NCAA BasketballWeird But True

Ex-UCLA Player Denies That He Pissed On A Teammates’ Stuff, Swears He’s Not A Scumbag

Poor Reeves Nelson. One minute you’re playing basketball for the UCLA Bruins, the next you’ve been cut by a Lithuanian team and Sports Illustrated comes out with a story that you pissed on your teammates clothes and you’re generally a crappy guy. But when the story is written by a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, it’s hard to argue that you’re not “a scumbag,” as Nelson is trying to do.

“Not The UCLA Way,” a story by George Dohrmann, details the antics of a UCLA team seemingly run amok while coach Ben Howland sort of stood around being “socially awkward.” While a few players were allegedly smoking weed before practices, drinking heavily and taking ecstasy at parties, Nelson is perhaps the most prominent example of when being a star recruit goes wrong.

According to the story, Nelson intentionally injured people in practice, stepped on teammates after dunking on them, punted basketballs into the stands for managers to “fetch,” ignored coaches, and even pissed on teammate Tyler Honeycutt’s clothes for revenge purposes.

Despite Nelson having the chance to respond and refute things in the article (he is mentioned as having confirmed some of these events in the text), he now says that ”I claim and know that [those things] didn’t happen.”

“This article makes me look like I’m a scumbag really and I’m not like that,” said the guy who was eventually kicked off the team and later released by Lithuanian squad BC Zalgiris after five weeks.

Unfortunately for Nelson, SI is sticking by Dohrmann’s story. In the battle between the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and the dude who apparently pees on things when he doesn’t get his way, tie usually goes to the writer.

Check out the whole article here.

[Photo via Flickr]