Tuesday night, O.J. Mayo was out of the Memphis lineup with what was officially called a case of bronchitis, but a swollen face may be the real cause.
Mayo and teammate Tony Allen got into a fight over a debt from a card game on the team’s Sunday night flight and had to be separated by teammates (Yahoo Sports had the story first). Grizzlies’ general manager Chris Wallace confirmed there was an incident in an email to media in which he also said:
“The club considers the matter closed and will not comment further.”
The cause of the fight, according to Yahoo, was money owed from a card game called “boo-ray” (officially “Bourré”) played on the plane, which Mayo lost (more than $1,000) then he antagonized Allen over it refusing to pay.
Expect the league to come in with potentially harsh fines and suspensions — remember it was a fight over money owed from a boo-ray card game between Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton that led to the gun incident in the Washington locker room last year, and subsequent suspensions for the rest of the season. The image-conscious NBA is not going to mess around this time.
This also may cause the league to come in and clamp down on card game gambling on team charter flights, which is a pretty common occurrence (back to Michael Jordan’s Bulls teams and beyond). Several teams took steps after the Wizards incident last year but a league-wide edict would not be a surprise now.
