HoopsHype.com NBA Blogs - Sam Smith

I was reading the report last weekend of Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah being arrested back at the U. of Florida for marijuana possession. And I’m thinking, “Why is this news? Isn’t it news if it was reported Noah—have you ever looked at or listened to this guy?—wasn’t using marijuana?”
 
But here we go again with NBA reefer madness with Noah and a month or so ago the dumbest player in the NBA—that certainly would be Josh Howard now in what no longer appears a close contest—volunteered he’s a regular offseason marijuana user and figured it was no big deal because it’s use was commonplace in the NBA.
 
Geez, didn’t anyone ever give this guy that speech about if your friend jumped off a building or told the world he was committing a crime would you do it, too?
 
Anyway, this all hardly qualifies as an epidemic, though many would have you wringing your hands and again lamenting the social ills of the NBA. Yes, back in 2001, Charles Oakley decided that maybe 50 to 60 percent of the players in the NBA used marijuana. A few years later, the Rocky Mountain News surveyed NBA players and from a sample of about 60 decided that some 30 percent of the players were using the drug.
 
Both of these accounts followed a 1997 New York Times report of substance abuse among NBA players and threw out a figure of 60 to 70 percent, though lost in the fine print was no real distinction between alcohol and marijuana.
 
And, yes, there’s the rub.
 
I know, I know, marijuana is illegal and alcohol is not.
 
But this should give pause to everyone who reads and reacts to headlines of NBA players using or being arrested in connection with marijuana.
 
I don’t know how many players in the NBA use marijuana, though we do know now about Noah. We’ve previously heard issues with Allen Iverson, Chris Webber, Robert Parish, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Rasheed Wallace and at one time most of Portland, though it is a particularly liberal place.
 
Of course, we’ve also heard the same about former President Bill Clinton, who insisted he didn’t inhale, and now U.S. Senator Barack Obama, who also wrote in his first book about experimenting with “blow,” the street name for cocaine.
 
Using Aristotelian logic, perhaps this means more NBA players than we think could be running for president, though in the Democratic party. Which might not be a bad thing because perhaps they’d be too mellow to be declaring war so often.
 
But I digress.
 
Actually, two issues strike me when these NBA drug scare stories arise.
 
One, of course, is the shocking notion that young men in their 20’s might be experimenting with a mild drug that men in their 20’s who’ve gone on to be the leaders of our nation experimented with when they were in their 20’s.
 
That is what your 20’s generally are for. There’s an old saying about socialism from Winston Churchill that says if a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart.

If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain. The point is your 20’s is for asking and answering questions and experimenting with life.
 
So marijuana should be legalized, right? It’s not legal, so that’s the answer for now. It’s also illegal to file taxes that do not perfectly represent your income and expenses and to go over the speed limit when driving. But I’m told it’s happened.
 
The larger question to me being around the NBA is the effect of alcohol.
 
The NBA has a drug testing policy, probably the toughest in sports and for the longest time since cocaine use was a major issue in the late 1970’s and the players wanted it cleaned up. All players are tested for drugs including marijuana up to four times per season.
 
Do some players in the NBA still get away with using marijuana? Sure. I’ve heard some names, though they don’t invite me along. What’s the percentage? Who the heck knows?
 
I believe it’s far less than any of the estimates thrown around. Though I do know alcohol abuse is rampant and I’ve witnessed that for many years.
 
Because there is drug testing, the stimulant of choice in the NBA now perhaps more than ever is alcohol. I’m told the fellas enjoy their vodka and Red Bull. And, of course, beer, which had been widely distributed in sports locker rooms for years before St. Louis Cardinals player Josh Hancock was killed in a car accident last year driving home from a game.
 
This is the trickiest issue of all for all of us because while alcohol is legal, it is frequently abused. Do you think more people are killed by drunk drivers or pot smoking drivers? How do you feel in the parking lot after your favorite major league baseball game knowing that guy sitting next to you with 12 cups stacked high is driving home? But with the games often sponsored by your favorite brew, what’s the choice?
 
I recall during the winning years of the Bulls franchise in the 1980’s and 1990’s seeing players like Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen dropping several six packs in their gym bags after the game. Drinking on the way home? Who knows? Maybe they had drivers. I don’t know.
 
