Former NBA player Vernon Maxwell has been open about his struggles with drug addiction in his life. Maxwell has admitted to using cocaine, but made it clear on the Truth Be Told podcast that he never smoked crack cocaine.
“Some n***a came out and said something about I smoke crack cocaine,” Maxwell said. “I said, ‘Nah n***a you got me f***ed up n***a.’ I snorted cocaine. It’s different n***a. I was snorting, I wasn’t smoking. I was snorting cocaine.”
Maxwell had landed himself in trouble for drug use even before he came into the NBA. He once admitted to using cocaine twice during his time at the University of Florida. Maxwell first failed a university drug test in his junior year at Florida. He then reportedly failed the NCAA’s mandatory drug test in his senior year after a 62-59 win over St. John’s in the first round of the 1988 tournament.
Maxwell’s drug addiction nearly derailed his NBA career, but the Denver Nuggets would select him with the 47th pick of the 1988 draft. He was traded to the San Antonio Spurs on draft night and would go on to spend 13 seasons in the NBA.
In total, Maxwell played for eight teams, and he is most remembered for his time with the Houston Rockets. He helped the Rockets win back-to-back championships in 1994 and 1995, although his time with the franchise didn’t end on a positive note.
Maxwell had quit on the team during the 1995 playoffs, and the Rockets waived him after the season. He bounced around the league after that and retired in 2001. Maxwell finished his NBA career with averages of 12.8 points, 2.6 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 1.1 steals, and 0.2 blocks per game.
The NBA’s Cocaine Problem
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the NBA had a massive problem on its hands in the form of widespread cocaine use among the players. It was so common that Michael Jordan once recounted walking into a Chicago Bulls cocaine party as a rookie.
“I walk in and practically the whole team was in there,” Jordan said in ‘The Last Dance’. And it was like, things I’ve never seen in my life, you know, as a young kid. You got your lines over here, you got your weed smokers over here, you got your women over here. So the first thing I said, ‘Look, man, I’m out.’ Because all I can think about is if they come and raid this place, right about now, I am just as guilty as everyone else that’s in this room. And from that point on, I was more or less on my own.”
Jordan made the right decision there. The NBA introduced a strong drug policy in 1983 to tackle the issue at hand, with players facing bans if they were convicted of using or selling illegal drugs.
Michael Ray Richardson would become the first active NBA player to be banned for life in 1986 for three violations of the policy. Richardson would be reinstated two years later, but never played in the NBA again.
Just months after Richardson’s suspension, Len Bias passed away due to a cocaine overdose in June 1986. The Boston Celtics had selected Bias with the second pick of the 1986 NBA Draft just two days prior, and his passing provided a real wake-up call to everyone. Cocaine remains a banned substance in the NBA today and rightfully so.
