start the bidding. Battier + Bobby Jackson + 1st Rounder? ------------------ Nets' Jefferson charged with assaulting man in January MINNEAPOLIS -- New Jersey Nets forward Richard Jefferson was charged with assault Wednesday for grabbing another man by the throat in a Minneapolis club earlier this year. But the player disputed the account of what happened. Jefferson was in town with the team on Jan. 27 when, according to a charge filed, he went to a club in the Graves Hotel where the victim was having a private birthday party in a roped-off section. The documents say Jefferson entered the area and got angry when he was asked to leave. He is accused of grabbing the victim, shoving him to a bench and choking him with both hands. On "The Mike and Murray Show" on SIRIUS Satellite Radio, Jefferson gave his account of the altercation. "It was actually Vince Carter's birthday," he said. "A party. We were actually, you know, all hanging out as a team. I was in our hotel. Actually, I was in the hotel bar. I wasn't at a strip club, you know, three hours away. I wasn't, like, in a casino. I wasn't doing anything. I was literally in our hotel bar and I had an individual come up to me who was very rude and very disrespectful and, you know, an altercation broke out." Jefferson downplayed the severity of the incident. "There were no punches thrown," he said on the radio show. "They were saying there was choking. It was more of a getting your space. This individual doesn't have a scratch on him. There was no mark. There was no blood. There was no anything. Obviously, [athletes] have a target on our back and it is unfortunate that these people would even do this. This incident happened four months ago. I wasn't drunk." He took exception with the double standard that athletes endure. "I don't even think I've ever been thrown out of a basketball game," Jefferson said in the interview. "But some drunk individual wants to come up and, you know, then, of course, when they start telling their side of the story we're the big bad athletes that think they can get away with everything and then they're some innocent individual that has never made a mistake in their life." Nets spokesman Gary Sussman had no comment. Jefferson's first court hearing is set for June 18. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3385685
I'm guessing the guy had it coming. People with millions of dollars don't have a very good reason to choke people. If he cared that much he'd hire someone and choke him vicariously.
We should sign back John Amaechi, get Cuttino Mobley and make a trade for Jefferson. That would be one badass Rocket team!
He said he didn't believe it. Anyhow, I, too, seriously doubt RJ choked this guy. It sounds eerily similar to the Rafer Alston face slashing incident. Just some ******* looking to get paid. As to the person saying Jefferson isn't near the player Carter is - I'll agree. I'd still rather have Jefferson on my team though. Carter has no heart.
Every one of these threads runs the same way. "Some guy/gal hoping for a payday by accusing some poor innocent multi-millionaire athlete." I'm sure that may happen sometimes, but there has to be a guilty athlete out there somewhere.
