[Fox 26 Houston] EEOC Sides with Ex-Mavericks Star Tarpley

Tarpley could have been one of the greats.

I am assuming this suite is quite frivelous?

 

That'll buy a lot of blow...

 

I hated roy tarpley, he really knew how to play against hakeem

 

and he really knew how to run away from Jim Petersen

 

How can they possibly know that the ONLY reason Tarpley hasn't been re-instated is because of a perceived drug issue. Maybe the NBA just doesn't think "hiring" Tarpley would be a positive move for their "company" in that he doesn't have the skill level they are looking for?

 

?? The NBA doesn't select players - teams do. The NBA didn't allow him to sign any teams though by not re-instating him to the league.

 

He used to be one of my patients a couple years back....He even signed an old basketball card that I had of him from back when I was a little kid.

We used to talk about his comeback attempt. He told me some crazy stories about how he got involved with drugs and what really went down.

 

If the teams are the ones that hire the players, how does the NBA keep anyone out? >> Rhetorical question; its obviously more complicated given the collective nature of the league.

I just don't think you should have the right to play in the NBA just because. I don't think you should be discriminated against for race, religion, sex, etc., etc. but just because you think you should be able to play in the NBA doesn't mean you should be able to.

 

Mavs suck...

 

The Mavs could have been pretty good in the late 80s if Tarpley didn't mess up.

 

couldn't have said it better myself.

 

I screwed up my life not to mention my career. You suspended mr out of the NBa for my behavior. You owe me 6.5 mil for myu screw ups. Tarpley sucks. That Lawyers sucks. Common sense rules!

 

This just in: Eddie Griffin sues NBA for shooting his girlfriend.

"I could've been great" says a wizened, but broken down Griffin.

 

Tarpley's problem wasn't blow but with grass & alcohol. He was the Dallas version of John Lucas, Lewis Lloyd & Mitchell Wiggins. When he went down, he took the Mavericks with him. I don't feel too bad for the Mavericks however because they knew he'd tested positive at Michigan for weed before the NBA draft and they still drafted him in spite of the potential ramifications from the NBA drug policy that had been enacted in response to the drug excesses of the time.

 

He did make mistakes, but he wasn't allowed to correct them. There are very few fields in which you can be permanently barred. Physician and Lawyer are the only two that come to mind. Bottom line, if I'm an accountant and I get fired from my firm for drug use, if I rehabilitate myself I will have the oppurtunity to apply to other firms and hope for the best. After Tarpley was back in his right track he was denied the oppurtunity to even apply for a job with a new team, despite the fact that is the job he was best qualified for. It makes sense to me that that is at least worth examining whether that is just. Had he been able to attempt a comeback and found no teams were willing to gamble on him or take a PR hit, there would be no issue here whatsoever.

I know he isn't without blame by any stretch of the imagination, but I still find stories like his tragic. Though if I'm to be honest, it's more because I hate the idea that he and (possibly later the NBA) robbed us of what may well have been a great career.

 

Bottom line, if Tarpley were an accountant, he wouldn't have been paid millions to do his job, and wouldn't be on the news when he screwed up with drug and alcohol. There's a reason why the punishment is so harsh in Tarpley's profession. They are millionaire public figures, like it or not. You get more, you have more responsibilities. That's fairness for life to me.

 

I agree with much of that. I certainly agree they have more responsibilities. I'll even go so far as to say it sickens me when people throw away the kind of oppurtunities and god-given gifts that guys like Roy Tarpley had. But I still fail to see how it's fair. Vin Baker, for example, trashed his career with an alcohol addiction. They never ran him out of the NBA and teams kept taking him on hoping the gamble would pay big dividends. Shawn Kemp struggled with alcohol, cocaine and food and all of that was public, but he has still been allowed to audition for many a teams. Ruben Patterson is a convicted sex offender and he's still getting paid millions and millions of dollars. A CONVICTED SEX OFFENDER! But Tarpley wasn't even allowed to contact teams to request a tryout?

Again, if every team in the NBA chose not to try him out because he has burned every bridge, or is considered too big of a risk or too bad for PR, that's fine. But to not even be allowed to ask to try out? It seems a bit extreme to me. And quite frankly, I hope it does go to court. I don't even care if Tarpley recieves any sort of compensation, but I would like to see a legal precedent set that would allow future players that rehabilitate themselves the oppurtunity to redeem themselves if teams are still interested.

p.s. Thank god Vernon Maxwell recieved so many "second chances". Could we have won our first championship without him?

 

He didn't have a disability. He had weak will power and used poor decisions.

 

I'm don't know what you do for a living, but it seems like something that would require a Doctor/Lawyer/Therapist patient confidentiality agreement. Would you care to give us more details about the drugs and what went down?

Being serious, every job i've ever had i've had (except Grandy's when i was 16...lol), i had to sign a form willing to take random drug tests whenever they decided, usually after i would already take one to get the job. Had i ever failed one, i would be fired.

Yes, if i ever failed one i could clean up and go work for another company or one that didn't submit to drug testing. However, the NBA is the company that he failed the tests for. Why would they have to take him back? They are a private company so shouldn't they be able to do the same things most companies in America do? A company can choose to bring you back after you rehabbed, but i don't know of any that have too. If i fail a drug test and get fired tomorrow can i sue by saying it's a disability?