NBA's most irresponsible father credited with seven assists

Almost every player in the NBA, America's premier basketball league, has fathered a child out of wedlock - with the most wayward siring as many as seven, according to Sports Illustrated magazine.

Since about 85 per cent of the NBA's players are black, the report, entitled 'Where's Daddy?', is bound to give rise to a prickly racial debate, not least within the black community.

The players named as the fathers of more than one illegitimate child are exclusively black.

The magazine names several players on its 'NBA All-Paternity team'. They include such household names as Patrick Ewing, Shawn Kemp, Hakeem Olajuwon and Scottie Pippen. Larry Bird, a white former player, is named too, although his transgressions would appear insignificant by comparison.

Take the case of Kemp, a forward with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the standard-bearer for irresponsible fatherhood. Still unmarried, the 28-year-old has fathered seven children, born to six different mothers.

His child support obligations, for which he has been taken to court, were so extensive that they caused him to have a very public 'meltdown' last year. He pays a monthly average of US$6,000 (HK$46,440) for each child, a burden which led him to ask for a trade to his present employers, who cushioned him with a seven-year contract worth $107 million.