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Thanks to his highlight dunks, nifty passes and multi-block games, Jordan Bell won’t soon be forgotten by Golden State Warriors fans. It doesn’t hurt that he helped the team win an NBA championship in 2018, either. Of course, Bell had some controversial moments, too.
Throwing the ball off the backboard for an alley-oop jam during the fourth quarter of a blowout win over the Mavericks rates highly there. At the least, it wasn’t appreciated by then-Mavs coach Rick Carlisle.
Bell’s infamous candle prank probably takes the cake, though.
In March of 2019, the big man was suspended for one game after making charges to associate head coach Mike Brown’s hotel room. There were some pretty wild theories about what the charges were for but, in the end, it was revealed that he had purchased candles.
Earlier this week, Bell spilled the tea on how it all went down.
Bell Discussed the Ill-Fated Joke
Bell was the guest on the April 12 episode of Dubs Talk with Grant Liffman, during which he talked about his Warriors career, the team’s current title prospects and more. When asked about “Candlegate,” he explained that it was all part of a team-wide joke that Brown apparently wasn’t privy to:
Our thing was just that we would put things on each other’s rooms… So, yeah, it was a joke. It was my rookie year, and it was little things, like my coach was late coming out to warm-ups, so I would put something on him, on his thing, or it was just a random joke, so you never expect to put food or a meal, just little things…
So I did that. I put two candles on Mike Brown’s room. It was as soon as I got to the hotel, I opened up the envelope and said I’ll put it on Mike Brown’s. And I was like, ‘he got it.’
While Brown received the goods in the literal sense, he clearly didn’t “get” the joke, which Bell “found out the hard way” the following day:
I go up the next day, they call me and are like, ‘Coach wants to talk to you,’ and I’m like, ‘I didn’t go out last night, I didn’t do anything,’ so I don’t know what this is, I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know something bad I did, because I had never been called to his room, so I’m like, ‘that is weird.’ But I’m thinking trade, and I’m thinking it is not something I did, it is probably something crazy…
They call me to the room, and they are like, ‘Did you do this?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, it was a joke. My fault. But for you guys to call me here, obviously, you guys thought it was a serious offense,’ so I was like, ‘Yeah, I am sorry, I will pay it back, it was like $30.’ So they were like, ‘Yeah, we are going to have to suspend you’ and all of that.
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Fans & Others Thought He Was Buying Porn
When Bell’s suspension was first reported and there were still precious few details out about why he had been disciplined, speculation about what was purchased was rampant. Before the eventual candle reveal, the running theory was that he was buying porn on Brown’s dime:
Somehow, I forgot the reporter, and he put out half the story and was like, ‘Jordan was suspended for charging the coach’s room.’ Like I saw the message as we were taking off, as we were going to Minnesota, straight after the game. As we were taking off, I see that tweet go out, because I was following that reporter because he was a Warriors reporter, and I was like, ‘Oh OK, at least it is out. I’m not worried about it.’
So I land, and I see all of this, ‘Oh, he is watching porn, he is watching porn.’ It was hilarious. I was like pissed, but it was the memes and stuff, because it blew up so much. And it was like, ‘porn, porn, oh he is doing this in his room and charging stuff.’ And I’m like, ‘First of all, porn is free, on my phone. I am not going to buy it in a hotel.’
Awkward conversations with his mom and aunt followed, but Bell can’t help but laugh about it all today. As for him and Brown, the baller noted that they’re “super cool” and noted the Warriors assistant was the one who worked with him on getting acclimated during his last Dubs run.
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