

He would sit, and like he said, he would kind of glance around and look at what other people were doing, like trying to take social cues at a restaurant. Like, all right, he takes the fork and picks it up. Knack it on the lap, I guess, is how you do this. Is that a menu? Is that what that is? You read shit. So you tell the dude who writes shit down what you want?

All right, all right. I think I got this. I think I could do this now. This isn't so hard. Do I have to cook it? No, I don't. I just sit here and wait for it? All right, cool, shit, this is better.

I thought I had to go back and cook it. I had to get it ready for me. Nobody's bowing their head. What's going on here? Yeah, what's happening? So he decides to go down to Tennessee for a visit, University of Tennessee, check them out, see what it's like. Ernie Grunfeld, who we mentioned before, had already gone there.

Ernie Grunfeld is from Queens. So Ernie Grunfeld's a New York guy. He's actually born in Romania, but he's a huge star in New York City. So Bernard King knows of him from being around in the city and hearing of him. And this guy's been there a year, and he takes Bernard out to recruit him, help recruit him. That's what they do. They send a guy in college sports. That's familiar with where you're from.

They take a kid that's 18. They bring him in. They take a few people that they think that kid will look up to, and then they say, take this kid out, get him shit-faced, and put some titties in his face. That's it. Get him hammered, get titties in his face, and he'll be here. Tell him this is the place where all of that happens every day. Whatever college shows him the most titties in the smallest amount of time,

I feel like that's where he's going. Every college out there, I feel like that's what it is. I mean, when you were 18, sounds fucking amazing. I think I would have probably been like, hmm, I mean, the titties there were okay, but there was more. Am I going for quantity or quality here? What am I doing? I think I would have probably been like, hmm, I mean, the titties there were okay, but there was more. Am I going for quantity or quality here? What am I doing?

You'd be measuring it out that way as an 18-year-old sick kid. Isn't it so shocking why athletes rape girls? Yeah, they know, right? Jesus Christ. Isn't it shocking why they don't? They think they have ownership of everything. So they're like, oh, I have dominion over you. Those are my titties. Yeah, those are my titties.

Coach told me so. My silver-haired, middle-aged white man said I could feel any titties I please. It's ridiculous. Yes, they're setting these fuckers up for failure, and then they follow through. Of course. They really work it out. Absolutely. All these athletes.

Not all of them, but all the ones we cover, anyway. Everyone who's been on this fucking show. Definitely. So he decides on Tennessee. Ernie Grunfeld must have talked him into it. He said, yeah, this is cool. They're both New York guys. He thinks it's good.

We have an in their own words about going to Tennessee and having it be different. Just the people are different. Everything's different from the projects in Brooklyn to Knoxville. A little different. Knoxville's not a big city. Where are all your high rises guys? Yeah, where's all of that? Where are

all of everything? Where's the shit neighborhood here? We don't have one. The whole thing is the shit neighborhood. It's all of that? Where are all of everything? Where's the shit neighborhood here? We don't have one. The whole thing is the shit neighborhood. It's all Tennessee. Sorry, Tennessee. You're pretty, but fuck, man. Boy, you got good food and you're pretty, but the rest of it, goddamn disaster. Fucking disaster. In their own words on this, in their own words, quote, It's funny how you have to learn to do things by yourself in the ghetto. Nobody ever showed me how to play ball. I just picked it up. I guess it's the same with learning to live. The guys I knew had already made their minds up about which way to go.

People think it's your neighborhood that does it to you. I think it's what's inside you. I don't think so. That means. It's true. Well, yeah, you see rich kids that go out and still try to have Coke empires and shit like that. So it happens. That's what's inside you, too.

I mean, sometimes it depends on what you put inside you. That's true. We'll do Todd Marinovich in a few weeks, and you're going to find out that it's definitely what's inside you, too. I mean, sometimes it depends on what you put inside you. That's true. We'll do Todd Marinovich in a few weeks, and you're going to find out that it's definitely what's inside you. It's probably not how you're raised because that was the opposite. That's the experiment that breaks that mold, you know, breaks that thing. So he decides on Tennessee. He goes there, 74, 75 seasons his freshman year.

They throw him right in the mix. No red shirt, no any of that because he can ball yeah he's a nat he is nat at scoring i can't describe how nasty of a scorer he is his game is so good and he's not a he's not an isolation guy he's not like a michael jordan where the whole team would have to clear out and he'd get the one-on-one or something like that or well jordan didn't do that too much too because they had the triangle offense but it was a lot of times though a lot of times it was made to isolate Michael Jordan on somebody and so he could own him. You know, you'd have Iverson, guys like that that are one-on-one guys. This guy was in the flow of the offense.

Like, the way he did it was incredible to be able to score like that while still being in the flow of an offense and not making the whole thing about you. It's pretty impressive because he's actually a team player, but he scores his ass off. Found ways to get open. Yeah, his freshman year, his debut game for the University of Tennessee against the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he scores 42 points. Jesus, on the first game. 17 years old, 42 points, first game.

You'd think they were like, I think we're on to something here. This is some shit. And for clarification, again, we've said it multiple times, 65 is about the highest they score in a game. Yeah, college basketball is not a lot. It's not a high-scoring game. To drop 42, you are dominating. You're dominating.

That year, the 74-75 season, he averages 26.4 points a game as a freshman. 12.3 rebounds for this guy. He's a small forward. 1.6 assists, but that's not his job. So, I mean, that's incredible. Wow. That's amazing as a freshman. A 17- and 18-year-old kid just dominating the SEC.

He wins SEC Southeastern Conference Player of the Year as a freshman, which is amazing. Tennessee goes 18-8 that year. They do not make the NCAA tournament, but they do make the NIT tournament and lose in the first round to Bowling Green, which is terrible. He's averaging a double-double? Oh, yeah, he's averaging 26-12.

That's crazy. Any NBA guy, that'll get you a $100 million contract if you do that in the NBA all day, every day. Right there. Now, January 13th, 1975, he gets a vendetta against the University of Kentucky. Apparently, they lost to the University

of Kentucky, 88-82, and a Kentucky fan flicked a lit cigarette into Bernard King's hair. What? So he was so mad, he freaked out and said he'll never lose to Kentucky again, goddammit. And they end up winning the next five games against kentucky while he's there they never lose to kentucky again while he's there jam your marlboros up your ass yeah that's how mad you

don't piss this guy off that's he's he could motivate himself as the type of player he was uh very and this is in the 70s he probably had an afro oh yeah oh yeah at least a little one yeah it wasn't it wasn't a fucking he didn't have a shaved head or anything. Yeah, you throw a cigarette in that? That's like a match fucking book. That's what I mean. That's crazy. You swat it and ashes are, embers are flying everywhere. The more you swat it, the more the fire grows.

Yeah, you hit it and then it's spreading everywhere else. You're just throwing oxygen inside the flame. You better have some water to dunk your head in with that thing. Holy shit. Like Michael Jackson on the set of the Pepsi commercial. Yeah, no, absolutely. He's very quiet off the floor, very uncomfortable in his surroundings, which is understandable. It's a fish out of water.

It's a fish out of water. There's a quarterback for the University of Tennessee, not Peyton Manning. I knew you were going to say it. I had that locked and loaded. From 72 to 74, Condridge Holloway, about eight shades darker than Peyton Manning, trust me. He says of, and this makes a lot of sense, he seemed to have a pretty good view on, just a good outlook on what this place was all about. And he had been there for a couple of years and saw this guy coming in and having problems. Condridge Holloway here says, quote, his perception was a great athlete that was a very quiet freshman.

He was a guy from New York that really didn't understand what was going on down here. You've got to understand, he was probably coming from a culture that 60% of the people that approached him might be trying to rob him. All the people around here just wanted to be around him and shake his hand and get an autograph. And if he was ever standoffish, they perceived it like, what the hell is wrong with him? Like, yeah, what's his problem? This guy's fucking problem. Yeah, exactly. Like, who does he think he is?

Where it wasn't a matter of, I think I'm better than you. It was a matter of, I don't know what you want from me. How funny is that? It's very funny. You walk around like the way they want you to walk around in Tennessee, in New York, and people go, what's your fucking problem? Yeah, what are you fucking saying hi to me for? You put your hand out?

I don't want to shake your fucking hand. No, exactly not. You're going to get me sick, you fuck. You're going to get me sick. In Tennessee, they're like, give me a hug. And he's like, fuck's wrong with you. What's wrong with you? You're going to get me sick, you asshole.

Does that mean I have to sell Coke for you now? Like, what are we doing? How does this work? He said he didn't realize, Bernard didn't even realize that he would be exposed to racism in a different way down there. Like, he just didn't realize from New York. And most of the people he talked to were black. And there's racism, obviously, in New York back then, too.

There was everywhere. But it was less if you're in a black neighborhood where everybody's black. And the racism in New York is a little bit different than the way it is. Like up there, it's like it's like playful joking, kind of with a tinge of like anger down there. It's straight up hate. He said he didn't understand that it was going to be. He said he didn't. The way he put it was he didn't know he'd be exposed to be he said he didn't the way he put it

was he didn't know he'd be exposed to racism in such a different way than he was used to like he didn't know because he said these people are just out front about it like they just didn't care and he was like wow that's insane he didn't understand that yeah uh this is a little story he told about this and this this is crazy right here this might explain a little bit of his troubles that he gets into while he's in college but which we're going to get into very shortly, because he unravels fast and long, baby. He's like, I'm telling you.

It's what it is. He's like, yeah, if you unwind a baseball, it's like 7,000 yards of string under there. It's exactly what it is. So he just grabbed that little strand and then dropped it out the car window. It's gone. It's exactly what it is. We have it in their own words here, in their own words. Quote, as a freshman, I was called into my coach's office, and I'll never forget his

words. He said, Bernard, the chief of police was here, and he said that he has officers on his staff that doesn't like that uppity N. That's the way he put it. And they will do anything to get him. How do you deal with that? I didn't tell anyone about it. I grew up in a household where there's no communication, so you just internalize it and you deal with it as well

as you can he said it he said straight face to him yeah you know yeah i said i don't like that uppity in and this guy too i i heard him uh talk the coach and yeah that's exactly how he talked to like i told him i don't like that up but he ain't tell you right now that's what they said and bernard was like huh what the fuck what's that up but he's that uppity end. I'll tell you right now, that's what they said. And Bernard was like, huh? What the fuck? What's an uppity end? An uppity end. Like, what?

It's just because he was a star. So they were like, well, I don't know why he thinks he's so good. He thinks he's better than everybody else. He thinks he's better than me. I got a pension. He don't have shit. Meanwhile, he's, at that point, he's better than them. Yeah, a little bit.

At least in society. You came to me and pulled me down here. I'm better than you. I'm asked to come here. Did some guy in a fucking cop uniform come to your place in fucking Kansas and say, Come to Kansas City. Somebody came to you and said, We need you. Fuck you.

You applied, dickhead. They got you because they raised prices of PBR at the local bar. And you were like, Well, I better get a better job now. They came and got me. I'm better than you. That's what it is. So anyway, 75-76 season. It's his sophomore year.

Again, on the court, absolute nastiness. 25.2 points per game, 13 rebounds, and 1.6 assists. So that's how good he is. He's doing it. That's it. He's the second team All-American and the SEC Player of the Year. Wow. Again, so two years in a row. Team goes

21-6. Player of the Year. Yeah, twice in a row now. Unbelievable. That's the whole conference. And the SEC is a good conference, too. That's not a shit conference. Fucking everybody. Because I remember back then, he said he didn't want to play in the Big East because it was garbage back then. It wasn't good until the 80s, really.

It was garbage back then. So he was like, I'm not playing. What am I going to play for? You know, St. John's? I'm going to play for fucking, you know, Seton Hall? No, he's not playing for Seton Hall. Which conference is this? That's the Big East.

