The issue of marijuana use in the NBA has become more and more hot button as of late, and retired All-Star point guard Chauncey Billups is offering up his two cents worth.
Billups, a member of ESPN’s NBA Countdown crew, said on Friday’s show that some of his former teammates actually performed better while stoned.
“I honestly played with players — I’m not going to name names, of course I’m not, I’m not that kind of dude — but I wanted them to actually smoke,” Billups said, per Ryne Nelson of SLAM Magazine. “They played better like that. They had big-time anxiety — a lot of things that can be affected — that it brought them down a little bit, helped them focus in on the gameplan. I needed them to do that. I would rather them do that sometimes than drink.”
Billups, who played in the league from 1997 to 2014, most notably with the Detroit Pistons and the Denver Nuggets, is contributing to a discussion that has picked up momentum lately thanks to the comments of Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr on his use of marijuana to relieve the pain from his multiple back surgeries.
While Billups’ comments blur the lines between the use of the drug for medicinal purposes versus recreational purposes, it will be interesting to see how the conversation further develops from here, especially since marijuana is currently banned under the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement.
Image via Ximo Pierto on YouTube
