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Professional athletes have an uncanny ability to end up in hot water for some incredibly stupid reasons, and former NBA guard Monta Ellis is certainly a member of that group when you consider he cost himself $3 million because he rode a moped.
There are plenty of NBA players who’ve fumbled a massive bag due to their inability to take a step back and ask themselves “Is this really a good idea?” before committing an unforced error. Serial gun-flasher Ja Morant is obviously the most notable example in recent memory, but he’s far from the only person in the league to befall a similar fate.
Monta Ellis had a fair amount to prove after the Golden State Warriors selected him with the 40th overall pick in the 2005 NBA Draft. He entered the league straight out of high school, and while he had a pretty quiet rookie year, he earned Most Improved Player honors thanks to his performance during his sophomore season during the 2006-07 campaign.
He only continued to grow from there, as he averaged more than 20 points a game the following season, which was enough to secure a six-year contract worth upwards of $86 million in July of 2008.
Unfortunately, he was forced to forfeit a solid chunk of that amount thanks to what transpired the following month.
Monta Ellis lost $3 million after getting suspended for 30 games for crashing a moped
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Basketball teams (like all sports franchises) are a business above everything else, and while referring to athletes as “assets” can come off as a bit callous, that’s really what players are at the end of the day.
As a result, teams have plenty of incentive to ensure those people are going to be able to satisfy the requirements of the job they get paid millions of dollars to perform, and virtually anyone who signs a massive contract is going to be expected to abide by certain rules dictating the activities they’re allowed to partake in off of the court.
That includes Ellis, who inked a deal that stated he was prohibited from participating in extracurricular activities that “a reasonable person would recognize as involving or exposing the participant to a substantial risk of bodily injury.” That clause was accompanied by a list of specifics, which included “driving or riding a motorcycle or moped.”
There’s no way to know if he failed to read the fine print or simply decided to ignore it, but in August of 2008, he opted to hop aboard the moped he managed to crash en route to spraining his ankle and tearing a ligament that required surgery to treat.
He initially told the team he’d injured himself playing pickup basketball during a visit to his hometown in Mississippi, but he eventually came clean after a team physician presumably examined the damage and determined that was a lie.
The Warriors subsequently announced they were hitting Ellis with a 30-game suspension (which included four preseason games) for violating his contract. That meant the team didn’t have to pay him the money it would’ve owed him if he’d been injured for a “legitimate” reason, and he forfeited around $3 million as a result.
While he was eligible to return in the middle of December, he wasn’t healthy enough to suit up until the second half of January.
He did pick up where he left off and actually increased his production in the seasons that followed, but he was eventually traded to the Bucks in 2012 and spent some time with the Mavericks and Pacers until his career came to a quiet end in 2017.