Manny Pacquiao is a huge basketball fan.
He worked out with the Warriors this fall and, most notably, plays for the Philippine Basketball Association team he coaches
The boxer is a pretty big deal in his native country – something former NBA first-round pick Daniel Orton learned the hard way.
Agence France PressePhilippine basketball authorities have sacked and fined an American import for ridiculing national boxing hero Manny Pacquiao’s quest to become a professional basketballer.
Former NBA player Daniel Orton hit the headlines last week after playing against Pacquiao in the local pro-league, a game in which the 1.69-metre (5 foot-6 inch) boxing champion scored a solitary point.
“Professional boxer, yeah, okay... professional basketball player, no. It’s a joke,” said Orton, 24, who signed with the Purefoods Hotshots team just this month.
the team’s top administrator, Rene Pardo, was quoted in local media as saying Orton had been let go for insulting Pacquiao.
“Everyone is angry at him... it is like he went to the United States and insulted the name of Martin Luther King,” the ABS-CBN news website quoted Pardo as saying.
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