When cocaine ruled the NBA: ‘Drugs were everywhere, it was like a fad’ | Sport

The anecdote was told by none other than Michael Jordan V Last danceNetflix documentary about his final season with the Chicago Bulls. In 1984, then-rookie Jordan, who would go on to make a historic impact on the sport, found himself in a hotel on the eve of an away game. He looked for his teammates and knocked on doors until one opened. “I walk in and almost the whole team was there. And it was like something I had never seen in my life as a child. There are your (cocaine) lines here, there are pot smokers here, there are your women here. So the first thing I said was, “Listen, man, I’m coming out.” Because all I could think about was that if they came and raided this place right now, I would be just as guilty as everyone else in this room.” Jordan reminded.

No wonder before arrival the player who will become their biggest starThe Bulls were known as the traveling cocaine circus. Publication in the USA Forbidden, The memoir of Michael “Sugar” Ray Richardson, the first player to be suspended from the sport for drug use, brought into focus an era when the NBA was better known for the excesses of its players off the court than the spectacle they provided on it.

Richardson, the fourth overall pick in the 1978 draft, wasn’t a big star, but he was a respected point guard drafted. All Star Game four times. However, his career was cut short during the 1985–86 season when, after failing a third drug test, he was banned for life from the league—an unprecedented punishment that David Stern, elected NBA commissioner in 1984, used as a warning to players. : The era of excess is over. By that time, drug use among NBA players had increased so much that in 1980. Washington Post published an article it is estimated that between 40% and 75% of the league’s players used cocaine, and one in ten smoked marijuana.

“Let’s get together when the game is over”

Those numbers, as incredible as they may seem in 2024, don’t seem far-fetched based on some admissions from players like Richardson. “During warm-ups, guys from different teams were saying, ‘Hey man, I got what you’re looking for.’ Let’s get together when (the game) is over” (…) Drugs were everywhere – it was like a fad,” the former player said. Guardian newspaper. To the point that, as he explains in his memoirs, some teams began spying on their players, such as when Robinson was traded for Golden State Warriors. “When I came to Auckland, I lived in a Holiday Inn and took drugs almost every day, especially when I was injured. I also became so immersed in the area’s famous nightlife that the Warriors began hiring private investigators to follow me.”

Robinson’s case was the most notorious for the punishment he received, but by no means the only one that came to light at the time regarding drug use by NBA players. Marvis “Bad News” Barnes was a power forward who played for several teams in the 1970s and 1980s, including the Detroit Pistons and Detroit Pistons. Boston Celtics. His biography Bad newstells how he went from being an important league player to serving five years in prison for drug trafficking. However, the story of Len Bias was even more tragic. Considered one of the most promising college players of his generation, he was selected second overall in the 1986 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics. After the ceremony, he decided to celebrate with some of his teammates. Less than two days after securing his future as an NBA player, he suffered a cocaine-induced cardiac arrhythmia that ended his life.

Bias’s death and Robinson’s suspension coincided in the same season, marking a turning point in the use of banned substances in the history of the competition. Stern’s plan was to turn the NBA into a global entertainment product, but first he needed to put an end to what happened after the games. So he instituted drug tests at every game and made treatment and rehabilitation programs available to players. In the short term, it didn’t end all drug use in the league, but it did change its dynamics.

Since the 1990s, the NBA’s testing has most often involved marijuana and its derivatives, for which regular penalties (both sporting and financial) have been levied each season. Until now. Last year, the players’ association and the NBA signed an agreement that, for the first time, recreational cannabis use would no longer be monitored through testing. This is the first concession, a sign of the times, a competition that has done its best to forget that wild period that still resonates from time to time.

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