On Pot and Race in the NBA

Not to bring up race and drugs in one post, but when Brad Miller gets suspended for his his third weed offense and no one really cares, it’s time we ask those tough questions again. Namely, white dude with an affinity for guns and hunting suffers the perils of addiction in silence, and gets caught a third time. Now, what about the Josh Howard incident, where dude simply acknowledged that he likes to puff on occasion.↵
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↵I don’t mean to raise any hackles here, but Miller’s career has had some serious ups and downs. Howard’s, with the exception of 2007-08’s troubled second half, has been one big upward trend. Miller beat the odds, but was mediocre for a while; Howard established himself as a force in his first season on a playoff-bound Mavs team. Oh, and Howard came out and admitted this hobby of his unprovoked, just to try and be honest, while Miller’s been straight busted.↵
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It’s true, I’m something of a Howard apologist. But how is Miller’s drug intake not more worthy of condemnation than Howard’s? Because he’s noble enough to get caught? That didn’t help Lamar Odom back in his Clippers days. Because he’s white, and not burning this demon plant in the presence of rims and loud music? Seriously, Howard was just speaking the truth. Don’t kill the messanger. If he got broiled, and Odom caught hell in the past, let’s at least put Miller’s career under the microscope.↵
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↵Or is it just a non-story what some occasionally excellent white big man does in his spare time? It neither helps or hurts the league’s image because, frankly, he’s a dying breed. In much the same way that Chris Andersen’s suspension didn’t send shockwaves through the community of former NBDL stragglers.↵