I was going with the Big Ten. They were good, right? Big Ten would have been good. Yeah, he said him and his brother Albert later, who comes along, they said to all the East Coast schools, don't recruit us. We're not going. Wow. We're not going to the Big East.

That's ballsy. You don't get any attention there. You didn't get any national attention. Yeah, but still. You want to go down, you want to play Kentucky and get national attention. How great would that be just to tell a giant conglomerate of schools to go fuck themselves? I want nothing to do with you. Well, to get drafted in the NBA, you had to be known then.

You had to go and get on television. If you went and played at some school nobody watched, they might not know you're there. It's not like now where there's a tape of everyone on YouTube that you can get or on their website. And back then they didn't know either. If you hear that phrase, all these schools I'm not going to, keep an eye on that guy because he's going to be in handcuffs later. That guy is not looking for the long term. He's looking for today and playing basketball. Because he's not going to get himself an education if he's telling schools with good education.

That aren't bad. No, it's true. To go fuck themselves. He's an idiot. His brother's got a good head on his shoulders, as we'll get into later. They're very opposite. Him and his brother Albert are very, very different. We'll talk about them in a little bit here.

I'm going to be honest with you. Any big school that tells me we'd love to have you come here to do anything check it out particularly i'm going yeah well at least look at it yeah but these guys so you have to understand the world was their oyster they can everybody wants them they can just pick where that's what i mean the titties in the basketball guess what down south has the biggest titties is what he said i'm going down there biggest titties and the biggest television coverage let's do it so uh So he goes on down there. The team in 75-76 goes 21-6.

They make the NCAA tournament this time, but they lose to VMI in the first round. Virginia Military Institute. What? Who loses to military institutes? It's ridiculous. Jesus Christ. That's embarrassing, honestly, for a major powerhouse like that. Unbelievable.

Embarrassing, honestly, for a major powerhouse like that. Unbelievable. So maybe the embarrassment of losing to VMI caused this little outburst here. Because from January 76th through July of 77, he's arrested five times in 18 months. Yeah, he goes on a tear here. What are they? Stupidity. Well, most of them were in his car. Some sort of moving violations, traffic violations.

Back in New York, whenever he was bored or sad, he'd take a ride. Just take the subway. Well, that's what he does here. You lose the VMI, you take a ride. Yeah. Well, he had an old, shitty red Pontiac with a black rag top on it, like a shitty old car, I guess it was. His coach here, Ray Mears, he says about this whole thing. He said, quote, Bernard's upset with the police department here because he thinks they're after him.

He says they know his car. Everybody does. It's an old beat up thing. It's worth two hundred dollars. Maybe I told him after the season, don't do anything stupid. It's always in the offseason. He's getting in trouble. All he had was basketball during the season.

His basketball kept him busy other times. And then he ended it like that. He's reminding me now as we're doing this. I I'm thinking about it, he is like Eddie Johnson. Remember Eddie Johnson? Eddie Johnson plus Billy Ray Bates divided by Tom Payne because he was down in a racist thing in the whole Kentucky and Tennessee. That's who he is right now. That's who he is. And let's see what he does here because he pretty much runs the gamut of all the shit they did, which is funny.

He's a perfect math problem of all of them not as much as some of them okay plenty uh was there a dick on a prostitute we'll say not yet not yet we'll get some we'll get there we'll get there he didn't steal a porsche from a dealership like eddie johnson or anything like that but he did shit just as stupid uh he is arrested on uh for this whole time it's for traffic offenses and he was twice arrested for possession of marijuana. Okay. So he's dicking off. He's a college kid.

All in his old automobile? Yeah, in his Pontiac. He's got to be a little smarter is the thing. You got to be, if you know the cops are looking for you too, don't have weed on you

when you drive around. You know what I mean? Is it like a Bonneville or some shit? Like an ugly? I don't know. They didn't give a year or a model but they just said it was shitty

and worth $200. So it's probably like some broken down 65, you know, Pontiac Tempest or something, some piece of shit, one of those. I like it. My cousin Vinny. I like you.

Metallic McGreen. I like your goal. You know how I roll, Jim. You know how I roll. Go on. So Mears, again, the coach says, quote, we're trying to figure out why. Why?

And so is he. And he was in my office the other day day and he just said, I blew it. I just blew it. Bernard realizes what a dumb movie made and he's immature. Now he's going to say something here that I'll get into in a second. He said, and if he took that TV, it was so stupid because we leave it there for anybody to use. And he knows how much it hurt. What?

Okay. He stole a TV. Let's find out in a minute what he did here. Like he stole the break room TV? Yeah, it's pretty much that. It's like the equipment room here. That's fucking great. Just going to break away from the show for one moment to tell you about our sponsor, Zip Recruiter. No matter what it is, whether it's a podcast or whether it's an insurance company,

the most important thing is finding the talent that you need. Finding the right people for the right position and ZipRecruiter can help. They can be your one-stop shop for this. You can't find the best candidates by posting your job on just one site. No, how could you do that? You need to post on all the top job sites and now you can in one place with ZipRecruiter. At ZipRecruiter.com you can post your job to over 100 job sites with one click. One click, that's all. Then their powerful technology efficiently matches the right people to your position. I don't know how people have hired people in the past.

I really don't know how before ZipRecruiter things happened because this seems like the only way to do it. I'm telling you right now. And right now, our listeners can start forming their own winning team on ZipRecruiter for free. Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash crime. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash crime. Try it free today at ZipRecruiter.com slash crime. And now back to the show. At this point, he's starting to get some bad publicity, too. Some anti-fluff pieces. He gets a ton of fluff pieces, by the way. Every time this guy goes, maybe I'll try hard, they go, hey, let's get everybody fluff them up. It's fine.

Everybody's good. This fluff piece said, quote, Bernard has such great ability and such personal charm that he could really make it big if he used it in the right directions. But he hasn't done that so far. They're trying to be nice. 76-77 season here. This is his junior year, but it will be his last year in college, and we'll find out why. He scores 25.8 points per game, 14.3 rebounds, 3.2 assists. So he had the same amount of points, upped his rebounds, and doubled his assists from the year before.

Just expanding his game. First team All-America. SEC Player of the Year again. Three straight years. Player of the Year, whole conference. Team goes 22-6 that year. They make the tournament, and they lose in the first round to who? The dreaded Orangemen. Really?

That's amazing. That's why I was going with that earlier. I'm like, they actually lose to the Orangemen. And they're like, shit, at least it's not a military college. At least it's a real school. You shouldn't be good at shooting guns and baskets. I feel like at the same time, like that's no military schools are good at are good at basketball.

Anyway, they shouldn't be. Anyway, he forgoes his final year of eligibility for the NBA draft. His coach here, Mears, said, quote, He's been a super kid for us. Bernard appreciates that that what we did here for him. He helped us recruit this year. And if a kid doesn't like you, he won't help you. We never had any problems with Bernard. Oh, boy.

Except the police. That's what he added. Except the police. Is that what he said? He really said that? It was ellipses except the police. We never had a problem with him. We never had any problems.

Except the police, obviously. They did. Obviously, when he repeatedly got arrested. He helped me recruit this year. He took kids, the new kids, and showed them the titties. He showed them the titties. Now, in our timeline, the TV thing hasn't happened yet. So wipe that out of your mind for one second here.

He has a couple of marijuana arrests, a bunch of traffic violations at this point. But it's NBA draft time. All right. Stupid college kid. Who cares? You see those numbers, that talent against good competition. Somebody wants this guy. It doesn't matter.

numbers, that talent against good competition. Somebody wants this guy. It doesn't matter. So we come to the 1977 NBA draft on June 10th, 1977 in New York City. This draft here, it's an interesting draft, actually. Kent Benson goes number one to Milwaukee. Who the fuck? He sounds boring, and he went to the Bucs, so it fits in perfectly here.

I like the second guy, Otis Birdsong. I love that name. That's a good one here. Kansas City Kings got him. Walter Davis, the legendary Phoenix Suns player, was drafted No. 5 overall. No. 7 overall, Bernard King, taken by the, at the time, New York Nets. They got this in a trade from Indiana. He was the first underclassman taken that year. And as a matter of fact, the only non-senior taken in the entire first round. Wow. So I'm sorry, one other one. Brad Davis

was taken also. And where'd he go? He went to L.A. So there's only one other non-senior. And a lot of Ernie Grunfeld went No. 11, his teammate there, went No. 11 to the Milwaukee Bucks. So he's going to go play with Kurt Benson. Lucky him. Tree Rollins went in that draft, which is amazing because he was still playing in the mid-90s when I was like a teenager. Yeah, he played for 25 years or some shit. Yeah, getting busted with weed all the time. Just constantly getting busted with weed.

He played for the Bucs. The Tree, he played for everybody. He played for everybody. I feel like those are two that he played for. I'm sure he did. He was around forever and just getting kicked around a lot. Now, the Nets were coming out of the ABA at the time. Like we explained last week, these other leagues, the ABA is one of these startup leagues. If you don't know anything about the ABA, quick history, real quick, started in 1960,

went through the mid-70s. A really good story here, actually, too, a really funny thing of how somebody fucked over an NBA team for tens of millions of dollars. It's awesome. It's awesome. There's been a lot of leagues coming along at that time. The 60s were big for like startup leagues. But the ABA actually caught on. Wide open league. Really was. It was a really wide open league.

Offense, a lot of scoring. It looked like an all-star game being played a lot. They likely saw how the NFL came together. And they're probably like, we can do something like that. Well, that's the thing. One of the owners of the Pacers actually said its goal was to force a merger with the NBA. That was the goal the whole time. They didn't want to

beat them. They just wanted to be a part of the NBA. We didn't even want to be a part of it once it happens. We just want to pay out and get the fuck out, like a businessman. It's true. It's beautiful. It is. The NBA was actually the weakest of the leagues back then, too. How about that? The NBA was only 21 years old. So, I mean, it was very, when the ABA came along, so it was very young.

All the other leagues were much more established and, you know, harder to do a startup on. It had a really wide open game. They had a different shot clock. They tried the 30-second shot clock, went back to the 24-second shot clock. But the big thing was they invented the three-point line. So they invented the three-second shot clock. But the big thing was they invented the three-point line. So they invented the three-point shot. What makes basketball basketball now, what makes the Warriors win was this innovation.

What gives white people the opportunity to play. What makes Princeton make a run in the tournament to the Sweet 16 every once in a while is three-point shooting. It's this. They use the red, white, and blue ball. I'm sure this. They use the red, white and blue ball. I'm sure you've all seen the red, white and blue basketball, which is a cool ass looking ball. Globe shotters ball.

Exactly. When it's going through the air, it's so damn cool. They had also had regional franchises, franchises that didn't have a home city like they had the Virginia Squires and the Carolina Cougars, and they played their home games in different cities. Really? They had like five different cities they'd set up and play. That doesn't seem like an advantage.

Well, it was like a smaller area that didn't have a giant market that could support that many games. Yeah, but that doesn't seem like much of an advantage. The advantage of being at home is having your fans there. That's what it is. But the thing is to be able to sell tickets to it. Oh, I got you. There isn't a city big enough in either one of those places at that time to have a center of population that's going to support 41 games of basketball a year.

So rather than do that, they just, they said, oh, we're going to spread them out. That seems difficult to find a venue in each place that's big enough. That's good enough and everything like that. They stole referees from the NBA, offered them big salaries. I mean, they also pioneered the slam dunk contest. That was their idea. Great idea. That's what I mean.

