Knicks Pick Channing Frye Recalls Richard Jefferson's 'Welcome to the NBA' Gift
Mere hours after his NBA entry with the New York Knicks, Channing Frye was already putting up big numbers.
Alas for the eighth overall pick of the 2005 NBA Draft, those big tallies came not on the statsheet but rather his credit card bill. The celebration behind Frye's NBA entry racked up a tab of at least $36,000, though it was far from his own doing.
Frye recalled the story on the latest episode of his podcast "Road Trippin'," which he runs alongside fellow NBA veteran Richard Jefferson and Allie Clifton, the Los Angeles Lakers' sideline reporter on Spectrum SportsNet. Recalling "Welcome to the NBA" moments, Frye said that he didn't have to wait long for his ... mainly because his co-host was partly responsible.
Shortly after the Knicks chose him out of Arizona, Frye was invited to party at a club involving other Tuscon alumni, including Jefferson, Gilbert Arenas, and Luke Walton. Frye willingly turned his credit card over to Jefferson who claimed that he wanted to "hold (a) table."
The newly-minted Knick might've been charged enough to buy several tables by the end of the night.
"Do you know how much that bill was?" Frye rhetorically asked Jefferson, then a star with the New Jersey Nets. "It was like $36,000. 10 grand is for two tables, and we had seven tables. The NBA money hasn't even gotten into the ozone yet. My phone is blowing up, 'Who's charging $36,000?!'"
Jefferson far from denies the literal and figurative charges, claiming it was "rookie hazing." In the midst of it all, Jefferson further claimed he was there to act as a "security blanket," covering any charges Frye's credit card would be unable to handle. Frye himself said that Jefferson had "clout" in metropolitan nightclubs, having helped guide the Nets to consecutive NBA Finals appearances.
Frye would prove more than capable of footing the bill, albeit years down the road: in 13 NBA seasons between New York, Portland, Phoenix, Orlando, Cleveland, and Los Angeles, Frye would earn over $68.6 million. He played his first two seasons with the Knicks before he was dealt to the Trail Blazers in a deal that send Zach Randolph east.
A trade from Orlando to the Cleveland Cavaliers reunited him with Jefferson in February 2016 and the two would go on to partake in the franchise's first championship trek later that summer. Frye and Jefferson also came with with the "Road Trippin'" podcast along with Clifton (then repping Fox Sports Ohio) to pass time during, as the title implies, road trips.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
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