Are you saying someone was ahead of their peers in key sales stats but got held back because of an athletic relationship with a manager? Or did playing basketball with them help?
Sorry, just a little confused.
And just a little personal experience here. I've always supported people wanting to lose weight and get in better shape, so we'd encourage people to workout during lunch. Well of course people starting seeing lunchtime workouts as an opportunity to get "air time" with the directors of the company. As long as the directors realize what's going on and don't act on biases that can develop from these non-work interactions everything should be fine -- its just really difficult to keep them separate.