The whole situation with UNC basketball, PJ Hairston and Haydn "Fats" Thomas appears to have grown a bit: Thomas is, or was, business partners with an oral surgeons named Spencer Howard. The two were partners in a business called Kairobi Exotic Rentals and Transport, Inc.
Leslie McDonald has been using a mouth guard from a company called Iceberg Guards, which has been using a picture of Leslie, mouth open and guard in, to promote it. Howard is a partner along with a dentist named Lee Grause.
UNC has sent a cease and desist order.
These things are expensive: customized mouth guards can cost as much as $2,000 dollars. Iceberg's range from $150 to $1,500.
Here's what Iceberg says about Danny Green's model: "Danny insists on protection with high breathability. Also, Danny wants to be able to interview without appearing like he has a mouthpiece in. This mouthguard is super thin, clear, and very durable."
Not that it's a huge deal necessarily, but we seem to recall that during one interview, Thomas said that a dentist, presumably one of these guys, was "my blood cousin." Did anyone else see that?
But that's fairly trivial.
What's interesting now is this: there is a tangible tie between Hairston's rentals and Leslie's mouth guard.
As StateFansNation points out, allegations about Hairston's car rentals go beyond what's been published: one of Hairston's friends alleged on Twitter that young PJ showed up somewhere in a "2012 Mercedes 2door." Now let's think..that's a pretty snazzy car, almost,well, almost exotic. Gee, who might have had something like that around?
It's entirely possible that it's just a limited thing, that Hairston likes borrowing cars and that McDonald's family paid for a modest mouthpiece, although, his design looks like the high end custom made model. Of course, they could have paid for that, too, and why not? Their kid is getting a free ride. What's a mouthpiece against four years of education?
Interestingly, on his own site, Smile Design Manhattan, Dr. Grause has several testimonials including one from Danny Green, who says that "Dr. Gause is an amazing dentist and a Tar Heel fan!"
No mention of his mouthpiece.
Most of the testimonials are from alleged "supermodels" (one of the prerequisites of being a supermodel is that people have heard of you; we've never heard of any of these), but also endorsing is WNBA star Candace Wiggins.
There are a lot of unanswered questions yet, but we'd be very interested to know if Thomas or any of the dentists in question - Howard or Lee or Alex Grause - have any connections with Rodney Blackstock, Julius Nyangâoro or, possibly, John Blake.
Somehow one senses that this whole mess might be tied together. And still UNC lets it come out in dribs and drabbles.