They had it in 1976, which was the last year of the ABA. This year, this is when they merge right here when he's coming in, when Bernard King is coming in in the 70s. This is the Nets' first year in the NBA as opposed to the ABA. Four teams get absorbed into the league, the Nets, who were New the NBA as opposed to the ABA. Four teams get absorbed into the league, the Nets, who were New York at that time, the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, San Antonio Spurs. Two teams here. This is amazing, this story, by the way.

This is also the Spirits of St. Louis, a good 30 for 30 documentary about the Spirits of St. Louis, what ended up happening. The Colonels took a buyout and were disbanded there. The Colonels received a one-time fee. That was it. He ended up buying another team out of that. But what the Spirits ended up doing was they negotiated a cut of the television revenue.

They got, because there were seven teams or eight teams, they got one-eighth of a share of the future television revenues of the NBA in perpetuity is in the contract. Forever. This was in the 70s. This is like the Bobby Bonilla Mets contract. This is amazing. These guys had a thing that TV is going to be a big deal for this.

The owners didn't see it. They were like, what do we make off TV? Fuck it. Who cares? It's cheaper than – yeah, who cares? That's never going to be anything. And now it's – It's crazy.

They made $300 million up until 2014, this ownership group, off that deal. Up to 2014. Up to 2014, this ownership group that started that. $300 million. And then they negotiated with the NBA a one-time payout, so they didn't have to keep doing this, of $500 million. Holy shit. So that deal netted these guys $800 million. My God. A couple of guys who ran a little low-budget off-league basketball team got $800 million off it.

A couple of guys in cheap suits and dollar cigars in the documentary they're talking about that's they have these business guys going that's probably the greatest deal in the history of business like i'm not even kidding that's probably the best deal in the history of business it's amazing uh the best is also the virginia squires got nothing they got nothing they ceased operations just before the merger and got a fucking dime. They could have had hundreds of millions of dollars. Amazing. By the way.

This is only followed right behind by Jerry Seinfeld and fucking Curb Your Enthusiasm. Yeah. That's the only two. Larry David. Larry David. That's the only two that have made any sort of business deals that rival this. Close to that. This is unbelievable. Unreal.

And the only reason theirs isn't number one, because they made more money. But they had to work. They had to work for years and years. These fuckers didn't have to do shit. They had to have a basketball team for like four years, which was fun. And by the way, Marvin Barnes was on that team, who you might want to go back and take a look at. Our episode on Marvin Barnes, because it's goddamn hilarious. He's a nightmare. The penniless ghetto cowboy millionaire, I believe is the title of it.

It's 20-something. Anyway, round three of that draft, Fast Eddie Johnson was selected. No kidding. Absolutely. Who was our episode number eight or nine. Probably the worst person we've ever done, possibly. He was arrested over 100 times. You really should listen to that one.

Before this season, the Nets moved to New York from New Jersey. Before this season, the Nets moved from New York to New Jersey. They go there. Nowadays, they're back in New York. Thanks, Jay-Z. But they were New Jersey. Before this season, the Nets moved from New York to New Jersey. They go there. Nowadays, they're back in New York. Right. Thanks, Jay-Z. But they were New Jersey. And we'll get into that because Bernard has a hand in that also.

Well, he had a hand in it. We'll find out later. He receives a five-year, $800,000 contract, which is huge in the 70s for a kid from the Walt Whitman Projects. And has a clause in it that offers him a bonus if he stays out of trouble, okay? What? They wait for him to sign this contract because he has some problems. That was June 10th, was the draft.

July 10th, 1977, late night, middle of the night, Knoxville police arrest him on charges of breaking into a campus athletic building and stealing a television set. Why? He's set for a July 19th trial. It's ridiculous. He was released on $55 bond.

He's arrested inside the Stokely Athletic Center at 2.30 in the morning. The arresting officer said they found a television valued at $1,500 because TVs were fucking expensive in the 70s, if you remember. Holy shit. Remember when we do the sales when some of these episodes from like 81? It would be like a 20-inch TV for $900. It's like, holy shit. For $1,500, though, he would have needed a friend to lift that fucking thing.

Oh, definitely. Oh, he would have had to have. Or he's a big guy. They found that in his car outside the building. So he had like went out, put it in his car, and then come back in to do something else. So they were like, you're probably robbing the place. University spokesman said they had no comment on it at the time. Bernard was attending summer school at the campus, and they said he could not be reached for comment.

More like they said, shut the fuck up. His agent said, shut up, dummy. You just got drafted. Don't say a fucking word. You couldn't even wait to sign your contract before you start getting arrested? Here's the thing, too. Like, with the contract, so he hadn't been signed yet. He hadn't signed yet.

Okay. They drafted him. And now they're like, that's why they put the condition of the stay out of trouble in there. You don't put that in the contract unless you're forecasting some shit. You know what I mean? Yeah, because he just did this. And there's more.

Yeah. Oh, there's more, Jimmy. It's not just that. What an idiot uh by the way the earlier offenses that he had like i said these were all they produced a total punishment all the marijuana and moving violations of a two dollar fine he got on one point so that's they really didn't tennessee you really slap on the wrist well silver hair middle-aged white man yeah knoxville tennessee owns that town university of tennessee so that coach goes hey now listen

when he goes out and has lunch with the judge that he knows real well. You know, hey, maybe help my buddy out. He's a nice kid, I'm telling you. He's a nice boy. He's not an uppity in, I'll tell you that right now. Not like the police say he is now. He called him an uppity in. Tune on right, right, Constable?

I'll have you ready. All right, then. So July 22, 1977, this is 12 days later, King is arrested again. Fuck. Okay? This time. Less than two weeks. Less than two weeks later. This is the days later. King is arrested again. Okay. This time. Less than two weeks.

Less than two weeks later. This is the story that keeps on giving. It just keeps on giving. He keeps getting arrested. This time after a woman complained that a man was trying to break into her apartment. Oh, my God. That's serious. A TV from the athletic center, whatever.

Kids do that shit. I don't know why when you're about to sign an $800,000 contract where you're stealing fucking TVs. Go sign the contract. Move to New York, and buy a fucking TV. So King is arrested again. Like I said, woman complaining. He's grabbed by police in the apartment building hallway where she called from. He's charged with possession of marijuana, resisting arrest, and prowling. These are not great charges for your first-round draft pick to be acquiring at this moment in time.

King's lawyer, a man named William Banks of Knoxville, undoubtedly silver-haired as they come, told King to make no public comments until after his trial on August 1st. The lawyer says that the university is done right by King, and it also says that he insists that Knoxville police have never harassed him. This is his own lawyer saying that we want to just say right away that the cops don't harass him even though they do, obviously. And he said they do. We want to say they don't and that he's fine

and this guy, the lawyer is very enthusiastic in defense of his client who he calls, quote, a wayward man-child. That's what his own lawyer calls him. He says, quote, Bernard King is not a bad boy.

He is not a thug. He is one of the nicest, the politest young men you'd ever want to meet. That is a silver-haired statement as they come. That is the most silverest, whitest-haired statement you'd ever want to meet right there. Holy shit. And he said that. All he said was, my client's a dipshit. He's a dipshit.

Kind of a dipshit, but give him money and he'll be fine. Banks continues. You have to remember, he is a dipshit. He's a dipshit. Kind of a dipshit, but give him money and he'll be fine. Banks continues. You have to remember, he is a young man. And you know you're not dealing with an ordinary athlete here. Bernard King is one of the finest basketball players ever. You will only meet a few of his kind in a lifetime. And that adulation, that comes with that, that superhero stuff, that has to go to a young man's head. That's part of the problem with Bernard.

Yeah, he's a dipshit. Yeah, because people like you are saying, you know, he's different than everyone else because he plays basketball really well, so we should treat him differently in court. Like, that's the fucking reason why he's doing it still. You don't understand. He does this stuff because he's a superhero

on a basketball court. Yeah, you don't understand. So it goes to his head, and then he has to break in a woman's apartment. Don't you understand how shit works? You don't understand because you're not a superhero. You're not amazing. You don't get it. You don't understand because you're not a superhero. You're not amazing. You don't understand a fucking thing.

He's a dipshit. He's a dipshit. Moving on. So 77-78 season. This is his rookie year. New Jersey Nets. Now New Jersey. He plays in 79 of 82 games, which is fantastic. 39.1 minutes a game, which is a shitload. That's heavy minutes right there. 24.2 points a game, 9.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists.

He's the shit. Crushing it. That's what I mean. He's nasty. He just made his college stuff translate to the NBA. He just moved along and just, well, now I can do that against professionals. No problem at all. The team finishes 24-58.

Not a real good team here. Professionals, no problem at all. The team finishes 24-58, not a real good team here. In his rookie season, he sets a New Jersey franchise record for most points scored in a season, with 1,909 at 24.2 points a game, which is pretty goddamn amazing for a rookie. All that, he is not the rookie of the year. Who is? He is not the rookie of the year. Is that amazing?

Is it a wind song? Walter Davis. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Walter Davis. But I feel like he's not rookie of the year because he's a fuck-up. Yeah. I feel like that's the reason why, because that's voted on by the year. Is that amazing? Walter Davis. Oh, yeah. It's Walter Davis. But that's amazing. I feel like he's not rookie of the year because he's a fuck up. Yeah. I feel like that's the reason why because that's voted on by the media. I feel like they were like, no, let's give it to the nice guy. Let's give it to Walter

Davis out there in Phoenix. He's living in the desert. That poor bastard. He needs something. So 78-79 season plays in all 82 games. 35 minutes a game. 21.6 points. 8.2 rebounds. 3.6 assists per game. So just crushing it.

He has forgotten about the TV. He's doing great. Yeah, the TV. This shit doesn't distract him at all. No, that's the thing about this guy. Just like Marvin Barnes would do. Marvin Barnes would have all these problems. I don't think we did Marvin.

We did Billy Ray Bates. Marvin Barnes you can throw in that math equation too. Marvin Barnes would have all these goddamn problems, all these issues, flying in late with a fur coat on, doing this whole thing, and then he'd go out and drop 40 points like it was nobody's business. He just did what he felt on the court. He had the aggressively nasty anal warts, right? That was

Sly Williams. Oh, shit. Sly Williams said let's not besmirch Marvin Barnes' name here, okay? Sly Williams. Sly Williams and the nasty anal warts. Aggressively nasty, I believe Williams. Sly Williams and the nasty anal warts. Aggressively nasty, I believe he was. Aggressively nasty anal warts. That was his quote.

He called it into work one day with aggressively nasty anal warts. He was the one with the slight death, too, right? Slight death in the family. I had a slight death in the family, and my aggressively nasty anal warts are keeping me up at night. Oh, God, it's so fun. It is. So check out Sly Williams there, too. Oh, the amazing. Every one of these episodes are fun. up at night. Oh, God, it's so fun. It is. So check out Sly Williams there, too. Oh, the amazing –

Every one of these episodes are fun. It's great. I wish I wasn't us so I could go back and listen to them, honestly, because they're kind of fun for me. Anyway, he's doing really well right now. They've forgotten all about that. You know, he's doing fine. The problem was in the middle of that season in December,

more specifically December 19th, 1978, he had a little bit of an issue. Oh, boy. Just a small one. Slight issue. He was found sleeping, hunched over the steering wheel of his maroon 1979 Corvette in the middle of Brownsville, Brooklyn. What the fuck?

Which was a shithole back then. You didn't take a fucking brand new Corvette. This was in 78. So this was a new, new, new Corvette to Brownsville to hang out and sit there and fall asleep across your steering wheel. The car was double parked and the motor was running. That's not a nap. That's passing out due to drugs and alcohol.

