What is it with NBA players not paying for their chains?
Seriously, add this to the rookie seminar for the guys coming in the league — pay your bills.
A day after DeJuan Blair got busted for not paying his bill, a judge ruled in favor of a jewelry store in Southern California that had sued the Knicks J.R. Smith over an unpaid $48,000 jewelry bill. Here are some details from TMZ (hat tip to SLAM).A jewelry company called Lemmerman’s sued Smith, claiming he ordered a bunch of bling back in 2010 -- including a diamond chain, two Black Jesus pendants and some earrings -- totaling $25,500 ... but never paid….
Lemmerman’s sued for $48,101 -- which includes the jewelry bill plus interest and attorney’s fees -- but Smith never responded to the suit ... so a judge ruled in Lemmerman’s favor.Whether it’s an agent or your mom, players need one person around them they can trust to make sure bills get paid, appointments kept and the rest of those kinds of things. Yes, I know, you and I do that for ourselves everyday. But frankly, if most of us could afford a personal assistant to deal with life’s more tedious stuff, we would do it in a heartbeat. However they do it, players just need to stay on top of this because in Smith’s case it looks like he thought he could just ignore the problem and it would go away. But lawsuits don’t tend to do that.