TMZ Spors had acquired an email that was sent from within the Toronto Raptors organization which detailed a "bonus payout" of $25,000 for an injury to an unnamed player in the Celtics vs. Raptors matchup on 1/7/15. We reached out for comment from the Raptors after our story broke and this is what we obtained.
TMZ Sports was not present at the hospital following this game as we had not obtained the email yet in which Kemba Walker (though never directly named) seems to have been brought up as a potential culprit for this bounty. Therefore, we cannot confirm or deny that Kemba Walker did in fact visit Chris Paul that night in the hospital.GM Chilikonkarne,
"We refute any responsibilities in these accusations.
The game against Boston was a classical eastern conference game, a game of defense.
We lost 2 players as well for injuries (A.Varejao and J.Randle).
The injuries of Chris Paul is unfortunate and we hope he will recover soon.
Regarding Kemba Walker bribe, it is nonsense. Kemba Walker is taking 17.500.000$ a year and no one here believe he will risk his career and reputation for money.
Kemba is a gentleman and was the first one to visit Boston locker room to check on Chris Paul Status after the game."
While the media focus has been on Kemba and what the general feel in the CSL is towards him, we here at TMZ Sports chose to pursue a different angle.
Who was this third party that was mentioned in this mysterious email? TMZ Sports had deducted through our research department that the individual responsible for writing this email was Scott McCullough, Head Athletic Trainer for the Toronto Raptors. The questions though were still as follows.
First, who was this letter written to? If Scott McCullough was the person writing this email, was it someone closer to the players who was receiving it? There had to be a connection somewhere between this mystery person and Scott. What would the Raptors do as more information is pointing towards Scott McCullough being involved in this situation?
Secondly, who was the "other source" and what would they have to gain from the Raptors winning or the Celtics losing? We really started to focus on this aspect of the incident. If we look at the Raptors winning, we would have many people to focus in on. Let's be honest, the entire organization wants to win the Atlantic so we would have to hunker down and dig deeper and deeper. Who would benefit from the Celtics losing though? Other than the Raptors of course, which would put us back at square one. Yet, our research department continued to dig and that is when we found some very interesting occurrences...
A trade had taken place recently between the Clippers, Nets and Celtics. In this trade, we saw the Celtics bring in Chris Paul as well as ship their 2016 unprotected 1st to the Nets. So in one trade we see our player who was targeted, in Chris Paul moved as well as an unprotected 1st round pick of the Celtics.
Call us crazy, but we find it very strange that both Paul and this pick are moved in one trade and yet Chris Paul going down with an injury directly effects the value of that same pick.
Here is where our plot thickens. Once TMZ Sports broke the story on the potential bounty in the Celtics/Raptors game, we quickly saw the GM of the Brooklyn Nets leave the organization. While some may shout "conspiracy theory", if you put one and one together, you always get two.
At first, we though, no brainer here. GM OneNole is the third party and he wants to cause an injury to certain Celtic star players so he can have a higher value pick in the draft. It makes sense. What doesn't make sense is how quickly he just vanished overnight.
We continued to dig and there seems to have been some rumblings going on in the Nets organization for quite sometime since GM OneNole had came on board. Those rumblings were around some suspected ties within organized crime by GM OneNole. We have discovered that GM OneNole was a heavy gambler and that he actually owed over $500,000 in gambling debts.
Did GM OneNole make an offer Kemba could not refuse?
Was GM OneNole trying to force the outcome of games? If so, how many players in the CSL did GM OneNole have in his pocket? What did he have on them? More importantly where is GM OneNole now that this information has started to surface?We here at TMZ Sports will continue to search for the truth in this story. What started off as a story of possible bounty payments has now turned into a nightmare for the CSL. Was GM OneNole using threats and intimidation to help settle his gambling debts? What process will the CSL take now to screen potential GMs and what ground rules will they set for the teams within the league in regards to background checks?
Stay tuned as we continue to search for the truth...as well as the whereabouts of GM OneNole.
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