That is nodding off. According to the Brooklyn DA, the arresting officer tapped on the window and King woke up and said, where am I? You're in your car, mister. Tell you what. That's like the Michael Floyd one. Did you see that? That's the same thing. Motherfucker, you're in your car. That's where you are. You're in Brownsville, you fucking

idiot. You're an idiot, yeah. You dummy. The answer to that question is in the middle of the fucking road, dipshit. Double parked in a car way too nice for this neighborhood asshole. Get out of the car. We're going to talk for a minute. So he said, where am I? And they said, well, right now you're here, but we're going to take you to the 73rd Precinct.

So ask in about five minutes and we'll tell you that. Where are you? Under arrest. Under arrest is where you are, sir. Police department spokesman said also they found a little spoon and a tiny amount of cocaine in an envelope in King's pocket. Isn't this just supposed to keep you awake? Yeah, apparently not. They said there was less than $10 worth in there.

So it was just remnants of what he had. He did all the rest. He did the rest. That's what I mean. So the drug possession and drunken driving charges are both misdemeanors, payable by a maximum of one year in prison. So still, that's pretty serious. And it looks so bad.

Maximum of a year in prison. That it's still, that's pretty serious. And it looks so bad. Maximum a year in prison. That's a whole season. And it just looks so bad that you're like this star player and you're getting busted hunched over, slumped over a steering wheel with a Coke on you. That's not a good look in 1980 at all. That's terrible. It's not good now, but it was even worse then. In a shit neighborhood. In a terrible neighborhood

where it looks like you were going to buy more Coke. That's what it looked like. I ran out of Coke, so I pulled up here to buy more Coke and passed out before I could get out of the car. I fell asleep before they walked around the vehicle. That's how fucked up I am. I gave them money, and then I fell asleep. So, yeah, Summons was issued for the whole deal. He does a breathalyzer, and they get him on the drunken driving.

So he was drinking, too. He'll be arraigned on January 9th of the next year. Total charges are driving under the influence, driving without a license and possession of cocaine. OK. Not a great list to run down here. But they're all accurate as far as I can tell. They're all very accurate, excessively accurate.

Now, on the day of the arrest afterwards, because this happened in the morning, obviously late night hours, he is nowhere to be found. No. In hiding. He needs a nap. He disappears. Yeah. Clearly, he was a little tired. He should have caught up in nap. He disappears. Yeah, clearly he was a little tired.

He should have caught up in prison. He does not show up at Nets practice that day. That's not great. You get arrested, then you don't show up for work. That looks even worse. The press went around and asked the doorman at his 50-story apartment building if they had seen him, and he said he hadn't seen him or his mother either because his mother would stop by sometime so they asked his mother if uh you know up and she's still living in walt whitman

projects if she knows where he is and she said i hadn't been in touch with him i don't know anything about it that his mother stopped at the house sunday night because king uh was supposed to be a special guest at the opening game of the new jersey gems which is a woman's professional basketball league and he didn't show up so she she came to be like, where were you? Probably beat the shit out of him. Where were you? And she's going to give him the back of her hand, give him a good beating with the Bible there. Now, the Nets general manager, who, by the way, has not talked to Bernard at all, he says, quote, we're not concerned at the moment because we haven't talked to Bernard.

We have spoken to his agent, and we've been calling his home, and no one has answered, and no one's heard from him. We need to review the information before we can do anything. But we have we have spoken to his agent and we've been calling his home and no one has answered and no one's heard from him we need to review the information before we can do anything but we have to talk to bernard first i can't understand bernard doing a thing like this he's just been great all season he's one of the most cooperative players we have he does anything we ask unbelievable silver-haired middle-aged white man as it can be well he's good on the court i don't know shit it can't be true that's he says to the press, but then he walks around the corner and he's like, $800 fucking thousand dollars. God damn it. This bitch better get her shit together. Brownsville doing coke? Who is this fucking guy?

Get him in my office now! Now! So, uh, the Nets coach at the time said that he learned of King's arrest on the radio. They didn't even tell him, the team. So this is how back then, how news traveled. News traveled back then. Slow shit. You would hear shit about your own team on the radio. He this is how back then how news traveled back then. Slow shit.

You would hear shit about your own team on the radio. He says, the coach here, Lowry, said, quote, I was very surprised because of the way he has conducted himself in the last year and a half. We have had no problems with him. In fact, he has been fantastic, not only on the court but off the court. This is clearly coming down from somewhere like, hey, aberration. Here's what you say. Yeah, we're going to say King's lawyer, who is actually David Falk, who is the huge talent.

He's the huge agent. He's a huge NBA agent. He's one of the biggest agents there is. He was a lawyer back then. Who's the other one? Lee Steinberg. That's the one. Mostly NFL.

But David Falk is like the NBA agent, the big NBA, or was before they kind of went away from him. There's another one in the NBA, too. Yeah, there's a bunch of them now. I forget his name. But there's, I mean, like the Jerry Maguires of the NBA. Yeah. Pretty much. Exactly.

Yeah. Now King, what he did, where he did go was on Saturday night, he went to a premiere of his movie, which we'll get into in a minute. Get the fuck out of here. He went to the, he went to the premiere of the movie and he called one of his friends to ask directions to the theater. His friend said that was about three or four o'clock on Saturday afternoon. of the movie, and he called one of his friends to ask directions to the theater. His friend said that was about 3 or 4 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, and he said, quote,

if he visited his mother, he probably went to see his old friends. Those friends are not his friends. I keep telling him that. He's made it. He has everything he wants. They're still down and out. And then he also said, he don't deal with coke, no hard drugs. When I heard coke, I said, it couldn't be Bernard. He don't ever do stuff like do stuff like that and he said last time i spoke to him he told me all of that was history

and that this was a new bernard king yeah like what the fuck i'm good now i'm good i'm good now he told me yeah this is it's not him because he told me clearly that he's turned a new leaf his own mouth his own lips i said different bernard phil jackson who was legendary goddamn the one tons of rings coach and one for the deck and uh was also a teammate of bernard king's at the time yeah uh he said that he was very surprised by the coke charge and said that king usually quote limits himself to more conventional highs like alcohol because phil jackson liked his he liked to do acid mushrooms and smoke weed and shit so he's a more conventional highs, like alcohol.

I like that. So Bernard, you figure back against the wall here, right? Yeah. Three days later, he drops 41 points on the Knicks. Jesus. Doesn't affect him at all. That's on the court. You know, he's going to stick it up your ass.

He's all rested up. He took a nap in the middle of Brownsville. He's ready to go. He's ready. That's what he needed, a little break for a Coke and a nap. That's it. Now, 1979, let's talk about that movie we discussed here. He appears in the feature film Fast Break.

That's the name of it. The description. It's obviously about basketball. Yeah, clearly. Where else are you going to put a 6'7 guy? I don't know. In a movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme. Still 6'7.

That would make Van Damme look like a midget. Wasn't that what the movie, Double Team, right? Or Double Take? Oh, Dennis Rodman. Dennis Rodman and Jean-Claude Van Damme. That a midget. Wasn't that what the movie, Double Team, right? Or Double Take? Oh, Dennis Rodman. Dennis Rodman and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah, but back then.

6'9". Isn't he 6'9"? Yeah, that's true. He's 6'9". A lot of apple boxes for Van Damme. He's like, make me taller, please. I'll do splits on them. I do splits.

I do lots of splits. The IMDB description here is, quote, David Green is a New York basketball enthusiast who wants to coach. He is then offered the coaching job at a small Nevada college. He brings along some players who are a bit odd but good, like Swish, who unknown to the rest of his team is a girl. Preacher was being sought by some nefarious characters and DC, who's a fugitive. And along with some of the students at the college, he turns them into a contender. In order to give the team respect they deserve and some exposure, Green schemes to try to get the number one team led by Bo Weininger to play them.

This is awful. That sounds fucking terrible, doesn't it? That sounds really, yes. One of them's a girl and one of them's, I guess, transgender on the team or at least cross-dresser. And yeah, somebody's a preacher who has people after him. There was another one of those with a black guy that he dressed up as a woman in the movie. What was the guy?

I forget his name, though. He's a fucking Juana. Juana Man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same movie. Jesus, that's terrible. Same movie, but this is, like, not based around it, I guess. the movie stars no one you've ever heard of ever it's terrible bernard plays the role of quote the hustler he's just a hustler uh in bernard's words he said quote the character is

slick cool sly streetwise any resemblance to me is purely coincidental sure he's a smooth talking wise ass son of a bitch and by by the way, it was Double Team. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Double Team. I couldn't remember if it was Double Team or Double Team. And that's a terrible name for a movie. It is. It sounds very gross.

That's going to get you into pornography in a second. I feel like he said any resemblance to me is purely coincidental, and then he wiped the Coke from his nose. I feel like it was purely coincidental, and he fucking wiped it away and walked away. And then burped a big gin belt. That's right, guys. I got to go drive now. See you later.

So, yeah. So he's wearing out his welcome in New Jersey. So much so that on October 2nd, 1979, right before the season starts, he is traded by the Nets with John Gianelli and Jim Boylan to the Utah Jazz. He's traded there. In Utah for the 79-80 season, he only plays in 19 games, 22.1 minutes per game, 9.3 points per game, 4.6 rebounds, 2.7 assists. And there is a reason for that, why he plays so, so little. The reason is on January 1st 1980, Bernard is arrested in his Salt Lake City

apartment after a 25-year-old woman called police complaining that she was forced to perform sexual acts on him several times at his apartment against her will over the course of an evening. What do you mean you don't get to show me those titties? I went to Tennessee.

When I showed up, titties were out. So, yeah, he thinks he has the right to titties now, which is disturbing. She said she had to wait. There was not just him, somebody else, too. No. Multiple guys. She said she waited until the men fell asleep and then called police. So they wouldn't beat her, probably.

I assume she was probably scared. Police have a hard time when they show up. They can't even wake Bernard up. They cannot wake. They call paramedics because he's so drunk that he's out, blacked out, done, hammered. What the fuck? Can't even wake him up. They have to call paramedics in to get him up because they were like, well, we're not

going to drag him. And it was just booze? It's not just booze. Well, who knows? Yeah. God, he could have been passed out or anything. A drug-induced coma. Yeah, the police, they couldn't.

It was ridiculous. They couldn't even. Cops can't get you up. You're fucking tired. That's sleepy. That's a drug-induced coma. So that's January 1st. That's New Year's Day.

This happened New Year's Eve on 1979, 1980. So now January 3rd, 1980, two days later, King is suspended indefinitely by the Utah Jazz. Because that shit is in Utah. And those fucking Mormons, unless it's in the name of God, they don't play that shit. You know what I mean? You can force sexual activity. You can force 13-year-olds to be married to you. But you've got to marry them first.

And then you can do it. That's how they look at it. Sorry, Mormons. I know that's not all. It's probably not you. It's a very small set. 0.02% of you. I realize that.

But it really, really, really carries. really, really got to weed those people out. Why do you have them at all? Clean up your backyard, guys. What the fuck, man? Pull some weeds. Yeah, pull some goddamn weeds. So he's suspended indefinitely. He is charged with five felony forcible sexual assault charges.

Holy shit. Three for forcible sodomy and two for forcible sexual abuse. What's with the forcible? What the fuck? This is crazy. He faces possibly 10 years in prison for this. This is no fucking joke. This is a big, serious arrest.

After the arrest, though, this whole thing, he takes six different lie detector tests, passes all of them that say, but he doesn't say he didn't do anything. The lie detector test says that he's telling the truth when he says he has no recollection of what happened that night. So he's not lying. He's not making up like, you know, I know I raped this girl, but I don't think I did. He was so blacked out, he literally doesn't remember doing this, which, sorry, but you

can control yourself. That's not an excuse. not at all so what he ends up doing is they end up letting him plead down i don't know why that would make it any better just because he was so irresponsible that he got blackout drunk enough to sexually sexually assault a woman i don't see why that makes it like you know a little sweeter on no this is what i mean back then and especially back then silver-haired middle-aged right white men ruled the world. They could get away with anything. Now everything is so public that it's a little bit more difficult. It still happens.

