You don’t have to try too hard

I want the good life, I want it bad.

— “Easy Money,” Billy Joel

Make it make sense. Why would professional athletes and coaches being paid millions risk gravy trains normal people can only dream about for the cheap thrill of gambling wins for a fraction of what they get paid just to show up for work?

Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley, two former NBA players-turned-analysts who participated in an “Inside the NBA” panel, couldn’t disagree more on what is to blame for the league’s gambling scandal that broke with the arrests last week of Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, current Miami Heat player Terry Rozier and former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones.

Smith blamed “gambling addiction” among players, but Barkley — whose appreciation for games of chance is well-documented — wasn’t having it.

“You’re making me mad here,” Barkley told Smith. “This ain’t got nothing to do with addiction. These dudes are stupid. You can’t, under no circumstances, fix basketball games. Under no circumstances. I love to gamble.”

Barkley has never hesitated to call out the NBA, in which he was once a star.

“Rozier makes $26 million,” Barkley said. “Him giving people information or taking himself out of games — how much is he going to benefit taking himself out of games to hit unders? He’s making $26 million.”

Rozier, a Youngstown native who played at Shaker Heights High School and the University of Louisville, and Billups were among more than 30 people arrested as part of federal investigations into two large illegal gambling operations. Prosecutors allege both are linked to organized crime families.

Shaquille O’Neal, also part of the ESPN panel, also weighed in on the scandal.

“You all know the rules, we all know the letter of the law, and it’s just unfortunate,” O’Neal said. “Innocent until proven guilty, but usually when the FBI has something, they have you.”

The odds — no pun intended — are that Billups, Rozier and Jones will have killed the golden goose that made each of them rich and famous if they’re charged and found guilty.

If so and, as a result they’re drummed out of the game, someone should ask them — along with suspended Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz– if the cheap thrills of prop bets were worth it.

Of course not, if those and others who’ve had their careers and lives derailed by the scourge of gambling. Former Ohio State and NFL quarterback Art Schlichter can tell you about it. He got hooked on gambling in college and literally lost everything to his addiction.

Even Schlichter — whose gambling eventually landed him in prison for 10 years — doesn’t understand why players today would take such risks. Remember, he was a journeyman quarterback 40 years ago — when today’s professional sports salaries were unimaginable.

“I just don’t understand it,” Schichter told radio host Dan Dakich, “These guys are making millions and millions of dollars. I just don’t know why they would risk their careers like that to do that.

“I don’t know if they got an addiction or not, or if they think they’re better than the law or NBA or whatever. It shocks me that they would take that risk, especially the pro guys.”

Schlichter’s cautionary tale was bad enough. He admits to stealing about $1.5 million in order to gamble and pay off related debts. That’s a pittance in today’s money, but it ruined his life.

It could be that a new generation of current and former athletes are about to learn their own hard lessons. The major difference is the stakes are much higher now and — unlike 40 years ago — professional baseball, basketball and football have openly gotten into bed with legalized gambling.

That was unthinkable more recently than many realize.

After last Thursday’s arrests, the NBA issued just the sort of statement you’d expect: “The integrity of our game remains our top priority.”

Professional and college sports’ embrace of gambling seems to suggest that the players aren’t the only folks chasing the easy money.