After a practice last December at the Alario Center, Hornets point guard Chris Paul playfully enticed forward Ike Diogu into a 3-point shooting contest. Paul easily made his three attempts, and Diogu missed several.
When the game ended, Paul shouted "double or nothing," and Diogu -- perhaps foolishly -- tried his luck again, but still could not make a shot. Paul, however, made another, and they both walked off the court grinning.
No money was exchanged in the gym, but several Hornets players acknowledged this past week that high-stakes shooting games at practices and card games on the team's charter flights occur often.
Forward David West said he has never seen anything get out of hand, such as what happened between Washington Wizards teammates Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton, who got into a dispute over a card-playing gambling debt last month. The disagreement led to Arenas pulling out guns he had brought into the team's locker room. On Wednesday, the NBA suspended Arenas indefinitely. Federal and local law enforcement authorities are investigating the incident."All that stuff that's going on is not affecting us," Paul said. "We can't worry what other teams are doing. We have fun. It's all in fun for us. We haven't played a card game in a while, but all that type of stuff is personal."
A Hornets player said his teammates' game of choice on charter flights is Baccarat -- a point-based card game usually reserved for casinos.
Hornets guard Devin Brown said he only participates in pool-type wagering on half-court shots. Two weeks ago before a shootaround, all of the players met at midcourt, and each separately attempted a long-distance shot.
"It is just for fun -- that's all it is," Brown said. "You might have one or two people you might have shooting games with, where they try to make a shot for $100. I only do the team shooting game, where we put some in there and do that by taking five or six shots from half court.
"When I played in Utah, Coach (Jerry) Sloan didn't want guys to play cards because he didn't want cliques to form throughout his team. We also couldn't do it when I played for San Antonio."
But former Hornets Coach Byron Scott often challenged players to shooting contests on light practice days, and he usually won. At a practice last season, Scott was seen holding a small sheet of paper that he said was a checklist of players that owed him money from various contests.
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