For Cleveland Cavaliers center Samardo Samuels, bad news doesnt travel fast, it doesn’t travel at all. Samuels was forced to stay home when the team traveled to Toronto to play the Raptors because he lost his passport. Just the day before, Samuels was benched in the Cavs win against the Charlotte Bobcats.
Cavalier’s coach Bryon Scott was critical of Samuels misplaced passport. “I’m going to chalk it up to youth and inexperience. Hopefully, he learned his lesson and it never happens again,” Scott said.
Samuels was not able to get a passport on short notice because he is from Jamacia, and team officals had trouble with visa issues. The 22-year old will rejoin the team Thursday in Minneapolis against the Timberwolves.
Magic Johnson is one of the greatest basketball players of all time and the most prevelant faces in the fight against HIV. Since his diagnosis in 1991, Johnson has dedicated his life to HIV awareness. Now, Johnson hopes to use hip hop to decrease homophobia within African American culture.
“As a hip-hop fan, you realize that homophobia is still an issue everywhere, but especially in the black community. When people are scared to talk about it, that’s how the disease spreads,” Magic told the Huffington Post.
“I have a lot of friends in [the hip hop] industry and so what we’re trying to do is rally them to get behind the cause, deliver the message to these young people that HIV and AIDS is big and it’s not going anywhere.”
Maybe Magic can call on fellow basketball player rapper Ron Artest or Metta World Peace.
LeBron James is getting a ring… although it may not be the NBA Championship ring he hoped for. The Miami Heat star proposed to his long time girlfriend Savanah Brinson on New Years Eve. Brinson showed off her engagement ring at the Heat- Atalanta Hawks game.
LeBron is offering little details saying, “She would love to answer more questions about it than me. But she’s happy, my family’s happy and that’s what it’s all about. . . It should be a surprise. For any woman, any time something like that happens, she was surprised.”
Dwyane Wade was in charge of holding the ring for LeBron, and unlike his teammate, Wade dished on the proposal.
“He kind of caught her in a moment right after New Year’s after we all did the countdown when everybody was (yelling), ‘Happy New Year.’ Then he got her. So it was good. To me, it felt like he was on his knee for an hour. It probably was like 35 seconds. It was great.”
Brinson and James have been dating since high school and have two children together. Congrats to the Happy Couple!
Just when stories of the Air Jordans die down, Michael Jordan makes his way back into the headlines. This time by proposing to his model girlfriend, Yvette Prietto. The couple have been dating since 2008 and move in together in Jordan’s Miami home in 2009.
Prieto is a 32-year old Cuban model, making her just 9-years older than Jordan’s son Jeffery Michael.
Hopefully Jordan gets a prenup, after his 2006 divorce cost him $168 million. Jordan was married to his first wife Juanita Vanoy for 17-years, and according to Forbes their divorce was the most expensive celebrity settlement.