I guarantee it. It still happens. But any public site of what they would think would be collusion would be just blasted out of the water. So they have to – if anything, they go the opposite now. They'll go harder against him. They have a little thing that's like, we don't tolerate that. We're shipping him out. We hope he dies in the ocean.

Right. You know, it's ridiculous. But these guys back then. Ray Rice's career was ruined over one shot. Not ruined, just over. Right. It's over. No one wanted him anymore.

It's gone. For punching a woman. Yeah. This is, not to fucking make light of punching a woman. No, no, no. But this is much worse. This is worse, I feel. Yeah.

The woman that got punched still married his dumb ass. That's what I mean. This girl didn't marry Bernard King. This poor woman had to call the cops while they fell asleep to get her out of there. After she got gang raped, for fuck's sake. Yeah, this is her whatever the hell happened to her. Something terrible happened to her in there. Multiple dicks.

That's gang rape. Yeah. So it's not great. Right. It's not great. So this is one of those things, though. Back then, this is like you have to imagine. They always say like, you know, we've talked about this before.

They always say like if someone gets convicted of rape, like there's probably 10 more rapes they committed. If you take athletes in the 70s, whatever they did, you can multiply it by 50 because not only was it reported a lot less, but then it was going to be actively fucking covered up by assholes that want him to play tomorrow and score 41 against the Knicks on Tuesday. Tom Paine was huge. That's what I mean. It's ridiculous. The whole thing drives me nuts. So anyway, he pleads guilty to one count of attempted forcible sexual assault.

Attempted. Attempted forcible sexual assault, which I think he did, actually. But they actually was mitigating that he was so drunk he didn't know what happened, which to me makes it worse. That shows you're less responsible. Asshole. Anyway, after this, he is straight and narrow. He claims that this is it.

This is a new Bernard King turning over a new leaf. Not what I thought I was before. So much I'm good now. In their own words here. In their own words. Quote, I was in a position where I'm good now. In their own words here. In their own words. Quote, I was in a position where I could sink or swim, and I decided to swim. For about two years prior to January, I had a premonition that I was going to die. If I hadn't taken care of the problem, I don't think I'd be alive.

The life I was living would have caught up with me. I am good now. No doubt. Good now. Here's the thing, though. All good. Cocaine and all that before, gone out of my life. Perfect. Here's the thing, though. All good. Cocaine and all that before, gone out of my life. Perfect.

Here's the thing, though. He said I could sink or I could swim, and I chose to swim. Luckily, because you have fucking people on your side that will help you. You didn't choose to swim. You went underwater and a bunch of dolphins pushed you up above the surface and carried you above. Onto the beach. Yeah, and you spread your arms out like Leonardo DiCaprio in front of Titanic, for Christ's sake. You were like a fucking SeaWorld trainer with your feet on the nose of the bottlenose dolphin and you are being pushed.

Wind blowing through your hair, ocean mist on your face as the dolphins take you along. I wish somebody would have put the cigarette out on your face, you dick. Dolphin riding asshole. So anyway, September 11th, 1980. Dolphins take you along. I wish somebody would have put the cigarette out on your face, you dick. Dolphin-riding asshole. So anyway, September 11, 1980. He is traded by the Utah Jazz to the Golden State Warriors for Wayne Cooper and a 1981 second-round draft pick. The 1980-81 season for the Golden State Warriors. He plays in 81 games, 36 minutes a game, 21.9 points, 6.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists.

Killing it. On the floor, he's back. 1981, he's the January of 1981 Player of the Month. Wow. And he wins the Comeback Player of the Year award that year. How about that? So if you— That poor woman in Salt Lake has to see that shit on SportsCenter.

I mean, in 81, it probably wasn't there. If you break your goddamn leg or something like that, that's Comeback Player of the Year. Right. Not being allowed to play because you raped a woman doesn't make you eligible for that shit that is not eligible i'm sorry it has to be an injury or like you got sick comeback player he didn't even rape anyone this year isn't that great that means they had to put out like a press release and everything and like put him on the great guy center court at the home game picture of him saying great guy right here.

We love him. All good now. He's good now. Unbelievable. Why would he not think he's good now? Everyone tells him he's good now. Why the fuck wouldn't he? He just says I'm good and everyone goes, oh, he must be good now.

He didn't get arrested this month. Yay. Comeback player. Unbelievable. Holy shit. So 81-82 season for the Golden State Warriors. Now this year, too, the Nets draft Bernard's brother Albert in 81-82. So he goes to play for the Nets.

Albert would play for nine years, averages about 12 points a game. That's great. That sort of thing. Yeah, not bad at all. Over a career, 12 points a game? That's great. Not bad at all. He plays in 79 games in 81-82.

Bernard does not, Albert. 36.2 minutes a game. 23.2 points. 5.9 assists. 3.6 rebounds. Somebody's much better. Making the all-star team. Wouldn't it be great if his brother got this ability, though, to play like that? The funny thing is, everyone thought his brother was going to be better than him.

Really? His brother had better skills than him. And he was not a dickhead. He didn't have what Bernard has. He didn't have that thing that whatever he does, he just goes, fuck it. I'll skate right by it. He doesn't have that sociopath thing that Bernard has that allows him to be a great player. If everything's equal, look at a lot of these guys in the NBA.

It's all equal physically. These guys are all incredible athletes. It doesn't matter. But it's all about your mental at that point. It's all about your prep, your killer instinct, your everything, your meanness. Your guts. Yeah. If you are a sociopath and willing to, you know, it's just the way it is.

Sacrifice everything. That's why sociopaths are great at business also and psychopaths for that matter. That's true. Anyway, 82, 83. In politics. All the time. Yeah. He makes the all-star team also, 81, 82 with the Warriors.

The 82, 83 season comes along. And before that gets started, in October 22, 1982, he is traded again. Uh-oh. Traded from the Golden State Warriors to probably the place where he's known the best for his time, which is the New York Knicks. He goes there. This is a huge deal for the Knicks because he really, really becomes a big cog for them. Of course. Hometown. Coming course, hometown.

Coming back. Absolutely. He plays in 68 games that year, 32.5 minutes a game, 21.9 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.9 assists. January 6, 1983, he appears on Late Night with David Letterman. He was on Letterman? Letterman. I mean, Letterman was like a three-year-old show that was on at 1230 back then after the Tonight Show.

But it was still a national show, an interview show, and he's on it. Because it's filmed in New York, too. So he's a big New York star now. Yeah. Didn't bring up the rape at all. Nothing. By the way. Yeah, where were you at, you gap-toothed fuck?

Where you at? I ask everyone. Where you at, you gap-toothed bastard? Fucking Letterman. Ask him about that shit. Doing stupid human tricks back then. Hey, remember when you jammed your dick in a girl against her will? Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that a little bit. By the way, never got too fast. Fucking Letterman. Ask him about that shit. Doing stupid human tricks back then. Hey, remember when you jammed your dick in a girl against her will? Let's talk about that.

Let's talk about that a little bit. By the way, never mind Letterman. I don't fault him. Go, everybody, right now. You got your phone. Click on, just look, Wikipedia Bernard King, and show me one mention of anything negative on there. Wow.

Because it doesn't fucking exist. Not one arrest is mentioned. Not a fucking thing is mentioned not a fucking thing is mentioned all it's mentioned is his basketball prowess he faced some racism in tennessee that's it so that is your duty now uh sports people uh go fucking edit the shit out of this and it's it's the nba because it's the same thing with vernon maxwell really maxwell would slam it as dick against glass a fucking not a fucking mention. Not paying his child support. Not one mention of ever being arrested because he was back in the good graces of the Houston Rockets. And we'll find out later what happens to Bernard King.

But once you get back in their circle, they wipe your shit clean. Silver-haired till the end, baby. That's all it fucking is, man. So he's there. 83-84 for the Knicks. This is when he comes into his own. This is the big deal. 77 games, 34.6 points a game,

26.3 points, 5.1 rebounds, 2.1 assists. Crushing it, scoring his ass off. This year, on a road trip in Texas, they went to a Texas road trip, January 31st through February 1st, 1984, King becomes the first

player since 1964 to score 50 points in two consecutive consecutive games that's why I know that's that's why I recognize him most because tops had those 50 point club yes oh he scored a ton a ton of 50 point games I had those and who was that against in Texas that was uh against they had uh he had 50 points and 20 for 30 shooting uh in against San Antonio a victory over San Antonio, and then a 50-point performance the next night at Dallas. Jesus.

So crushing it in Texas there. Right down the road, I'm going to go drop 50 again. Right again. That's what I mean. It just feels like it. February 1984, he's the player of the month again, makes the All-Star team that year. He is second in MVP voting. Listen to the guys around him.

Second in MVP voting. This is 1984 guys around him. Second in MVP voting. This is 1984-85. This is insane talent. Michael Jordan was a rookie this year. Ridiculous. You know who won MVP? Larry Bird. Wow.

You know who was third behind him? Magic Johnson. Wow. You know who was fourth? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And this asshole is number two. You know who was fifth? Isaiah Thomas.

Jesus. You know who was sixth? Dr. J. What the fuck? Julius fucking Irving. So this is just lineup of, that's a Hall of Fame team that you just said right there. That's like an all-time great team. With a sixth man. With a sixth man, and he's number two.

That's incredible. Unbelievable. And on the sporting news, the magazine actually names him their MVP, which doesn't count. I wonder how many of those had sodomy charges. One that I know of. One I know of. One I'm pretty sure of. One I'm pretty sure of. You never know what Dr. J was up to.

And I don't trust Larry Bird as far as I can throw him. Clumsy white fuck. Yeah, you're too folksy, mister. The wait is over. So far, you're not losing. The only thing you're losing is my patience. Quickly, I see that. Bing!

The queen of the courtroom is back. I didn't do anything. You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and slapped you in the face. I see he's not intimidated by anything. I can fix that. New cases. She wanted to fight me. Leave her alone.

Okay, so, um... This is not a so. This is a period. Classic Judy. Did you sleep with her? Yes, Your Honor. You married his cousin. His brother.

That's not him. Yes, ma'am. I would make a beeline for the door. The Emmy Award-winning series returns. How did I know that? I have a crystal ball in my head. It's an all-new season. It's streaming. You can say anything.

Judy Justice, only on Freebie. Taylor Swift is soaring high. Her every move captured in the news cycle and devoured by her devoted fans. She's broken billboard records and made Grammys history, not to mention becoming a billionaire in the process. But along the way, Taylor has had to wage war, first by taking on a very powerful, very famous manager, Scooter Braun, and then by going up against the biggest live events company, Ticketmaster. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's show Business Wars. We go

deep into some of the biggest corporate rivalries of all time. And in our latest season, Taylor Swift will shake up not only the music business, but Hollywood and the NFL. Follow Business Wars wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. The Knicks now, they make the playoffs that year. Yeah. Okay. They have a first round series against Detroit. They actually win

the series 3-2. It's insane. He averages 42.6 points a game in that series. Holy shit. Absolutely just dominates it. Averaging. Dominates it. He had over 40 points in each of the four final games of the series. Absolutely dominated.

They beat the Pistons that year. They go and almost beat the Celtics in the next round. The Celtics were a dynasty at that point. That Celtics team is one of the greatest teams of all time. And they gave them hell. And they gave them hell because Bernard was crushing it, and he was such a pain in the ass. It was awesome.

84-85 season next year. Plays in 55 games. We'll find out why he plays less games. 37.5 minutes a game. 32.9 points a game. God, Jesus, he's dropping a bucket every two minutes. 33 points a game. That's insane.

