We all can appreciate 50-point games. The fourth quarter comeback. A game-winning three point shot at the buzzer.
But stories of on-court trash talk and “backroom conversations” – what really goes on behind the scenes – is stuff of NBA legend. Basketball fans eat it up.
Well, get ready to eat up Pacers Rookie Cigar Day.
Radio play-by-play voice of the Indiana Pacers, Mark Boyle, told Dan Dakich about the little-known initiation for Pacers rookie players on Wednesday’s Dan Dakich Show.
“I was introduced to cigars back in the 90s by fellow NBA veteran, David Benner, who was – and still is – [the Pacers] media relations guy,” Boyle said. “As time went on, I began to sample different cigars, enjoying some more than others. And then, in a stroke of genius, that has in my opinion yet to be rivaled within the inner circles of the NBA, Mr. Benner introduced Rookie Cigar Day…He would go up to these guys and explain to them that part of the deal as a rookie was you had to buy [him] a whole box of cigars.”
Second round draft picks and undrafted rookies that made the team only needed to purchase a couple cigars. First round picks had to buy an entire box.
“We didn’t abuse it,” Boyle said. “We didn’t go for the most expensive boxes. We had our own preferences by then…To this day, it amazes me that not a single one of these rookies ever said, ‘What the hell are you thinking coming to me with that?’”
Boyle says it was all in good fun.
“And David, by the way, is beloved by our players so he has that advantage, but these rookies don’t really know him yet…and David would walk up to these guys and they would go, ‘Oh, okay. When can we do it?’ And so we would do it in cities where we had favorite cigar stores like Orlando or Dallas.”
One rookie’s experience that stood out in particular: Roy Hibbert’s.
“In Dallas we have a favorite cigar store that I think is no longer there,” Boyle said. “We took Roy Hibbert with us and Roy wouldn’t go in but he just gave us the cash and so we went in and bought the cigars on our own…generally speaking, since [the rookies] were the ones that had to pay, we needed them to be at the checkout counter.”
And now ya’ know.
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