The anecdote is relayed by none other than Michael Jordan In The last dancethe Netflix documentary about his final season with the Chicago Bulls. In 1984, Jordan, then a rookie, who would have a historic impact on the sport, found himself in a hotel on the eve of an away match. He looked for his teammates and knocked on doors until one opened. “I walked in and pretty much the whole team was there. And it was like things I had never seen in my life as a young child. You have your (cocaine) lines here, you have your weed smokers here, you have your women here. So the first thing I said, “Look man, I’m out.” Because all I was thinking was, if they came and raided this place, at that moment, I would be as guilty as everyone else in this room. Jordan recalled.

It is not in vain, before the arrival of the player who would become their biggest starthe Bulls were known as “the traveling cocaine circus.” The publication in the USA of Forbidden, The memoir of Michael “Sugar” Ray Richardson, the first player to be banned from the sport for drug use, has shed light on an era when the NBA was known almost more for its players’ off-court excesses than for spectacle. that they offered there.

Richardson, drafted fourth overall in 1978, was not a big star, but he was a highly regarded point guard who was selected for the All-Star Game four times. However, during the 1985-86 season, his career was cut short: after failing a third doping test, he was banned from the league for life, an unprecedented sanction that David Stern, elected NBA commissioner in 1984, used as a warning to players. : the era of excess was over. By this time, drug use among NBA players had increased so much that by 1980, The Washington Post published an article in which it is estimated that between 40% and 75% of the league’s players use cocaine, while one in ten smoke marijuana.

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

These numbers, as incredible as they may seem in 2024, do not seem exaggerated if some admissions from players like Richardson are to be believed. “During warmups, guys from different teams were like, ‘Yo, man, I got what you’re looking for. Let’s get together when (the match) is over. (…) Drugs were everywhere, it was like a fashion,” said the former player. The guardian newspaper. To the point that, as he explains in his memoir, some teams began spying on their players, like when Robinson was traded to the Warriors of the Golden State. “When I first came to Oakland, I lived in a Holiday Inn and got high almost every day, especially when I was injured. I also immersed myself in the area’s famous nightlife, so much so that the Warriors began hiring private investigators to follow me.

Robinson’s case was the most notorious case – because of 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 Barnes, nicknamed “Bad News”, was a power forward who played in the 1970s and 1980s for several teams, including the Detroit Pistons and the Boston Celtics. His biography, Bad newstells the story of how he went from being an important player in the league to five years in prison for drug trafficking. However, Len Bias’ story is 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 cardiac arrhythmia caused by cocaine use that ended his life.

Bias’ death and Robinson’s ban coincided in the same season, marking a turning point in the use of banned substances in the competition’s history. Stern’s plans were to turn the NBA into a global entertainment product, but first he had to put a stop to what happened after the games. Thus, he introduced doping tests at every match and made treatment and rehabilitation programs available to players. In the short term, it hasn’t ended all instances of drug use in the league, but it has changed its dynamic.

Since the 1990s, the substance that appears most frequently in NBA testing has been marijuana and its derivatives, with regular sanctions (sporting and financial) imposed each season. Until now. Last year, the players’ association and the NBA signed an agreement that, for the first time, recreational cannabis use will no longer be monitored in testing. It is the first concession, a sign of the times, of a competition which has done its best to forget a wild period which, from time to time, still resonates.

Register for our weekly newsletter to get more English media coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition