Manny Pacquiao appears arrogant playing basketball before bout

A study published in 2010 conducted over a 17-year period discovered that the most common injury to afflict an NBA player is a lateral ankle sprain. More than 13 percent of all injuries studied in those 17 years were sprained ankles.

A sprained ankle is exactly the kind of injury that Manny Pacquiao risked when he played seven minutes as a player-coach for the Kia Sorento in the Philippine Basketball Association. Pacquiao had two turnovers in a game his team won 80-66 over the Blackwater Elite.

Pacquiao is supposed to defend the WBO welterweight title against Chris Algieri on Nov. 22 at Cotai Arena in Macau, China, in a bout on HBO Pay-Per-View. He has two main jobs now: Train for the fight and help to sell the pay-per-view.

He went on a 27,000-mile tour with Algieri and promoter Bob Arum in August, making stops in Macau, Shanghai, Singapore, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York. All of that money is down the drain if Pacquiao were to get injured.

It would have also cost Algieri the fight of his life and all of the fighters on the undercard a significant payday.

Pacquiao said after the game that he would stick to his coaching duties and not play until after the fight, but it was incredibly arrogant of Pacquiao to even attempt play pro basketball so close to a major fight. A sprained ankle almost certainly would have postponed or canceled the card and would have made a lot of people that he works with in the fight business extraordinarily unhappy.

He's not the first player to try to do such a thing. Roy Jones Jr. actually played a minor league basketball game in 1996 on the same day he fought Eric Lucas. The difference was, however, that the bout was an HBO card and not a pay-per-view event. While it would have been disastrous had Jones been injured, it would have not come with the financial cost that would occur had Pacquiao been injured and forced to pull out of the Nov. 22 match.

Part of the reason for his success as a boxer has been because of his amazing conditoning, and playing basketball is a big part of that. He loves basketball and plays the game regularly.

Algieri wasn't thrilled about it when he met with a small group of reporters Saturday in Carson, Calif., before Gennady Golovkin defeated Marco Antonio Rubio at the StubHub Center.

"I don't know if it's arrogance or just silly and stupid," Algieri said. "During the press tour, I actually got on a horse at one point. As soon as I got up there, I was like, 'This is a bad idea. This is a bad idea because I'm getting paid after the fight.' I don't know if it's the smart thing to do, but ... "

When he was first asked about it, Algieri shrugged and said he didn't have much to say. But he made it clear he would have preferred Pacquiao to be careful and chosen to skip the game.

"A lot of people ask me about his basketball and if that's what he chooses to do, that's fine," Algieri said."As long as he doesn't get hurt, I don't really care."

Had Pacquiao sprained an ankle, you can bet a lot of people would care, and a lot of them are very influential. You can bet that Ed Tracy, the CEO of Sands China, which has largely financed the bout, would have been over-the-top angry. So, too, would have promoter Bob Arum, who has paid Pacquiao millions and always advanced him money when Pacquiao needed it.

It appears everyone has dodged a bullet this time. Hopefully, there isn't a next time to worry about.