That is peak Michael Jordan. He's scoring a point a minute almost. That's all-time great scorer numbers, like one of the top guys. 5.8 rebounds, 3.7 assists. Let's drive our other numbers up, too. On Christmas Day, 84, that's what I mean. He felt like having a good Christmas. He goes up against the Nets here, the Knicks do.

He scores 60 points. Jesus. 60 in that. He was only the 10th player in NBA history at that time to score 60 points in a game. Only the 10th. He had 40 points by halftime. What? That's wild. And then he took it easy

on him. And he appears in the Curtis Blow video basketball. Get out of here. Playing basketball. He's in that? He appears in the video. So, I mean, he's great. 84. He averaged 30 points on 60% shooting over 40 straight games.

That has never happened before. That's how prolific he was that year. Makes the All-Star game that year. Makes $874,000 that year. Holy shit. Grace. Can we say Grace right now? Rape charges and all.

He's still a god to these people no matter what. Okay? March 23, 1985. He's in a game against the Kansas City Kings. They move to Sacramento later on. Reggie Theus is coming up to dunk. You might know Reggie Theus from basketball shows in the 90s. He was like a host of shows.

He hosted like NBA Today type shit. Like if you – yeah, whatever, pregame prep. If I saw him, I'm sure I'd recognize him. You'd know him if you saw him. Anyway, he attempts to, he's coming up. King's trying to block a dunk attempt by him and absolutely destroys his knee. Really? Destroys his knee, comes down.

Yeah, Bernard destroys his knee. He comes down holding it. Everyone thought it was his ankle at first, but it's his knee. He had a torn ACL, a torn knee cartilage, and a broken leg, a bone in his leg. Oh, God. Required major reconstructive surgery. This back, this now, you tear an ACL, you're back the next year, no problem. You'll be back stronger next year, don't worry about it.

You might be back by the end of the year. Yeah, if it's not a complete tear, they'll fucking scope that shit up and send you back or not scope it up, but they'll fix it up for you. They'll scope your knee out if you have some shit floating around. Back then, it wasn't like that. It was a huge deal. My neighbor played volleyball. She tore ligament, meniscus, all the shit.

There was like three things in there that she tore. She got it fixed and was back on her leg in like six weeks. That's crazy, man. It's ridiculous. That's crazy. At no point, no NBA player up to then had come back from a leg injury like that. Like, it was huge. March 26, three days later, the Knicks announced that he's going to miss the entire rest of

the season, obviously, and might not ever play again. They're like, he's never going to be the same again if he does play, that sort of thing. He's hospitalized. They do major surgery, then more surgery. So he does not play the 85-86 season due to his knee. He makes $874,000 that year. And he also appears in an episode of Miami Vice. Jesus.

He's acting his ass off. Which was the hottest shit ever back then. He appears in an episode called The Fix. And the description of this episode is, after Crockett and Tubbs arrest a drug dealer at the bail hearing, and the bail hearing judge sets a low bail, Crockett is curious if there's something wrong with him, so he investigates. It seems the man has a gambling problem, and now he's being told to tell his son, who's the star player of his school, to throw a game to settle his debts.

Bernard King plays the son, Matt Ferguson, and his dad is played by Bill Russell, the legendary NBA player who plays a gambling judge who's trying to throw games. Also, Michael Richards' Kramer is also in that episode. He's the guy trying to pressure them into this. He's the bookie. He's wandering around backstage just screaming the N-word. Yeah, he's the bookie trying to muscle Bill Russell, of all people.

Picture Kramer trying to muscle Bill Russell out of some gambling deck. Flipping his hair all over the place, being wacky. Weird. Coming in the door, all bursting in. Chest first. Yeah. So 86, 87 season with the Knicks. The Knicks are pissed off that he's not working with them to rebuild the knee.

He's in New Jersey doing this in private. They haven't seen him. He works out alone. He doesn't come to games. Just rehab him by himself. He's rehabbing by himself, not with his doctor. So they're like, is he ever going to come back? What the fuck?

He actually ends up February 22, 1987. He's not back yet. This is his parents come to a game because he is playing, his team's playing the Nets where his brother Albert plays for. So his parents came to see the two of them together. Yeah, play against each other. Yeah. They talked to them, by the way.

The parents refused. They still live in the together. Those two kids, yeah, play against each other. Yeah. They talked to them, by the way. The parents refused. They still live in the projects. They refused to take any money. Both Bernard and Albert are trying to give them money and buy them a house, and they won't do it. What? They just said they won't do it. They won't even take a car. They take the bus to go to the Meadowlands to see them play.

Oh, yeah, you don't want to fucking— They take, like, five buses because they're just like, we like the bus. They didn't want to have a car service? No. They said—the mother said, you know, sometimes limousines are fancy and all that, but it might seem exciting to some people, but not me. We like the bus. It's very relaxing.

The bus is relaxing to these people. Wild. So anyway. You're already dragging us away from church. Just let us do this on our own. Yeah. No shit. So here we go.

Bernard King here, end of the season, is talking about a comeback. We have an in their own words here. In their own words, quote, It happened when it was open knee surgery and three doctors told me I was never going to play again and you need surgery just to be able to walk. That's what I think about. I had the fortitude to work with my therapist five hours a day, six days a week for two straight years, climbing that mountain slowly, not quickly, step by step, and I made it back.

That's what I'm most gratified about when I think about my career. When you're challenged with an obstacle, the pain is not in the falling. The pain is in getting up. Makes sense. That's actually the smartest thing he's ever fucking said, which is pretty interesting. That year, he also appears in a Converse commercial for the Converse weapon shoe. Not just him. It's him, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Isaiah Thomas, Kevin McHale, Mark Aguirre.

Wow. That's just insane. Ridiculous. And they're all rapping. What? They're all doing this like rap in the one song and then Larry Bird comes out at the end and says his words. He doesn't really rap them.

Even Kevin McHale tries to throw a little rap in it. Kevin McHale tries. It's really hard to have some rhythm. Yeah. Larry Bird comes in about, I won the MVP. And he's like holding the trophy. And they're like, ah, fuck you. He's like, I'm from French Lick, so suck my dick. But that's like how famous he is. He's in with

those guys, you know what I mean? So March 25th, 87, he comes out and says that he's ready to come back again. He says he wants to, there's been no new swelling. He's ready. He's indicated that as early as next week, he's ready to play a game. His contract expires at the end of the season for $874,000 a year.

But King denies he's trying to showcase himself for future employment, which obviously is what you're doing. He says in their own words, quote, by no means is it a comeback in the sense that I'm back entirely. I'm back to my entirety. The first question they ask you is, can you do all the things you used to do? But it's unfair to judge me on what I once was. That's history. I'm what I am today. I've made great strides and if somewhere along the line I acquire

the skills I had before, that's wonderful. I have certain standards that I have set for myself and I will not play again unless I can play at that level. I won't settle for something less than the expectations I have for myself, but that's not what I'm looking at right now. A week from now, my knee could swell up and it's over. I try not to look too far ahead. So again, sounds like a guy helped him write that and just not sound like a douchebag, but he actually is pretty smart, Bernard. I'm living for today, but I'm good now.

I'm good now. He's fine. Even though in the last three games of this, he plays in six games. That's it. He plays in the final six games. The last three games of that, he scores 30 points, 29 points, and 31 points. Hasn't played for two goddamn years. Had his knee put back together. Gets in there for three games, and then he's busting out 30 a game after that. Jesus. Needed three games to get warm. That's insane.

But the Knicks do not bring him back. They do not re-sign him. They let him go. More trouble than he's worth in their mind, I guess. So he signs an 87 with the Washington Bullets. He scores 17.2 points a game, 4.1 rebounds, 2.8 assists that year. Kind of, you know, getting back in the swing of things. But he does sign a real big contract and makes $1 million that year.

A clean mill. Grunfeld was actually one of the executives at that time. Really? Ernie Grunfeld. And he said, quote, he knew he didn't have the same explosive athleticism he had before the injury, but he figured out how to make himself an extremely efficient player. So he figured it out, which he's good.

That's what I mean. He's got that thing where he's like, he's got that drive where I'm going to figure it out, just like when he was a kid and he said, I'm going to figure out how to make that basket. Right. This type of guy he is. 88-89, back to seeming full strength with the bullets.

81 games he plays in, 31.6 minutes a game, 20.7 points, 4.7 rebounds, 3.6 assists. That's a comeback player. Yeah, he doesn't have the explosiveness anymore. Now he should be comeback player of the year, not after he raped people. Well, I mean, he should probably never be it. Let's call it but yeah but this is more comeback than that i would say yeah a little bit yeah he makes 1.1 million that year twice he's made two million in two years not bad 89 90 plays for the bullets

again 82 maybe it's the bullets you were thinking white red white and blue too uh plays in all 82 games 32.8 minutes a game which is an iron man uh 22.4 points, 4.9 rebounds, 4.6 assists. Crushing it, $1.5 million. Crushing it at the bank, too. Ripping it up. Fucking doing great. I mean, it's terrific. You'd think all his problems got to be behind him, I would imagine.

I'm sure everything will be fine from here on out, right? It's got to be. Yeah, all right, good. 90-91 season. I'm sure they will be. 90-91 season, 64 games. He scores 28.4 points a game, 5 rebounds, 4. 90-91 season. I'm sure they will be. 90-91 season, 64 games. He scores 28.4 points a game, five rebounds, 4.6 assists. His numbers are great.

His numbers are great. He's doing terrific. There's a little funny thing. On February of 1991, Albert and Bernard are in the same city again, his brother Albert. Albert is playing for the Albany Patroons. Oh, no. Who we've discussed a few times now of the Continental Basketball Association.

It's all over for him. After he had played in Israel the year before. Oh, God. So, yeah, they asked him if he can mispractice so he can go see his older brother, and he said, quote, we don't get time off for those things. He said no special treatment. So, no. There's no good behavior here.

No. Bernard, at 34 years old, makes the All-Star team that year. What? I mean, he scored 28.4 points a game. He's doing good behavior here. No. Bernard, at 34 years old, makes the All-Star team that year. What? I mean, he scored 28.4 points a game. He's doing it, man. Makes $1.6 million. February 27, 1991, appears on Late Night with David Letterman again. Jesus.

This is when Letterman was much bigger by then. Yeah, wild. March 7, 1991, drops 50 points on Utah just to get him back for dropping him. After a fucking knee after he blows and he's still scoring 50 nobody did that back then especially too like he lost his exploit he wasn't dunking from the foul line or anything so this was just craftiness like he's that good uh night now that year he only plays uh in a limited number of games he plays 64 games that season because he is injured uh he turts himself again. It's another knee problem.

91-92 season, he does not play at all due to injury. He's totally out. His brother Albert plays six games for the Bullets. They sign him after a stint in the NBA. He averages 5.2 points a game that season, Albert. So not quite the same. Bernard makes $2.525 million that season. Holy shit.

Not fucking around. Over $2.5 million. 92-93 season, he doesn't play the first part of it, and then he is waived by the Bullets on January 22, 1993. Waived by the Bullets, still makes $2.5 million that year, so that's fine. February 6, he is signed as a free agent with the New Jersey Nets. Full circle, 1993.

Plays in 32 games for them. Has seven points a game, 2.4 rebounds,.6 assists. It's over for Bernard. Career is over. Done. But he's made $10 million over his career. Made $10 million. He should be fine forever.

