Perhaps the strangest twist of the Miami Heat offseason has come before the first round of the NBA playoffs has even come to an end. In what seems almost like a Mad Libs story come to life with a mix of NBA, politics and legal scandal, Hassan Whiteside was involved in a legal dispute with an ex-girlfriend, Alexis Gardner, that was resolved with a $2.75 million settlement.
That’s not the strange part. The ex-girlfriend was represented by now-famed lawyer Michael Avenatti, who embezzled nearly $2 million from the settlement in order to buy a share of a private jet (which has since been seized by the IRS).