Bogut sheds new light on Jordan Bell-Mike Brown hotel snafu

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Andrew Bogut shed new light Tuesday on one of the strangest footnotes of the Warriors' dynastic run, but it might not have been the whole truth.

During the 2018-19 season, then-Warriors big Jordan Bell was suspended a game for "conduct detrimental to the team" after he purchased two items at Golden State's team hotel in Memphis and charged them to assistant coach Mike Brown's room. Bogut recalled to KNBR's "Tolbert, Krueger & Brooks" that occurred shortly after he re-joined the Warriors as a free agent, claiming that Bell's purchase was a lot more innocent than many social-media users assumed. 

"This hotel had a rule where if you didn’t have a credit card on file, you had to pay for it on the spot," Bogut explained (h/t KNBR's Jake Montero). So Jordan Bell goes into the gift shop. I don’t know what the hell he bought, some candles, some peanuts, just a bunch of random s--t, right? Decides ‘I’m going to sign this off to Mike Brown.’ He gets signed off, and as soon as he leaves, they call Mike Brown’s room, like, literally five minutes later like, ‘Sir you need to come back down because we don’t have a credit card on file, you need to pay for that.’ He’s like ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, I’ve been in my room for the last hour.’

“So he goes downstairs and gets the receipt. Jordan Bell had originally signed the receipt in his name and he scrubbed out the name and then signed Mike. So then Mike’s like ‘Clearly someone forged my name, that’s not my signature.’

“It got bad man. So they got CCTV footage because Mike’s like, ‘I’m not paying for this, there’s no chance in hell.’ So they get the CCTV footage, and you see Jordan Bell walking in there. And Jordan Bell’s like ‘Nah, it wasn’t me,’ and they’re like ‘We have you on camera’ and he’s like ‘Oh yeah it was, but I was just playing a prank.’

“They take it seriously, right. Then he throws [Klay Thompson] under the bus, ‘Yeah this is a prank that a bunch of us do, like Klay was always doing it to me, always signing his internet and his inter-room movies to my rooms. So I just thought it was a thing we did on the team.’ Then Klay’s sitting there like ‘Dude, what the f--- man, I have nothing to do with this.’

“It finished up with him not having so much of a funny story where he got suspended for a game, but it was funny because no one knew what he purchased, so everyone on the internet thought that Jordan Bell ordered a porno film and put it on Mike’s room. So then Jordan Bell had to put out a statement to his agent saying I did not order a porno. This poor kid dug himself a massive hole and just kept digging it further and further and further until he subsequently got suspended for a game.”

Bell didn't release a statement through his agent denying the rumors, instead telling his side of the story to Logan Murdock, formerly of NBC Sports Bay Area and currently at The Ringer.

"I don't want to give anybody credit for making something stupid like that, but I thought it was funny," Bell told Murdock of the rumors. "People thought it was pornography and all that. I was more so embarrassed [about the allegations of buying porn] because of my family. I know my family talks a lot about me to their friends and are proud of me."

RELATED: LeBron shows Warriors' dynasty peak respect

Bell tweeted at Bogut on Wednesday, joking that his former teammate's recollection of the events wasn't entirely accurate.

https://twitter.com/andrewbogut/status/1362184641080295426
https://twitter.com/andrewbogut/status/1362185637994975232

At the very least, this will make an incredible segment in any potential documentary about the Warriors' dynasty.

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