Brian Windhorst Reveals How Ex-Laker’s One Lie Cost Him $500K

Nearly two decades later, Vladimir Radmanovic's ill-fated snowboarding trip still gets revisited. It is seen as one of the wildest fine stories in Lakers history on how a five-year, $30.2 million contract nearly got voided over a lie.

Now ESPN's Brian Windhorst added fresh detail to the story, He broke down how it all unraveled.

"Do you remember the Vladimir Radmanovic getting busted lying story?" he said on The Hoop Collective. "So, um, he was playing for the Lakers... and he was making five million bucks. That's important for this story, making five million bucks. And he went away on the All-Star break. And he came back and he was like, 'Oh, Radmanovic is going to be out.'"

According to Windhorst, the story Radmanovic gave the team at first sounded harmless enough. "I think it was a shoulder injury that he had... and he said that he slipped on some ice in Park City, Utah, and got hurt, and it was a separated shoulder. That's what the injury was."

The year, Windhorst noted, was 2007. Well before social media made these things nearly impossible to hide. "I don't know how it got ratted on or whatever, but he did not fall on ice. He was snowboarding. Which violated his contract."

The fallout was steep. "And the Lakers fined him $500,000. 10% of his contract," Windhorst said. "That's a lot. For lying."

The Lakers confirmed as much at the time. The fine amounted to nearly 10 percent of Radmanovic's $5.2 million salary that season; after it came out, he'd been snowboarding during the All-Star break rather than walking on an icy sidewalk as he'd initially claimed.

Radmanovic's $500,000 penalty has remained one of the largest fines ever levied by a team on its own player. It sits alongside penalties handed to figures like Mark Cuban and Kyrie Irving.

What made it stand out wasn't just the dollar amount. It was that Radmanovic's entire contract briefly hung in the balance before the Lakers settled on the fine as the "fairest and most appropriate action," in general manager Mitch Kupchak's words at the time.

Radmanovic went on to stick around Los Angeles for two and a half more seasons. He played a rotation role as the Lakers reached the 2008 NBA Finals.

The snowboarding lie remains the moment his tenure is best remembered for. Windhorst bringing it up is a reminder of just how costly one dishonest explanation to a front office can get, especially when the truth eventually finds its way out anyway.