Tractor Traylor gets sentenced for aiding a drug kingpin

The Tractor Traylor saga isn't quite the same as the Vick saga, primarily because Traylor isn't as well known as Vick. But it's still interesting nonetheless.

Traylor's name was used, of his own accord, to make it appear that he purchased two Detroit rental properties several years ago. The properties actually were owned by his cousin Quasand Lewis, a convicted drug trafficker and money launderer, according to federal prosecutors.

When Lewis was finally busted by federal authorities in 2004, he had sold an estimated $178 million in marijuana and cocaine in metro Detroit and had associates with suspected links to nearly a dozen murders and four fire-bombed houses, according to federal prosecutors. They declared Lewis as the kingpin of a massive and ruthless organized crime ring and deemed him Michigan's biggest pot dealer, perhaps ever.

It was never really determined why Traylor helped Lewis, aside from the fact that they're family. Traylor wound up helping him launder about $4 million.

Anyway, Traylor pleaded guilty in January to a charge of aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax return. He could have been sentenced to up to 14 months in federal prison.

Instead, Traylor received three years of probation on Friday.

He'll serve the first three months of his probation in a halfway house and the next three months in home confinement. Since he's currently playing pro ball in Puerto Rico - which is a long, long fall from being the 6th pick in the 1998 NBA Draft - his sentence will be served in the offseason.

Although Traylor's specific story is different from Vick's, it still begs the same question, why in the hell do some athletes do stuff like this? It's sort of depressing to watch certain pro athletes continually get pulled down by some of the people they happen to associate themselves with. We've seen this a million times in sports, from Vick to Pacman to Pete Rose.

Whatever, it's not like it's ever going to change anyway. Hope you're enjoying the legal cock fights in Puerto Rico, Tractor. Maybe when Vick gets out of prison he can join you there.

-WCK