O. J. Mayo

O. J. Mayo - Quick Facts

Profile Overview of O. J. Mayo

Ovinton J'Anthony "O.J." Mayo (born November 5, 1987) is an American former professional basketball player who played for eight seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), most notably with the Memphis Grizzlies and Milwaukee Bucks. He currently works as an assistant coach for Liaoning Flying Leopards of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). Mayo played a single season of college basketball for the USC Trojans while earning first-team All-Pac-10 honors.

This profile of O. J. Mayo covers Career and Rise to Fame, Awards and Honours, Improper benefits and rules violation and Memphis Grizzlies (2008–2012).

But he was retroactively declared ineligible when it was discovered that he had received improper benefits in violation of NCAA rules before he even played a game, and the Trojans vacated all of their 21 wins from the 2007–08 season. Mayo entered the 2008 NBA draft and was selected by the Minnesota Timberwolves with the third overall pick. He was later traded to the Memphis Grizzlies, with whom he played four seasons. Mayo signed with the Dallas Mavericks in 2012, and then with the Milwaukee Bucks in 2013. In July 2016, Mayo was banned from the NBA for violating the league's anti-drug program. After a two-year hiatus, he resumed his career with Atléticos de San Germán of the Baloncesto Superior Nacional (BSN) in Puerto Rico.

Career and Rise to Fame of O. J. Mayo

Mayo began playing high school basketball at Rose Hill Christian High School in Ashland, Kentucky. In Kentucky, grade schoolers can play high school basketball, and Mayo averaged 23.1 points for Rose Hill's varsity team while in 7th grade. In 8th grade, he was just turning 15 and tallied 27 points per game and was named a first-team all-state player by the Louisville Courier-Journal. Mayo then moved to suburban Cincinnati to live with club team coach Dwaine Barnes. (Mayo referred to him as his "grandfather" but the two aren't related.) Mayo enrolled at North College Hill High School in North College Hill, Ohio in April 2003. The Cincinnati Enquirer and local television stations sent reporters to cover Mayo's first day of school at NCH.

Mayo was selected as Mr. Basketball of Ohio for the second consecutive season, in addition to being named Associated Press Division III Player of the Year for the second consecutive season. He averaged nearly 29 points, nine rebounds, and six assists per game. He also led his team to three consecutive AP poll titles and was featured in the pages of Sports Illustrated among other publications.

In February 2006, Mayo attracted the largest crowd to ever see a high school game in Cincinnati, Ohio when 16,202 fans watched North College Hill fall to the nation's number one rated team, Oak Hill Academy. Mayo had been considered a lock to make the leap straight from high school to the NBA, but the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NBA and its players instituted a rule that a player must be at least a year out of high school before he can enter the NBA, effectively curtailing those plans. On July 5, 2006, it was reported by ESPN that he would attend USC.

Mayo enrolled at Huntington High School in Huntington, West Virginia for the 2006–07 school year. He formally committed to USC in November 2006.

In January 2007, Mayo allegedly assaulted referee Mike Lazo after being ejected from a Huntington High game vs. Capital High School at the Charleston Civic Center. In accordance with West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission rules, Mayo was suspended for two games. But due to allegations that Lazo had overreacted and faked the incident, a temporary restraining order was signed by Cabell County Circuit Court Judge Dan O'Hanlan, temporarily lifting the suspensions on Mayo and five other players suspended due to incidents at that game. But shortly after, the restraining order was nullified, and Mayo was suspended for three games, a punishment that Mayo described as "fair".

Awards and Honours of O. J. Mayo

Mayo was selected by the West Virginia Sports Writers Association as the 2007 recipient of the Bill Evans Award for the state's boys basketball player of the year. Mayo led the state in scoring for the 2006–2007 season at 28.4 points per game. Runner-up in the voting was teammate Patrick Patterson.

On March 17, 2007, Mayo led Huntington High School to its third consecutive Class AAA basketball championship in the state of West Virginia with 103–61 rout of South Charleston. Mayo finished with a triple-double: 41 points, 10 rebounds, and 11 assists.

He graduated in May 2007 and signed a letter of intent to enroll at USC. He scored a 29 on the ACT, placing him in the 95th percentile nationally.

Career and Rise to Fame

Mayo had given Kansas State a soft verbal commitment to play for them, but retracted it when head coach Bob Huggins announced he would take the same position at West Virginia. Frank Martin, by whom Mayo was recruited, was named head coach. Former teammate at North College Hill High School Bill Walker opted to stay and play for Martin.

Mayo enrolled at the University of Southern California (USC) in the summer of 2007, taking two classes. While waiting for the season to begin, he played pickup basketball at the UCLA men's gym against NBA players such as Kobe Bryant, Sam Cassell, Kevin Garnett, Mike Dunleavy Jr., D. J. Augustin, Jason Kidd, Adam Morrison, and J. J. Redick.

Mayo earned All-Pac-10 first team honors for the 2007–08 season. In the 2008 Pacific-10 Conference men's basketball tournament, the Trojans lost to UCLA, featuring Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook, in the semi-finals. Both Mayo and Love were selected to the All-Pac-10 tournament team. In his NCAA Tournament debut with the Trojans, Mayo scored 20 points as USC was beaten by Kansas State.

Mayo did not return for his sophomore season, opting to instead enter the 2008 NBA draft.

Improper benefits and rules violation

On May 11, 2008, ESPN reported that a former "confidant", Louis Johnson, revealed on ESPN's TV show Outside the Lines that Mayo received numerous gifts in violation of NCAA rules. The report stated that Mayo received the gifts from Rodney Guillory before and during his tenure at USC. Guillory is said to have received the money from the Bill Duffy Associates Sports Management (BDA).

In April 2009, the NCAA combined its investigations of Mayo and former running back Reggie Bush into a single probe of the Trojans' athletic program.

On January 3, 2010, USC announced that it had determined Mayo was ineligible for the 2007–2008 season because he had received improper benefits, and had thus forfeited his amateur status before ever playing a game for USC. As a result, USC vacated all 21 of its wins from the 2007–08 season, dropping its record to 0–12. A vacated game does not count as a win for the other team, but is officially treated as having never happened. USC also withdrew from postseason consideration (including the Pac-10 conference tournament) for the 2009–10 season.

Source: adapted from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Mayo), text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.