Entourages: the rules of the trade

Rick Reilly sets the rules for top athletes’ hangers-on this week here.

I collect all cell-phone cams!
This is Rule No. 1. Ask Michael Phelps. You go to the party, find a back room, put The Man in it and nobody gets in with a cell-phone camera. I don’t care if Phelps was smoking oregano in that bong, how does a photo end up in News of the World? How does Matt Leinart in a hot tub with four hot girls get out there? My God, Ben Roethlisberger has more party photos in cyberspace than Kappa Alpha Theta. I don’t care if Penélope Cruz wants an autograph, she’s not getting in with a camera phone!

I always drive!
Who drives in Entourage? Turtle. Do you know why? Because Turtle doesn’t have an $80 million contract with a morals clause. So why, then, one night last year, after a really bad game, was Carmelo Anthony driving by himself, over the legal limit, at four in the morning, when he was arrested and charged with DUI?

What would be the rule-book here? Ring ahead to Coppers on a Thursday? Kill off another granny? Make sure the sliothars – All Star only – are in the car when I get out of the bank every evening? Maybe we don’t do entourages as well as the NBA.