DON'T SMOKE OUT GAME'S STARS

By Dan Shanoff
Special to ESPN SportsZone

When NBA analysts talk about the game as more highflying than ever, I'm
not sure if we are supposed to take them literally.

Toronto's Marcus Camby was arrested for marijuana possession in June after
police noticed his car drifting across a road.

According to a recent New York Times report, an estimated 60 to 70 percent
of NBA players smoke marijuana and drink excessively. At that rate, the
game isn't played above the rim. Above the arena is more like it.

Perhaps the NBA should update its slogan to, "I love this joint!"

Kidding aside, it's time to take a deep breath and slowly exhale. Let's
clear the smoky air: Mandatory, leaguewide marijuana testing would tear
the NBA apart. At the very least, it would tear at the carefully tailored
publicrelations fabric that binds the NBA to the fan base.

I don't pretend to be a Constitutional scholar or an expert in privacy law,
so I won't bother to argue against testing from those angles. However, I
can talk about why testing would ruin the game for all of us fans.

For one, the NBA Players Association is adamantly against testing for
marijuana. With the renegotiation of the collective bargaining agreement
coming up next summer, expect this issue to be one of the nonnegotiable
planks of the players' platform.

In the last labor agreement, the union allowed the league to test rookies
for certain drugs, a major concession. But don't expect the players to let
the league test everyone, whether for cause or not. Combine drug testing
with the usual salarystructure squabbles, and the labor agreement becomes
a powderkeg ready to explode in the league's collective face.

All sides have something to lose, but with Michael Jordan on his way out
and the league needing to reconstruct its foundation, NBA commissioner
David Stern and his ownerbosses can't afford a lengthy lockout or strike.
That could have the same detrimental effect on pro hoops as it did on
baseball.

UNION'S POSITION

The executive director of the NBA Players Association, Billy Hunter, told
the New York Times why the union would fight any league attempts to add
marijuana to the list of drugs for which the league can test: "You could
have a problem player on your team, and all of a sudden he becomes a player
who is under suspicion. If you take action based on that suspicion, with
nothing to substantiate it, it's not constitutional. I would never agree to
that. It's too ripe for abuse.

"It gives management a stick to abuse players who may not have a drug
problem. They could use that as subterfuge to get to the guy because of
other conduct. Testing based on suspicion is a way to control or monitor
players they don't like."

As fans, the last thing we want is a strike. And believe me, owners, right
or not, we'll blame you.

Besides, does the presence of marijuana necessarily constitute a problem in
the NBA? It would appear to have been a busy year so far, between the
arrests of Mookie Blaylock in Vancouver in February, Marcus Camby in
Connecticut and Isaiah Rider in Portland in June, and Allen Iverson in
Virginia in August. But these are more exceptions, fodder for tabloid
media, than symptoms of a dope epidemic.

The only court that should matter to NBA execs is the court of public
opinion, and even with potentially damning evidence of those recent runins
or The Times report, fans don't seem to care. Players are more athletic
than ever, and the games more fun to watch than ever before.

Besides, with their plodding offensive schemes as potent as any drug that
induces drowsiness, Mike Fratello and Pat Riley seemingly have done far
more than pot to curb the excitement and general athleticism of NBA players.

It's a variation of that classic question: "If NBA players are smoking pot,
and no one sees them, does anyone care?"

Even if there is a problem among players, there seems to be no problem
among fans no general outcry for testing. Why? We're happy with the
product.

The public relations landscape would change dramatically with leaguewide
testing. By testing everyone in public, the league puts the issue in front
of the fans. Punishing offenders with anything less than suspension would
make the league look as spineless as a jellyfish. Promotion of this policy
would be a punitive, logistical and publicrelations nightmare.

Let's assume that 70 percent is a ridiculously high estimate of the number
of players who smoke pot or drink excessively. Let's say it's closer to 10
percent. Think about that 10 percent of the league gone, suspended and
splashed across front pages and television screens across the country. On
every fan's mind, the issue would evolve into a demoralizing daily trek
through the transaction column, to see who's suspended today.

In the end, let's not kid ourselves. The NBA will do what the fans demand.
So which yields a greater publicrelations fiasco: Maintaining the status
quo and, under the guise of protecting players' rights, keeping mandatory
testing out of the league? Or testing the players, potentially opening up a
Pandora's box of media scrutiny, player suspensions and a general image of
dopeheads in the arena not seen in sports since the early 1980s?

When faced with a choice, the NBA must select the first option for its
own good and the good of its fans.

By supporting this position, we may be turning a blind eye on the societal
concern over increase in illegal drug use or even promoting a potential
problem down the road. But in the scheme of the fans' entertainment the
NBA's fundamental role to us is, after all, entertainment we'll be
seeing exactly what we want.

Dan Shanoff is an occasional contributor to ESPN SportsZone.