Golden State's Monta Ellis injuries ankle in Mo-Ped accident

Its standard procedure for professional sports teams to put language in their players’ contracts that prohibit them from certain off-season activities. For the teams, its common sense to make sure that they don’t lose their multi-million dollar investment due to a serious injury suffered while skiing, surfing or motorcycle riding. Despite this prohibition, every year brings a couple of case where athletes get injured while participating in an off-season activity that they weren’t supposed to.

Usually, however, they’re not as embarrassing as the ankle injury suffered by Golden State Warriors’ Monta Ellis. Ellis will miss all of training camp and the first few weeks of the regular season after injuring his ankle last month. Ellis originally told the team that he did it in a pickup basketball game, but doctors’ questioned this story due to the severity of the injury. Ellis then told the truth about participating in a “high risk” activity prohibited by his contract—and it became obvious why he wanted to cover up the actual version of events. Ellis didn’t injure his ankle running with the bulls in Pamplona, or even surfing or motorcycling racing—he injured himself messing around on a mo-ped.

Ellis has yet to provide an excuse for why he, as a grown man, was riding a mo-ped in the first place. The official explanation for his injury was that he suffered it during a “low speed mo-ped accident”. Just to be clear, we’re not talking about something cool like a Vespa scooter here—this is a mo-ped, the lowest rung on the hierarchy of motorized transportation. Mo-peds are usually seen driven by unfortunate individuals who have lost their automotive privileges due to drunk or impaired driving offenses. That’s why they’re frequently referred to by a number of slang terms like “DUI-cycle” or “Boozer-bike” (and that’s not a reference to Utah Jazz power forward Carlos Boozer). They’re also acceptable transportation for teenagers in beach front communities or island resorts. Why a grown man who had just signed a $66 million NBA contract was willing to place himself astride a mo-ped in the first place is a mystery that the Warriors’ don’t appear interested in investigating.

In situations like this a common response from the player’s team is to issue some sort of punishment, usually in the form of a fine or other hit to the wallet. So far, the Warriors haven’t meted out any sort of penalty aside from a stern “talking to” through the media. In the quote below, Warriors’ GM Chris Mullen plays the role of the disappointed but loving parent:

"I don't think anyone felt like it was the best-case scenario. There were some things that should have been done differently. I think he understands that. With all that said, now is the time for him to have our support. He did do something wrong and needs to be accountable for it, but I do think all the energy and effort goes into getting him healthy.”

Translation: “hopefully he now understands why grown men shouldn’t ride around on mo-peds, skateboards or ’Big Wheels’.”