And stay out of trouble yeah finished his career with 22.5 points a game and 51.8 shooting from the field for a non-center that is obscene 52 51.8 uh we have some quotes here julius irving dr jay yeah said quote bernard king was the toughest matchup of my career and i say that from the heart uh larry bird said quote bernard king is the best forward in the league hands down when he played Isaiah Thomas said quote we are we were just in awe of Bernard yeah these are the best guys in the era say that because they didn't want him to rape their wives that's exactly Dominique Wilkins who was human highlight reel he said quote I have never feared anyone that

I've played against Bird Magic Dr. J, and I respect and love all those guys. Bernard King is the only guy that ever scared the hell out of me. He said, Michael Jordan, yeah, that's great. This guy was way nastier than that. That's what everybody said. No one in NBA history had ever averaged 40 playoff points on 60% shooting in the playoffs. That's crazy. I mean, you know, they're praising him.

All these people say these amazing things about this guy. And he raped a woman. And he raped a woman. And that's not that's not it. August 11th, 1994. Bernard is arrested early Thursday morning on a Thursday morning in his New York apartment for allegedly assaulting a female friend of his. He's arrested in his Manhattan apartment in the early morning.

He allegedly grabbed her around the neck during an altercation and choked her and swung her around a little bit. Usually what they did in the 80s. Yeah, gave her a little shuffle. This is the 90s. This is the 90s. This is 94. He was given a desk appearance ticket and later released.

His female friend here was treated for neck bruises at the hospital. So, yeah, it's a 22-year-old woman. He was apparently shit-faced. When police arrived, he was asleep already. Same thing. He was shit-faced, passed out. Police arrived. They had to wake him up, and he's charged with third-degree assault, and she is treated

at a hospital. The woman— 22-year-old woman. He's in his late 30s, early 40s? Yeah, early 40s. Yeah, 30. I think he's like 37, 38. Okay.

And he had a wife during his playing career. I don't know what the hell happened to that. But after his career here, he gets married again because things are going great for you. So you've got to get married, obviously. Choking 22-year-old girls. It's time to get married. I think I need to settle down. I want to choke a woman in a more stable environment for the rest of my life.

I've sold these wild oats plenty now. I want to choke the same woman for a long time now. He marries Shanna, 1998. He has a daughter named Amina. So that's nice. 2003. Check this out. All is forgiven and forgotten with this guy.

It just keeps shuffling out. He just sits around, keeps back for a little while, and they're like, hey, you scored 60 points in that game. Yeah, no problem. Doesn't matter how many women you choke or in that game. Yeah, no problem. Can I get away with raping a chick now? Women who choke or sodomize, it doesn't matter. Bernard is hired by the developer Bruce Ratner to do PR

in the campaign to move the Nets to New York. This is when they were originally trying to, which is ultimately successful, as we know of. He's paid an undisclosed amount by the Nets owner, Ratner, who was the owner before the Russian guy bought it, to do public relations for his controversial $2.5 billion plan to build a basketball arena and a housing and office tower in Prospect Heights, which I'm not sure if that's the

plan that actually ended up happening. I'm going to assume not because he sold the team. Or maybe he sold the team because they were moving to New York and went up in value. I'm not sure how that works. He's got a job, like a legit job. He's like a billionaire's PR guy. He's a goodwill ambassador, basically. Like, yeah, we want to come to New York, the Nets.

Because also, too, he's known in New York. He's from that area. Yeah, the Knicks fans know him, so they might support him. So anyway, October 26, 2004, he's in New York for business. Like I said, the relocation stuff. He's with his wife. Shanna's with him. They're staying in an Embassy Suites hotel

in Lower Manhattan. And I only know this because that's where he got arrested that day for beating his wife up. That's the only way I could know that, possibly. Workers at the Embassy Suites hotel in Lower Manhattan called the cops early Saturday morning, complaining of noise. They went in. They found Bernard King's

wife for seven years, like we said, Shanna, with cuts and a swollen face and bruised and trembling. My God. They talked to her, and she says, quote, he pushed me down to the floor three times. This has got to stop. I want him arrested. That's it? Three times?

And that's what happened to you? Bruising on – he punched that woman. Yeah. He's charged with three counts of assault and one count of harassment. Yeah. Bernard is, I mean, immediately fired by Ratner's company. Really? Doing the PR.

I mean, instantly. Yeah. The quote from the corporation was, quote, the guy's history, he's done. Even the suggestion of domestic violence has to be taken very seriously. It's inexcusable. Good. Done. Fuck off.

Yeah. He's out. That's 2003? That's 2004 thatable. Good. Done. Fuck off. Yeah, he's out. That's 2003? That's 2004 that happened. What ends up happening, though, just like with other cases that happened with him, she subsequently declines to press charges. Jesus. She says, never mind. He's ordered to attend 10 counseling sessions, marriage counseling, and that's it.

That's it. He's sitting in a marriage counseling. That's what he got. He's been choking people. He's been doing all this. He's sitting in a fucking—what is he doing in a counseling session? Sit with this guy to tell you that's not okay to do. He's sitting there waiting for the other people to come in,

seeing what other fucking losers have to do marriage counseling. And then one guy opens the door. It's the Mexican pimp. And he says, how is it? You've come to arrive here. How are you? come to arrive here? How are you? Why are you here? Why are you come? No, I put my guns away for you because I need to talk to you in your eye. I need to look. I don't want you to be scared.

No, no need to cry. I know you do not cry. Why? Why must you rape, pillage? Why? I have many prostitutes I could give to you. I could rent to you. Some of them like to be beat, I tell you. Some of them like to be beat. They charge less if you do. They like that. They say, please, please.

I get messed up girls from messed up places. You don't know. Joke me. I am a pimp after all. I am charming, but that is nothing. But why do I do that? What's wrong with you? I have to go now.

Poof. That is nothing. A puff of smoke and he's gone. Holy shit you? I have to go now. Poof. That is nothing. Puff of smoke and he's gone. Holy shit. He's gone. Mexican pimp's gone. I don't know where he was. So he's gone there.

Bernard is thoroughly confused. Yeah. Up until 2007, February 13th, when his number, number 53, is retired by the University of Tennessee. What the fuck? Retired at the halftime of a Tennessee-Kentucky game, which Tennessee actually won, which is good for him because he hates Kentucky. Yeah. This is the first jersey ever retired by the Volunteers.

Then they retired a rapist jersey. A multiple-time fuck-up asshole. Unbelievable. He said during an interview on ESPN at halftime, he said that he'd never been back to the University of Tennessee in over 30 years. But he expressed his sincere appreciation and says he plans to return again. He said he never came back because he simply

hadn't been asked. No one said, hey, come on back. Maybe because you kept getting arrested. Every time they were making plans for Bernard King Day, they'd be like, he did what now? Fuck, never mind. Push it back. And also, too, it's kind of hard to show your face around a place when you did what you did that's the other thing yeah you fucked up bad man uh so september 8th 2013 a few years later

more water under the bridge all this water just goes right into that bridge because bernard is elected to the basketball hall of fame he's a goddamn hall of famer this guy that guy's a hall of famer huge fluff pieces come out about him. Just how, what a great scory, when he was a great scorer. People are like, he had some personal problems, a few arrests in college, and they breeze right by that. He had 60 points. It's like, he also had rape charges and sought to be enforceable, this and that. We have an in their own words on this.

You know, just he's doing great now. Of course. In their own words, quote, it's a humbling experience. It's not something you can ever dream about. And to know what you've done in basketball or what I've done warrants inclusion. And with the other greats who have played the game, those I watched growing up, Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Willis Reed, it's a very special experience and a wonderful time in my life.

You can't ever determine what's going to happen. It's not something that's a right of yours. It's certainly something that I had hoped would happen after I was nominated several times. Once you're nominated, you hope to be included. So everything is great. They do a big interview with him on how great his life is. He says he works a variety of different jobs. He's an occasional basketball analyst on TV.

He started a software company with a business partner and serves as an advisor for a sports agency. So a bunch of full of shit stuff. He says around the house he's just Bernard or dad, the husband and father that might choke you and knock you down. Great guy. Except for your occasional video highlights or stories, his wife and his daughter don't

know much about his career. He says they never talk about his playing days. It's just, when are you going to take the garbage out? What do you know about the rapes, lady? What do you know about rapes and beatings in hotel rooms, buddy? Let me tell you that. Did he ever tell you the time he passed out in fucking lower Manhattan? He's hunched over in a Brownsville

over a steering wheel in Brownsville outside of a Coke den. Did he ever tell you that? Brackhouse right there. November 8th, 2013, there's a huge fluff piece on his brother called Former NBA Star Albert King Succeeding in Business After Basketball. Oh, that's nice. Apparently, Albert bought a bunch of Wendy's restaurants.

Oh. That's not really succeeding in business. That's not really succeeding. That's just fucking riding Dave Thomas' coattails. Yeah, I guess he made a million bucks doing it. Well, good for him. He said when he retired from basketball, he worked at Wendy's for a few months for free to see if he liked the business because he was thinking about investing in it. No, good for him. He said when he retired from basketball, he worked at Wendy's for a few months for free to see if he liked the business

because he was thinking about investing in it. No, he didn't. He bought it three stories after that. It sure seems like he's like, I'll try this if I hate it and people ridicule me and come in and be like, didn't you used to play basketball? Yeah, no, no. I was like, I'm working for free. It's pro bono here. I'm just doing research.

It's like an actor. I'm doing research for a park. Can you supersize that? Yeah, please. Biggie size. Biggie size. Biggie size. He says his place, he has a different slogan. It's called quick service, not fast food.

Oh, God. See, now he's not fucking around. It's still fast food, fuckface. 2014, Martin Luther King Day in Memphis, Tennessee. Uh-oh. As part of the Memphis Grizzlies' annual salute to civil rights leaders from the world of sports, Bernard King receives the Sports Legacy Award. Oh, my God.

On fucking Martin Luther King Day. Was it a big bronze butthole? Martin Luther King. What an asshole. Martin Luther King would have kicked him right in the dick. Square in the dick. Right in the dick. Remember when I said judge a man by his character, not his color?

This is the character I'm talking about. Fuck this guy. Fuck this black motherfucker, he would have said. Fuck him. I don't give a shit what color he is. He's an asshole. Fuck him. Martin Luther King would have been pissed. A list of honorees since 2003, guys like this who are

Hall of Famers. Bill Russell, legend. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar fought for shit, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor, Julius Irving, David Robinson. No rape charges. Not a raping among them. I don't know. Maybe, but not that I know of. Not multiple, I'll tell you that. So you think he's doing great right now, right?

He's in the Hall of Fame. He's multiple businesses. Maybe not so great because May 27, 2014, it's announced that he is selling off his Hall of Fame induction ring and Hall of Fame trophy at Thursday. It meant so much. What an honor. What an honor. It's humbling to be put on the same. Forget it.

When you get nominated once, you just want to get in. You just want to get in because it's such an honor to be among that group. Such an honor that eventually you get to sell the shit. Two items were initially set for bidding starting at $40,000 for the ring. He's a popular Nick. $40,000 for the ring, $32,500 for the trophy. But instead of doing that, this is how cracky this motherfucker, I don't know if he's smoking crack or whatever, but this is a crackhead maneuver right here. smoking crack or whatever, but this is a crackhead maneuver right here.

Instead of doing that, he chose to sell the items directly to the auction house rather than put them up for consignment where he would have had to wait 45 days to receive He needs the cash right now, babe. The ring and trophy were purchased directly by the firm for an undisclosed sum, and then they'll conduct the mail order. They'll conduct an auction. For a title loan. Yeah, that's what it is. That's basically what it is.

The guy who's running this whole thing for them said, quote, that means he wants the money up front. He said he's taking the gamble away and getting paid up front. There's a gamble that maybe he did the right thing and maybe it doesn't sell. There's also a gamble that it could have sold for a lot more. If he'd have been patient for a few months, he could have made a lot more money. Instead, he was paid last month. And the guy said, quote, he didn't have the patience to wait those few months. No, he didn't. And he sold all that shit off.

He did not return any messages for comment on it. Oh, there it is. So, okay. Yeah. So, the Knoxville Police Department, we'll call that a wash with that. Yeah. Okay? They were dicks to him.

