It's official: Andrew Bogut doesn't own a Ferrari

In the grand scheme of the universe, Andrew Bogut's spending habits really shouldn't be that interesting. Sure, he's an NBA player slated to make $10 million in the first year of a $60 million contract extension, so of course he's going to buy a lot more stuff than the rest of us.  Fine, I would too.

Still, Bogut's controversial comments from a few years ago about NBA players' lifestyles--even if the Antoine Walkers of the world continue to legitimize them--earned him some bad press and haven't been forgotten by everyone.  So when Karen Crouse mentioned in a New York Times article from earlier this week that Bogut drives a Ferrari, there were some who gleefully broke out their jump-to-conclusions mats. Shoals (tongue perpetually in vicinity of cheek) reported Bogut being "outed" as a "hypocrite."  Some other site called Bogut a hypocrite, and then a liar when Bogut denied owning a Ferrari via Twitter.  Because obviously if something is in the paper, it can't be wrong.

To be sure, I followed up with Crouse--whose story, by the way, is a very good read--and she got back to me quickly with confirmation that the Ferrari mention was based on an article by Michael Hunt from two weeks ago. Crouse wasn't able to follow up with Bogut while in Milwaukee to confirm it, and only after the story was published did she determine that the fine piece of Italian engineering belonged to Michael Redd.  She noted a correction would be run, so that will hopefully put the matter to rest.

As for the original article by Hunt, he wasn't really calling Bogut out for it, though it's not clear where Hunt got the information (perhaps Charlie Bell playing a joke on him?) or whether a correction was issued (the original article is still up without one).  It didn't really seem to generate much discussion among Bucks fans, since most of us assumed it was an error.  Afterall, Bogut has never hidden his affection for collecting muscle cars, a natural hobby for the son of a mechanic and car enthusiast.  A Ferrari just didn't seem to be his style. And sure enough, soon after the Hunt article ran, Bogut joked about the attribution on twitter to Charlie Bell. 

The non-issue then got a second wind earlier this week with Crouse's article, which compared Jennings' shockingly reasonable Ford Edge to Bogut's Ferrari.  The irony is that Crouse wasn't trying to single out Bogut per se; the idea was simply to contrast Jennings with your typical NBA player.  But the NYT has a bit more reach than the JS, so the non-story suddenly became a story again.  Bogut again denied via Twitter that he owned a Ferrari, sarcastically thanking Hunt for starting the rumor. Needless to say, Shoals continues to find humor in it all.

Meanwhile, I have one major question: did I really just spend an hour working on a post about this?  Damn. 

We really need the season to start.