A Lot Of Hurt

"Tom was snowing us," says Abdul-Jabbar. "What he had been saying didn't add up to the facts."

Collins acknowledges having made some mistakes in the Heavy-rope affair, although he still contends that a major distribution deal was near when Abdul-Jabbar pulled out. If Abdul-Jabbar was uncomfortable, Collins suggested, maybe he should have an independent audit of his account. It wasn't until just before Abdul-Jabbar finally broke with Collins, in January 1986, that an audit was made and Abdul-Jabbar became fully aware of the details of financial transactions and accounting practices that he claims Collins never told him about. Sums of money would be moved from the account of one Collins client to that of another without either being told. Abdul-Jabbar unknowingly lent Sampson $575,000. Under terms of loans that Collins arranged with the Bank of California and other banks, each limited partner was liable for the full balance, and Abdul-Jabbar's obligation came to around $9 million. Abdul-Jabbar said he was shocked to learn about that debt but was told by Collins, "Don't worry about it. Everybody's involved in that."

"But not everybody had the profile I had here in L.A.," says Abdul-Jabbar. "I had the deepest pockets of all the investors, so if there were any problems, the bank would go for the person with the most money."

There were problems. There were alleged construction cost overruns and alleged shoddy management of real estate properties. When Abdul-Jabbar let it be known that he wanted out of Collins's various arrangements, the Bank of California and the California Overseas Bank called in their loans, virtually all the deals collapsed and almost every property either went bankrupt or sank deep into debt. English sued Abdul-Jabbar, claiming he was owed money; the papers were served on Abdul-Jabbar in the Laker locker room in Denver after a game last February. Abdul-Jabbar countersued, saying that he was the one owed money. English was served in this suit as he sat on the bench during a game at the L.A. Forum in March.

To this day Collins claims that all the deals were good ones, that they went sour only because Abdul-Jabbar pulled out. He insists that Abdul-Jabbar was less likely to be hit up for the $9 million than were Sampson, English or Cummings, all of whom figure to be earning big basketball money even after Abdul-Jabbar retires. Collins claims that Abdul-Jabbar knew as much about the deals as he wanted to know; that he just wasn't interested and didn't want to be bothered with the details; and that his visits to Collins's office rarely lasted more than five minutes. Collins also claims that he insisted that Abdul-Jabbar sign every document involved in the real estate deals as protection, while Abdul-Jabbar says that all or most of the deals in question went through in his name but without his signature.

So Abdul-Jabbar has started fresh again, in the twilight of an extraordinary career, with new people to trust. He says he has learned to sign all of his own checks and to watch over his advisers. He has learned the hard way that an athlete has to take responsibility for what is being done with his money. "It's been a crash course in business school," is how he puts it, "and I've paid steep tuition."