He was a douchebag there. He's still on TVs. He's an idiot. He's an idiot. We have a couple of roughed up women, including his wife. Two sexually assaulted women at this point. Like we said, TV's over here. He's slumped over

embarrassing his team on the steering wheel. He's just a complete fuck up. His wife, his family, his child. He has a daughter that has to read about all this shit. I feel bad for all these people, Jimmy. Every single one of them, but not nearly

as bad as I feel for Bernard King, infrastructure engineer at RE Sources. It was like RE with a comma, Sources. London, England, marketing and advertising. Of course it's a guy in London. Bernard King, public programs coordinator at Cobb County Emergency

Medical Management Agency, Greater Atlanta area. Bernard, king of Italy. That's hilarious. Bernard, king of Italy, lived from 797 to 818 A.D. So I feel bad for him. Very bad. Luckily, he lived long before this atoll.

I had to put that in there. And finally, Bernard King, a basketball player. What? Played at Texas A&M from 99 to 03, and then for the last 10 years has been playing all over Europe and all over the world. Probably because no one will have anything to do with him because his name's fucking Bernard King. Everybody's like, didn't you rape a chick in the 70s?

And finally, the most respectable of all, Bernard King, M.D., at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Here's a little bit about him. Quote, Dr. King's research interests center around the genitourinary system. Renal MRI is a major focus of Dr. King's research and currently deals with fast MR imaging of the kidneys as well as MR-derived renal blood flow measurements. These research applications are currently being applied to autosomal dominant polycystic disease and other causes of chronic renal failure. He's a piss doctor. The absolute opposite of this asshole.

This guy is like saving people's lives. He's coming up with, yeah. Trying to keep you from having kidney stones. And this fuck's over here. Cancer. Unreal. So October 27, 2014, Bernard King is a full fledged legend. Now he's participating in a in a thing for a star studded roster of former players participating in youth basketball.

Listen to this youth basketball and life skills clinic for underserviced youth. Life skills. Fucking life skills. This guy, the last goddamn thing. It's called Full Court Press Prep for Success. Put your kids around that guy. Wow. What the fuck? Holy shit, my God.

And it's also presented with, there's a company like Corporate Backing, Aetna, LexisNexis is behind this, Atlanta Police Foundation. Everyone's supporting this. Unreal. Yeah, 2015. Why don't you guys Google who you support? Try it. Before you parade them out as your representatives.

Give it a shot. You know what? Maybe they did and looked at Wikipedia and said, oh, he's fine. He just played really well. He didn't rape anybody. Oh, wow, you got to do more research or be smarter and just listen to crime and sports and let me be the asshole doing the research. Charles Barkley gets hummers from fucking hookers with Steve Urkel in the car.

That's bananas, by the way. It's kind of victimless, I guess. Well, I wouldn't want to be that hooker anyway. He's got a wife. That's true. But I mean, legally. It's not the sweetest thing to do to your wife. No. But this asshole is forcibly jamming

in assholes. Oh, he's an asshole. That's not cool at all. Not great at all. 2015, he's been asked what he's been up to, and he says in their own words, quote, I'm in business for myself, and I have been for the last number of years with a business partner. For your entire life. I'm in the energy business.

What we specialize in is helping clients save money on their electric electrical utility costs and we do that in a number of ways it's challenging and very enjoyable this fucking what the fucking shit does this guy know about saving energy costs and electrical utility shit he knows nothing he's one of those solar panel sales nothing a thief he's a goddamn moron. I'm in the energy business. No, you're not. You're a telemarketer probably.

You're a fucking snake oil salesman, you dickbag. February 2016, Bernard King is just an article, big fluff piece that he hopes that regular health screenings will present his basketball friends from dying early. Heart disease is a prominent thing among it to retired nba players so king and fellow hall of fame inductees dominique wilkins maybe it's because your brother's pumping wendy's down their fucking throats yeah no shit he's the one doing their uh dale ellis is there grant hill they all undergo physical exams exams like in in the in the arena there to like try to get other people to do it. You know, he's just whatever.

He says how his wife made him go and get checked out. And he always got a physical, but, you know, he just wants to not take any chances or anything like that. This is still Shannon. Yeah, the same wife as this long-suffering poor woman. She makes him go and make sure he's healthy to beat the shit out of her. I guess so. Also, this is— Keep him in fighting shape.

Definitely. 2016, I don't think, and all the research I could do, this has nothing to do with him, but it's still pretty funny. Bernard King Jr. was arrested in Prince George County as a suspect in a sexual assault. I don't think it's his boy, no. Oh, God, I want it to be so bad. King Jr. fled the scene after the victim fought him off and eventually the police caught him. But, yeah, I saw that and I thought it has to be his kid.

Wouldn't that be awesome? I don't think it is, but that's okay. A junior and everything. You can't get enough Bernard King. No. Let's say you can't get enough. You can go on Amazon.com. There's a 1991-92 Hoops brand card and it's Bernard King Supreme Court because that's

when they were doing Supreme Court nominations. Was it the gray around the sides and then the color of your team basketball? No, no. Those are like 89s, I think you're thinking of. But these are like a special card anyway. It doesn't look like the rest of the set. It's like him kind of going up with the ball, and it just says Supreme Court under it, because

I think that was when Clarence Thomas got nominated to the Supreme Court. That was like a hot topic that year. Another rapist. So they did that. And another sexual grazer, we'll call him. Yeah, that's what we'll call him. So yes, that is Bernard King, the life of a fuck-up and the fluff pieces that abound in the silver-haired middle-aged white men

that dig him out of his jams and everything else. And everybody loves him. They love him because he's such a great player and they just overlook every, that's the definition of a silver hair middle age women, but he plays so well. He can't be a criminal. He drops 50 on people. I'll make sure he's not a criminal no matter what he does.

So that's Bernard King. Criminals don't do that. No, Jesus. If you like that story, please, or any of our stories, please get on iTunes. Give us five stars.

Tell us your following instructions, following directions. Also, too, please get on Patreon.com. If you would like to give us a few dollars to keep this train moving full steam ahead, you can do that. It is Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports, like I said. Also, you can do PayPal. Our email address there is CrimeandSports at gmail..com which is where you can email us and you can also get a hold of us on instagram and twitter at crime and sports or facebook.com slash crime in sports yes we're available for all this stuff also you want to be listening to small town murder which is our other podcast so much fun if you're not i don't know what you're thinking because it's this

except with a small town murder like it's you will you will enjoy it you don't have to care thing minus uh uh an athlete that's a star. Minus an athlete. That's it. It's minus a star. It's the anonymous version of this. Right. That's exactly what I thought of it.

That was my idea. It was like it's the opposite of this. That was the whole point of it. And also listen to P.S. I hate this movie, which is me and my girlfriend Sarah making fun of bad romantic comedies kind of like this, except with a guy and a girl. And we make fun of movies. And everybody's an asshole. And everybody's an asshole, because I'm angry at everything and that shit, as you can imagine.

But we have an amazing list of fine people this week that did that, and Jimmy, I think you have that list for us right now. First off, I want to thank all of you for your patience on the shirts. They are going out. Yes. I already have some in the mail, and some more will be out tomorrow and the next day, and I will have them done after that. So you should have your shirts this week or next.

So just keep an eye out for those. And then thank you for everybody that has emailed, because we read all of your emails. Whether or not we comment back to you or write back to you, we get them all. So thank you all for writing. Thank you, guys, really. We appreciate all the suggestions and all the compliments. And even the ones that are like, you pronounce that like shit, even though I don't care. Thanks for trying.

Bridget Hughes, Eric Madison, and Jolie Pettis. Daniel Spears, Zach Wright, Jessica Langren. Thank you, Jess, for the Patreon. No, what was that one? That was PayPal. Thank you so much, Jessica. Madeline Dahl, Sierra

Thornton, Kelly Jo May, Brian Duggan, Claire Genevieve LaFleur donated to Patreon to get you. She donated a fairly large dollar for you just to get you to do a specific movie. That was very nice of her. Yes, and that will be next week. That movie will be out. There you go. Enjoy.

Keep an eye out for that, Claire. Yes. Dan Gardner, Molly Clement, Chopper Coleman, Rebecca Manners, Pamela Sloan, Andrew Wigan. He donates all the time. I know. He's the best. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it, man.

Debbie Smith, Greg Ingram, and then, of course, somebody that I've missed time and time again, and I didn't even realize it. Yes. We just got called on it. William Dawson. Definitely. Thank you so much. Not least.

No, not at all. Thank you, William Dawson. William Dawson, you're a hell of a man. Thank you. We apologize. Thank you so, so much. Can't apologize more for missing you. And also, can you thank you enough?

Yes, thank you. That's the other thing. We say thank you, but the thank you isn't enough. Like, the words thank you together aren't near enough. That's such a cliche. It's true. It's a shitty way to thank somebody. It is.

From the bottom of our hearts, guys, you guys really power this. You guys push this. And you guys listening and interacting and being a part of this. This is fucking huge for us. And we can't thank you enough. So thank you a million times. Whether it's word of mouth, whether it's an iTunes review, whether it's a donation, whether it's whatever it is, you're part of the crime and sports movement.

And you guys are the movement moving it forward. And we're just kind of sitting on top, hanging out. We're like crowd surfing right now. That's it. We're crowd surfing. We're sitting on dolphins. That's what we're doing. Stop grabbing my balls.

Jesus. Yeah, cut that out. But guys, Jimmy, you want to give them your social media? At WismanSucks, W-H-I-S-M-A-N sucks, on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Find me, interact, comment, tweet at me, whatever. It's really been amazing to have you guys around because the support that I get from you guys, it really pushes me and it drives. So thanks. And I am

at Jimmy P is funny. You can find me there or I was trying to spell my last name. Copy and paste it. Don't be a hero. Just put it on there. Find me and we'll talk about some stuff. You can tell me I pronounce things badly. I'll tell you I don't care. And then you'll tell me you like the show and I'll tell you thanks a lot. We'll move on. It'll be great. It'll be a good time.

But all that shit aside, guys, thank you guys so much for being with us again this week. And through our journey up to finding a network through all these episodes and having nobody listening in the beginning and not knowing if anybody would ever listen and if it was worth even fucking ever doing this. It's working. To the point now where we somehow got signed know, somehow got signed by a major giant, like huge network of famous people. And our podcast

will be sitting there next to Shaq's. So it's an odd thing. We can't thank you enough, honestly, from the bottom of our hearts. I hope we get to talk to him. That would be nice.

I'd love to tell him about the scumbags he played basketball with. I'd love to try to figure out what the hell he's talking about when he talks. I'm just going to say shit and whatever he mumbles back,

I'm just going to do my best to answer. Speaking for Jimmy, we love you so much. Thank you guys so much. Live from the crime and sports studios. We will see you in. Hey, prime members.

You can listen to crime and sports early and add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today, or you can listen early and add free with one three plus an Apple podcast. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. If you don't know when Crystal Pepsi was discontinued, what was in Al Capone's vault, or which famous meteorologist is Lenny Kravitz's second cousin, then you haven't spent enough time on Wikipedia. But that's okay. I am here for you. I'm Darcy Carden, and I'm inviting you to listen to my

new podcast, WikiHole, from SmartList Media. Discover the craziest rabbit holes on Wikipedia with me and my funny friends as we bring the cyber frontier directly to your tympanic membrane. And if you listen to my podcast, you'll learn that that's the science-y term for eardrum. We embark on a hyperlink rollercoaster as we start out on a Wikipedia page and go from link to link to link to link, careening through trivia, oddities, and unexpected connections until we collectively shout,

how the hell did we get here? Follow WikiHole on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to WikiHole ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.