I recall being in the team hotel and seeing the waiter taking empty liquor bottles on the tray from the room of Vin Baker. It was widely known around the NBA at the time Baker was drinking heavily. But it was legal. Should I as a reporter have written about it? It’s not like Baker was doing anything wrong but throwing away his career as he’d later go into rehab.
 
The team knew about it and teammates did as well. So did Baker’s representatives. But the stigma of going into rehab could cost him a contract, so no one ever said anything.
 
I know of several players now around the NBA who tell me teammates have serious drinking issues. They say the team and their agents know. But no one wants to do anything for fear of losing, A. The player as an asset; B. The player having a chance to get a better deal or new contract when his current one expires.
 
What’s my responsibility to write about it? What if the player drives and kills someone or himself? Could I have warned someone by reporting it? But what right do I have if he’s doing nothing illegal? And the people closest to him and for whom he works aren’t doing anything?
 
It seems to me these are the bigger issues facing the NBA—and all sports—today. Yes, there’s marijuana use in the NBA, and to anyone who saw Noah with his white suit on draft day in 2007 you figured there was a marijuana arrest in his future. But the league has bigger substance abuse issues, which don’t seem to be addressed by anyone.

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The 2008 playoffs are about halfway finished, and if there’s one thing we’ve learned it’s that the champion is going to come from the Western Conference yet again.

Have you been watching this Celtics-Cavaliers series?

No, I don’t blame you. I have been watching, though I enjoy finger nails scraping across a chalkboard and Republican presidential debates.

This most highlights the reason why the Eastern Conference is inferior to the Western Conference. The East has turned Ray Allen’s sweet jump shot into Muhammad Ali against Trevor Berbick. Yes, Cavs coach Mike Brown makes a mockery of the game with his slowdown, half court, walk-it-up, unimaginative offense that generally puts LeBron James, arguably the best open court player in NBA history, in a one/four set against a wall of defenders.

It would be truly amazing if James remains in Cleveland when his contract expires with that system, which could have him used up by the time he’s 28. The amazing part is Boston has allowed itself to be lured into Cleveland’s stuck-in-mud game, which probably is smart in the short term for the Cavs.

They should lose Game 7. But too many of the Celtics flaws – flaws we all talked about before the season that seemed resolved in a brilliant 66-win run – seem all too real.

Could three All-Stars in their 30’s who’ve never had much playoff success and have just come together stand up to the crucible? It seems no now. Kevin Garnett’s critics say he ran away from late offensive responsibility, and it’s seemed to be happening again. The ball doesn’t go to him enough, which is a Boston mistake, and he seems too willing to give it up, a Garnett failing. Could too much have been strained out of them pushing for that brilliant regular season? But it did give them Game 7’s at home in a season of parity when home court really matters.

The Celtics were wonderful to watch all season, scoring in transition, which Cleveland is good at stalling, moving the ball and themselves. But Cleveland invited them into bad basketball hell and the Celtics obliged.

Though Rajon Rondo bailed out Boston in Game 5 with a couple of big time first half threes, Rondo is mostly ineffective in the half court since he’s a poor decision maker and shooter. Sam Cassell doesn’t fit because he needs the ball and can’t defend. The Celtics Friday finally went back to Eddie House, who’d helped them all season but fell out of favor in the failed Cassell experiment. Kendrick Perkins has been useless and with Rondo that’s two players who don’t have to be guarded, allowing teams to pack it in even more. He should have yielded some time to Leon Powe. But the Little Nine doesn’t matter as much as the Big Three. Larry Bird never blamed Greg Kite. OK, but he was kidding. The Celtics impressed all season with unselfish play, but have failed to impose their collective will against two teams, the Hawks and Cavs, who have far inferior talent.

Whoever comes out of the West it’s difficult to see threatened by an Eastern team.

So what else have we learned in the last month?

Yes, Chris Paul is brilliant. But Deron Williams is brillian. Yes, maybe missing just the last letter. Really, really close.

Though Williams’ Jazz went home Friday night, we’re now waiting to see Williams and Paul in the USA team backcourt this summer. The duo now look like 1-2 in NBA point guards with Williams now officially the league’s most overlooked player, especially with Paul the darling of these playoffs.

But Kobe Bryant would still be my playoff MVP. No one gets more defensive attention and makes more big shots.

