Professional athletes are expected to meet some standards to have a long and successful career, and NBA players aren’t the exception to the rule. Even though the league decided to stop testing players for weed, it wasn’t always like that. Back in the 90s and 2000s, the league was very strict with these rules and whoever dared to break them will get a big punishment.
We know that some players enjoy smoking and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, during this time, the association made sure that no one got away with a failed test. A young Al Harrington once had to go through this process and he didn’t enjoy it.
Second-year Harrington was part of the Indiana Pacers when he first smoked. As he revealed on SHOWTIME’s “All The Smoke,” the very next day, he was selected for a random drug test. Harrington said he didn’t fail it, but diluted it.
“It was the second year, it was the second year. That’s the first time I smoked, was in Phoenix. I had the drug test. I didn’t pass it, I diluted. ‘Cause what happened was, the trainer calls me on my way to the gym, and was like, ‘yo, you got a piss test.’ I’m like, ‘get the fuck out of here!’ First time I ever smoke, I get piss tested the next day. When he told me, I got off the bus, and I went to whole foods and I got that Sonne’s #7 thing y’all told me to get. I got that. I drank it. That shit was disgusting. I just started pissing all day, pissing all day. I got to the game, and I’m nervous so I don’t when I get there. I tell them I can’t piss. So I wait ’til after the game. So I remember y’all was waiting on me and everything and when I pissed it was all water, so that’s when I realized you get a dilute test. You get one. So that was my one. That’s how I passed. It was all water. He put the thing in, he was like, ‘this is all water.’ And I was like, ‘what do you want me to do?'”
This is an incredible story about how he used the rules in his favor. All the teammates gave him this trick and Harrington didn’t miss it. Fortunately, he diluted the test and was able to get another chance.
It must have been a very tense situation for him, but he came out victorious, and with a lesson for the future. Harrington ended up having a decent NBA career, playing for 16 years on several teams, living incredible things wherever he went.
