Right, Steve, I recall one particular young basketball player that was like the last straw, he really blew it. I only remember something about women in a limo and not showing up for practice. I don't recall his name, but it was shortly there after that the NBA did more than just give huge sums to young guys coming out of college.
if you want to find misguided basketball players, then look no further than Monsieur Latrell Sprewell. A number of well known incidents during and after his career, particularly the one where he tried to strangle his coach, and apparently almost succeeded. Another time, he was on an over twenty million contract when receiving the longest game suspension in NBA history. He fought with his own teammates and there was the event where he brought a 2x4 to practice to get revenge. He said that he couldn't afford to feed his kids on a twenty some million three year contract extension, so chose to end his playing career, or at least wait for better offers that never materialized. At the time of the Wikipedia posting, he was the number one delinquent tax payer in the state of Wisconsin. There are few that wouldn't agree that he was a hell of a basketball player, particularly an outside shooter and could grab the rebounds, when he wanted to play.