O.J. Got Paid? Naw!

Chalk this up, alongside the Manny-busted-for-steroids debacle, for this week’s biggest surprise in sports.  Reports are out that a “confidant” of Mayo’s was given “a grand” by USC coach Tim Floyd to get Mayo to attend USC.  There’s already been a lot of talk about Mayo’s crew receiving large sums of cash from BDA sports firm during his pre-NBA years and now this?  Well color me surprised.

I have to take issue with a few things in this story up front.  First off, the payment was “a grand.”  Let’s look at this situation.  If USC wanted SmoothRon to come teach classes on how to Superman Ho’s an envelope with 10 Benjies wouldn’t do the trick.  And let’s be real honest, Smooth can Superman with the best of them.  He was actually a back up dancer in that video (2 years ago?).  All joking aside, if I’m getting paid to get my one-and-done buddy to come to your school we’re talking 5 figures friend.  I told Coach Cal it’d be at least that to get my boy Wall to UK but he’s playing things close to the vest right now.  Just waiting to hear back from Haith now…

Second on my list of red flags in this story is that Floyd himself made the payoff.  Now I’ve never met Tim Floyd.  His IQ may be on the level of Al Davis but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt here and say he’s a slightly intelligent man.  Given that, it’s hard to believe he would actually hand a man $1,000 in an envelope for “delivering Mayo” to him.  Unless USC runs a really weird system Floyd should have serveral assistant coaches and GA’s to handle shit like that.  I may be naive here but why would he take that chance?

Don’t get me wrong here.  There’s obviously been a lot of money thrown around in this whole business and there are a lot of questions about who got paid and where that dough came from.  But at this point are we to believe that a thousand bones really contributed to a kid of that talent level going to a sunny school in Southern California, where the ladies are reputed to be blonde and gorgeous, the weather is perfect, and you can hang with the stars every night?  I’m just not buying it, no matter how many scorned posse members want to come forward with their stories.