Williams can’t have the freedom in Jerry Sloan’s structured system that Paul has. Still, Williams averaged 21.6 points and 10 assists in the playoffs and 24 points and 12 assists the last five games against the Lakers.

The Jazz lost because Carlos Boozer couldn’t make shots, allowing the Lakers’ big men to stay inside, where Boozer was too small to play effectively inside.

The Lakers now look like the title favorites, and that’s without Andrew Bynum.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson hardly got any credit this season for pulling together what looked like a disaster of a Lakers season back in October as Bryant fought to be traded to the East, where he no doubt would have turned into Ricky Davis.

But with the Lakers now setting up what could be a five-year run, Jackson could pass Bill Russell in championships.

Figure them the favorite over who emerges from the Spurs-Hornets Game 7.

What we seem to be encountering there with three Hornets blowouts at home is less the power of home court advantage than two teams meeting, the Spurs on the way down and the young Hornets on the way up.

The future West landscape is beginning to look like the Lakers, Hornets, perhaps Trail Blazers and Jazz.

The Spurs hardly are done with Tony Parker at 26. But Manu Ginobili soon hits a hard 31 with all those falls and flops and international play and Tim Duncan is 32. Their supporting cast is mostly applying for Medicare. It’s why you see the young Hornets too quick for the Spurs too often. Look, this has been a serious decade long run. Few ever go that long. Few have been better than the Spurs.

Even if the Hornets don’t get by the Spurs Monday in Game 7, they are awfully close in their rear view mirror.

This quirky home court dominance in the conference semifinals has led to a mostly boring round with few game winners or buzzer beaters and plenty of blowouts. But with only the Pistons and Lakers winning on the road, at least we get a pair of Game 7’s, which don’t come along much.

So what else have we learned?

Oh, yeah. That Richard Hamilton isn’t bad.

While much was made of Rodney Stuckey stepping in for the injured Chauncey Billups against the Magic and not making a turnover in two games (though Lindsey Hunter threw away his walker and mostly played that first game), it was Hamilton who came up huge with 30-plus games and averaging 43 minutes the last three games.

Yes, Tayshaun Prince’s block on Hedo Turkoglu in the clinching game was the defensive play of the playoffs. Though Duncan’s three in the Game 1 with the Suns to send the game in double overtime – still the best game of this playoffs – remains the best moment in these playoffs.

The worst? The fire in New Orleans, as if they don’t have enough disasters, the choking pregame smoke in Boston, Carmelo Anthony declaring his team quitters (hey, was that another forced Anthony shot?), the Spurs hack-a-Shaq. As Mark Jackson would say, “Spurs, you’re better than that.” And the foolishness of the Washington Wizards, who seemed to have taken Gilbert Arenas‘ entertainment-instead-of-basketball lead by importing a failed rapper to try to mock LeBron James’ rapper friend.

It seemed they could have been using the stuff Josh Howard – wink, wink – says he saves for summer.

So we’re halfway there and if this is where amazing happens, then the games have to be getting better. Although I’m not holding out much hope in the East.

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Mark Cuban is a smart guy. I know this because I hear him tell everyone that. I find it difficult to challenge since he knew when to get out of the dot com boom and became a billionaire. I had no idea when to dump my newspaper stock and now am writing for basketball web sites. Good ones, mind you. But I am working. Cuban is dancing, with stars and just in general, it seems.

Last week, he was at Wrigley Field in Chicago sitting with maverick Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell, sparking once again all kinds of talk in Chicago about Cuban purchasing the legendary baseball Chicago Cubs.

The conventional wisdom has been that baseball owners, having watched the NBA basically fine Cuban more than Rasheed Wallace, won’t vet Cuban and allow him anywhere near their sport.

Now, with Zell the hellion looking to maximize profits on selling the team and stadium, you can be sure no matter what baseball says, Zell will feel entitled to the biggest bid. He’s the kind of entrepreneur to fight for it and in the American way warn baseball that its antitrust exemption doesn’t allow it to ignore the top bidder, no matter how bad his TV dancing may be.

The conventional wisdom (by the way, who are those people?) also has been Cuban doesn’t have the money, estimated at perhaps a billion dollars, to get into baseball in Chicago. Not in a sport without a salary cap. Not while also running the Mavericks.

