I’m sure when most of you read a story about a professional athlete filing for bankruptcy, you think the same thing I do: How in the hell could a millionaire athlete blow through all of their cash? SPORTS ILLUSTRATED looked into the matter and found two big problems: reckless spending and bad investments. Very, very bad investments.

How bad? How about an inflatable raft meant to go under your sofa so that if a flood came, you could float to safety on your sofa? Or a mouth guard that claims to increase your performance by setting your jaw in an “optimal position“? It seems that for every Magic Johnson, who parlayed the money made from his playing days into a business empire, there are scores of athletes making P.T. Barnum sound like a prophet.

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CBS college basketball analyst Seth Davis has a new book out about the 1979 NCAA basketball title game between Magic Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans and Larry Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores called “When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed Basketball.” I noticed one detail in a story on it in the MILWAUKEE JOURNAL-SENTINEL that had me scratching my head. In the book, Davis claims that before Indiana State’s nationally televised home finale against Wichita State, “many people thought Bird was black.”

(I’m pretty sure he’s white.)

You can imagine that I was pretty skeptical of Davis’ claim. Then I read a quote:

“All the next week I got lots of calls from my friends back in Denver who saw the game,” said Bob Heaton, Bird’s roommate and teammate. “They couldn’t believe Larry Bird was a white guy.”

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Pennsylvania residents Trammel Bledsoe and Phillip Sainsbury are not exactly model citizens.  In fact, they’re bank robbers (though they aren’t related to Deidra Lane) who are currently in prison after getting busted by the cops.  They also happen to be sports fans, and have found a fun new way to use sports knowledge to help commit crimes.

While Bledsoe is in prison he knows his telephone calls are being recorded.  So when he called his friend Joshua Burton to give him instructions on where to find the gun he ditched and the $3,500 he stole from the bank, he had to come up with some kind of code to let Burton know where to find the loot.  So he used athletes and their jersey numbers to give locations.

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After throwing nearly $50 million away on Stephon Marbury, Eddy Curry, Jerome James and Malik Rose, who may combine to contribute only Rose’s garbage time minutes, the Knicks are finally making a sound business decision: they’re recouping their Marbury costs, one game at a time.

Get your notepad ready, because a series of events this complex and asinine could only happen under James Dolan. First the Knicks told Marbury he wouldn’t play, but they’d still pay him. Then, shorthanded on Wednesday, they told Marbury he had to play, since they were paying him. He then refused to play, mad because they hadn’t been playing him. Now they’re refusing to pay for his refusal to play. Got all that? Now you’ve caught up on the last week of As the Garden Turns. (All this, plus Magic throwing Isiah under the bus, after the jump.)

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When I worked as a Program Director in Kansas City in the late ’90s, I got to know a talk radio host named Chris Baker. Seemed like a decent enough guy. Baker was hosting a general talk show on KCMO-AM at the time - I was across the hall on an all-sports station.

Baker’s ratings were less than spectacular, and eventually he moved onto Houston. And now apparently he’s popped up in the Twin Cities.

His show wasn’t my cup of tea then, and upon hearing his comments about Magic Johnson on his current show in Minneapolis, it certainly isn’t now.

Baker and co-host Langdon Perry both said yesterday that they are “convinced” the former Lakers star “faked aids.”

Audio and transcript after the jump. Read more…

• Anna Rawson, 150th on the money list but 1st on our hot list, finished on top of the leaderboard after the first round of the Bell Micro Classic.

Feel free to call her up to offer some congratulations.

• Terrell Owens says it could’ve worked out with him & Donovan McNabb, but the Eagles QB was just too jealous of T.O.’s star power.

• Looks like Rutgers has rolled back to his rotten football ways. How’s that new stadium funding coming?

• Set a place for Sidney Crosby at your dinner table, ’cause he’s coming over with your Penguins season tickets.

• The Patriots are fuming over the latest fashion statement celebrating Bernard Pollard’s takedown of Tom Brady.

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Chinese basketball player Sun Yue has often been called the “Chinese Magic Johnson” because, uh, well, I guess because he’s tall and is good at basketball. But Yue, who recently signed with the Lakers, is squashing that name and bringing his own to the table: Monkey King.

Oddly, Sun’s reason for rejecting the “Magic” moniker is not because he feels that he can’t live up to the name — it’s because he’s specifically not going to pattern his game after the Laker great. The Monkey King imitates no one.

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• Even without playing yet, Broadway Brett has already paid big dividends for the Jets - just ask the jersey clerks & ticket sellers.

• Was Manny Ramirez bagging it before being booted from Boston?

• The Bengals bring some joy to an injured Iraq veteran, and vice versa.

• Magic Johnson cheers up the Cowboys, but brings down the Mavs.

• Portland citizens are p.o.’ed over Converse’s guerrilla poster campaign.

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Despite not winning a playoff game in 12 years, and a disappointing end to last season’s 13-win campaign, the Dallas Cowboys are the prohibitive favorites to make it to the Super Bowl. And such favoritism creates all sorts of expectations.

In an effort to combat any pressure that might result from those high expectations, the Cowboys have invited world renowned movie theatre mogul and former NBA player Magic Johnson to address the team on avoiding the pitfalls of fame.

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• John Jagler of 620 WTMJ in Milwaukee puts out an APB for this Bears motorist in Wisconsin taking license with a playful poke at the Packers.

• Not to be outdone by literary giant Jose Canseco, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY prints out word that Larry Bird & Magic Johnson will be teaming up to write a book together about their long-time rivalry & friendship.

• So, what’s Avery Johnson been up to these days? Well, THE MERKIN SPORTS drives up video oft the ex-Mavs coach now selling cars.

• Sam Smith of HOOPS HYPE guzzles down the opinion that it’s alcohol and not marijuana that should be the biggest cause of the NBA’s concern.

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