Is University of North Carolina alum and former professional basketball player Eric Montross the rich pal of onetime presidential hopeful John Edwards who is (allegedly) paying off both his (alleged) mistress Rielle Hunter and the guy who is taking responsibility for her bastard baby?

This certainly falls under the umbrella of "Wildly Speculative," but let's look at the facts:

Yesterday, the Enquirer reported that a "wealthy colleague who was closely tied to the Edwards campaign" has been funneling $15,000 dollars a month to Hunter in hush money, as well as an undisclosed sum to Andrew Young, the former Edwards aide who took responsibility for fathering Hunter's child when the story first broke back in October. Per the Enquirer's source: "A super-rich pal—who was closely involved with the campaign finances—is helping John. It's likely this man doesn't know all the dirty details of John's extramarital affair, but is acting out of loyalty and is not asking a lot of questions—only writing the checks."

In a follow-up story published on December 19, the Enquirer reported that after word of the affair got out, Hunter moved into a home owned by an Edwards supporter in the exclusive Governors Club, a gated community less than five miles away from the Edwards HQ in Chapel Hill and only a few blocks away from the Young residence.

Here's where things get weird: five days later, a right-wing blog called Death By 100 Papercuts received a tip that the house Hunter had moved into was owned by a former NBA player who had contributed money to the Edwards campaign. Doing some digging, Doug Ross reported that the only former NBA player who had donated money to Edwards was Eric Montross, a UNC graduate who was drafted by the Boston Celtics back in 1994 and ended his NBA career in 2003. Montross gave $4,600 to Edwards during the 2008 election cycle; he was described as a "big backer of John Edwards' White House bid" by CNN. (Edwards went to UNC law school.)

Now. An Intelius search reveals that Montross does indeed currently reside in the Governors Club gated community, so that jibes with both the Enquirer's initial reporting as well as the subsequent blog tip. When we speculated yesterday that the house Hunter had been living might have belonged to Montross, a commenter named "RielleHuner" posted the following:

The moneyman was Celtics player Eric Montross who also has been paying $8500 a month to ex-Edwards campaign manager Andrew Young, who coincidentally acknowleged [sic] untested paternity of female baby Frances Quinn Hunter-Edwards on her birth certificate.

The commenter quickly amended his comment to say that Young was being paid $18,500 a month, not $8,500.

A commenter using a different name (but maybe the same person? Impossible to tell!) over at esteemed political analysis site Perez Hilton also posted the following when Hilton wrote about the story:

"NBA star Eric Montross is the one who has been paying Edward's mistress $15,000 a month." (It's comment number 127.)

Montross made nearly $19 million over the course of his career (not bad for a guy who averaged 4.9 points), so he certainly fits the Enquirer's description of the mysterious money man as a "super-rich pal" of Edwards. Chapel Hill baby-blue blood runs deep, so it's possible that he's only "acting out of loyalty." He's also obviously not a life-long politics guy with a career at stake, so perhaps he is indeed "not asking a lot of questions—only writing the checks."

(It goes without saying that there are probably dozens of really rich dudes who live in Governors Club who are Edwards supporters and who would gladly give him no-strings-attached money for access to future political capital, but where's the fun in that?)

Legendary Tar Heel Michael Jordan famously explained his reluctance to get involved in North Carolina politics by saying, "Republicans buy sneakers too." Is Eric Montross taking the complete opposite stance in enabling a massive cover-up by providing a politician's mistress with shelter and cash? Or is he simply the victim of a right-wing conspiracy propagated by Duke Blue Devils? We don't know—calls to his house went unreturned.