See where I’m going here?

Is it time for Mark Cuban to cash in again? I can see – thus far my speculation – Cuban trying to sell the Mavericks to step up into baseball and one of the elite franchises in American sports history. One that is stocked with talent poised for a great run, where Cuban can even enhance his sports reputation. It’s Cuban’s kind of bold, headline-making move.

Chicago or Dallas? C’mon. Get real. Cuban is from Pennsylvania and went to college in Indiana. He’s a lifelong baseball fan. It’s a better environment for wardrobe of Cuban’s t-shirts.

Few know better than Cuban when to sell high and buy low, and now would be the perfect time to dump the Mavs and trade up to the Cubs.

Look, the Mavs are done. Did you see how happy Avery Johnson was to be fired?

No, they’re not an expansion team or a perennial loser, but their run is over.

Though Cuban and I have differed on his real impact given the team was on the brink of breaking through when he bought it, Cuban did some great things in Dallas. He helped get a beautiful new arena built. He involved the fans and scared the heck out of the local media. He should run for governor with that record.

But the Mavs maxed out and have been in decline since blowing that Game 3 fourth quarter lead in the 2006 Finals.

They’re out of the playoffs in the first round for the second consecutive season and looking for a new coach, said to likely be Rick Carlisle. They took a calculated gamble in trading for Jason Kidd, and it didn’t work. Look, they knew the window was closing and they took a shot. I can respect that, even if it didn’t work.

It’s over for this Mavs’ group.

Five of their top six players, including Jerry Stackhouse as sixth man, will be at least 30 for next season. Three are at least 34. They’re one of the league’s oldest and now slowest teams. They gave up too much youth and future in draft picks for Kidd.

The West is changing. The Hornets are young and athletic. The Trail Blazers could emerge if Greg Oden is healthy. The Lakers look like they have a run in them if Andrew Bynum can return to health next season. The Mavs as now constituted look like a team that’s going to struggle just to make the playoffs and be an easy out for the next several years. They’ve won at least 50 games for the last eight seasons. That’s a longer run than most get. It’s over.

And knowing Cuban you figure he knows. Give the man this: He reads markets well.

You don’t get to be much of a media star with a declining sports asset.

What a great time to sell, especially with the Cubs beckoning, a team with no championship for 100 years, a team that’s loaded with talent, just as the Mavs were when he Cuban bought them. It’s the chance to be a hero in one of the world’s great cities and media markets. Imagine how famous Cuban could then make himself, which, after all, seems to be what he is most about.

There was opposition among NBA owners to Cuban at the time he purhcaed the Mavs. Many had heard of his antics and iconoclastic personality. But commissioner David Stern couldn’t resist. It’s generally understood around the NBA there is regret they accepted Cuban given the way he has bashed and questioned the league so often. But Cuban offered to pay way more than the Mavs were valued at. Ownership equity increases like players’ salaries. It was just too tempting.

Once someone is paid something, that becomes the basis for that talent, the NBA definition of market value. Samuel Dalembert gets $64 million. Now Tyson Chandler wants $65 million because his stats are better. So Cuban pays some $280 million for a franchise valued at perhaps half that and Stern sees equity increasing for everyone with a new market set.

So what if Cuban makes an astronomical offer for the Cubs, one of those offers you can’t turn down?

Zell is certainly a character and non conformist. He owes no allegiance to baseball owners. Friends say though he is a minority partner in the Chicago White Sox, he doesn’t even like baseball. He has a massive debt to finance in purchasing Tribune Co. You can believe he’ll take the highest offer for the Cubs and Wrigley Field matter who makes it. You also figure he’d love to make baseball explain why it wouldn’t accept the best offer if it is Cuban. How does Congress sanction that with baseball’s antitrust exemption?

No one wants to get into that fight.

Though for a billionaire, Zell needs money now to service that huge debt. He’s not likely to want payment dragged out in a legal fight with baseball over its right to select the new Cubs’ owner. Of course, Zell also seems fond of telling people where to go just to show how rich he is and they aren’t. He’s is unpredictable. After all, who buys a huge media company in this environment?

As for Mark Cuban, you’ve got to figure the NBA, especially in Dallas, is a sell now. And MLB might well be the buy. Mark Cuban didn’t get rich sitting on declining assets.

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