| 08 January 2010
Money! I meant he steals money!
Lots of money.
Here's a bit of the story from the Associated Press:
Los Angeles Clippers announcer Michael Smith has pleaded not guilty to stealing $735,000 from a golfing buddy in a failed development deal.
Orange County district attorney's spokeswoman Farrah Emami says Smith posted $25,000 bond Thursday. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for Feb. 5.
Now, Michael Smith is the Clippers color commentator on their Fox Sports Fill-In-The-Market telecasts. I remember the first time I sat down to watch a Clippers game on League Pass in order to study the announcers. I wanted to figure out which teams had the best announcers and which team had the dredges of the NBA announcing world. Well, like many people I was smitten with Ralph Lawler. He was a nice throwback to the old days when the telecast was more about the game and less about anybody that wasn't in the game.
But that wasn't good enough for Michael Smith. He had to steal the show. He was in Los Angeles and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to try to get some air time in order to push his "personality." So what does he do while the game is going on and he's supposed to be analyzing the play on the floor? He gets up with a wireless microphone and walks around. He freaking went for a stroll in the middle of a live telecast. He tried to talk to Clippers fans. He probably talked to Frankie Muniz. He probably talked to Mario Lopez and one more guy from The Other Half. He probably talked to Bobcat Goldthwait for all I know.
The point is he wasn't doing his damn job. He was trying to come off as spontaneous and quirky but instead, it came off as one of the douchiest acts I've seen on a basketball court not involving Mike Bibby. I didn't think he could become a bigger douche bag until I came across this in the AP story about him stealing money:
Smith and business partner Bruce Furst are charged with grand theft. They are accused of persuading a friend into using his home for collateral on a $735,000 loan to finance a Dana Point development deal. The market collapsed, the deal went sour and the victim is expected to lose his home.
Last time I checked, guys on television weren't scraping by to feed their kids and pay their mortgage. So of course, Smith did the right thing and tricked his friend into putting up his house in a development deal that died when the economy took a swift kick to the nuts. Would Smith be charged with grand theft if he and his business partner tried to help their friend save his home? Probably not.
They can apparently face up to five years in prison for this. They deserve every ticking moment of it.
I'm guessing he won't be sauntering around the exercise yard, trying to get people to talk to him if convicted.
In the illustrious words of role model Cameron Frye:
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