Channing Frye detailed getting an expensive introduction to NBA life when Richard Jefferson helped leave him with a $36,000 nightclub bill before Frye had even received his first professional paycheck.
At the time, Frye was still unfamiliar with managing a credit card and did not initially understand why Jefferson wanted him to hand one over.
Channing: “I don’t know how cards work.”
Jefferson: “And I go, ‘Channing, just give me your card.”
Frye was told that the card was only needed to secure their table, so he did not expect it to become responsible for the group’s spending.
Channing: “I was like, ‘For what?’ They were like, ‘Just to hold the table.’”
Jefferson knew Frye was entering a completely different financial world as an NBA rookie.
With several of their Arizona friends around, he viewed the situation partly as a form of rookie initiation.
Jefferson: “I also know that I’m the security blanket. I’m in the NBA. And so, all of our Arizona boys came because I had an apartment, everyone was staying in my crib. So I go, ‘Channing give me your card. It’s just to put it down. I’ll take care of it.’ They swipe it, they swipe it. He’s getting crushed. And this is kind of like rookie hazing.”
The charges quickly accumulated as the group occupied seven tables. Frye said his phone began receiving alerts while he was still operating financially like a college student and had yet to collect an NBA check.
Channing: “It was $36,000 dollars. Ten grand is for two tables. We have seven tables… My phone is blowing up, ‘Who’s charging this.’ My shit is still college shit. I don’t even have an NBA check yet.”
Jefferson, however, said he never intended to force Frye to cover unlimited spending himself.
He planned to step in once Frye’s available credit had been exhausted.
Jefferson: “This was my plan. Once we tapped out his credit card, I was gonna take care of the rest.”
