Maverick Outs NBA
On April 25, soft-spoken Dallas Mavericks forward Josh Howard said on a radio show that he likes marijuana and smokes it during the offseason hours before a playoff game against the New Orleans Hornets. "Most of the players in the league use marijuana and I have and do partake in smoking weed in the offseason sometimes," Howard said on The Michael Irvin Show on the ESPN Radio affiliate in Dallas, adding that ''everybody in the media world and in the sports world” knows it.
''That's my personal choice and my personal opinion,” Howard said, “I don't think that's stopping me from doing my job.'' Arguably so. Howard has averaged 15.2 points and 6.4 rebounds for his five-year NBA career and averaged 19.9 and 7.0 this past regular season. The Mavericks won Game 3 that night with Howard scoring 18 points, but the team ultimately lost the series, and Howard seemed to feel the pressure his admission brought him.
Mavericks owner and self-made billionaire Mark Cuban calmly commented, "It depends if we win or lose....If we win, 'Boy, it's amazing what guys do for motivation. It worked!" Cuban said. "If we lose, 'Oh, what a distraction."'
Howard’s admission brought one from commentator and T-Mobile spokesperson Charles Barkley, who put his use squarely in the court of his past. In 1993, the year he was voted the NBA’s most valuable player, Barkley made national news when he wrote the text for his "I am not a role model" Nike commercial.
In 2001, former NBA star Charles Oakley estimated that 60 percent of league's players used marijuana. The NBA's drug-testing policy allows for four tests per season. However, if the league has "probable cause," it can to test a player as often as it wants, including during the off-season, presuming the players' association agrees to the probable cause.
“Back in December, [Howard] scored a career-high 47 points against the Utah Jazz,” wrote Rick Telander of the Chicago Sun Times. “What if he smokes dope the way hard-charging executives chill out with a martini or two? And how many of those executives, offspring of the 1960s, now chase those martinis with a few tokes on a joint?”
“It's not right, but history shows that illegal drugs are usually the drugs that are out of favor with the ruling class,” Telander continued. “Drugs are made illegal, as long as enforcement mainly affects the poor and the underclass.” There’s an issue for the NBA.
No comments:
Post a Comment