So hey, you thought the black cloud hovering over UCLA basketball was dead, right? That the Sports Illustrated thing would go away forever, and that we can all go back to happily pissing on our teammates’ clothes, yes?
Well, it kinda did, but some news surfaced that Reeves Nelson is suing S.I. for defamation, after a prominent S.I. writer, George Dohrmann, slammed Nelson, accusing him of urinating on former teammate Tyler Honeycutt’s clothes.
How much is Nelson suing for? A ton. Like, $10-million a ton. From TMZ:
"Former UCLA basketball stud Reeves Nelson says a Sports Illustrated writer slammed him with a defamatory article that claimed he ran amok on campus, and even peed on a player’s bed … and now TMZ has learned he’s set to sue for $10 million.Nelson’s high-powered entertainment lawyer Keith Fink says they can prove Dohrmann “recklessly and negligently failed to investigate the claims in the article.” The lawsuit includes declarations from 18 UCLA players and ex-players who deny every allegation about Nelson."
We knew Reeves Nelson would sue S.I. for Dohrmann’s accusation, but holy crap, $10 million? Is this based off the premise that Reeves would’ve amounted to anything otherwise, even though he was cut from the only professional basketball team that would give him a chance? What a freaking joke.
I’m not a fan of Nelson, because the dude seemed like a total a-hole that should’ve got cut from the team long before he actually did. At the same time, being accused of pissing on your teammates’ clothes is a pretty serious offense.
No one knows what will happen in this whole business, but hopefully this thing goes away soon, because just as much as it hurts UCLA’s reputation (despite the fact that this is really an isolated incident, it seems), I also loathe blogging about it. It pisses me off (no pun intended).
GO BRUINS!!! (Not on my clothes, though.)