With the news of Lamar Odom’s alleged drug problem breaking, TMZ claims it has evidence of other drug misuse in the NBA. It’s pretty obvious weed use is still prevalent with athletes in both football and basketball. But an anonymous NBA player says that use largely happens outside of the season. He also says that hard drugs like coke aren’t the drug of choice for NBA guys.
But, he said that “sippin on syrup” or lean – that’s Sprite and Codeine cough syrup- and the occasional use of “Mollys” is what the current extracurricular contraband of choice is. Another source says the drug problem in the NBA over the past 5 years has improved because of social media exposure. The estimate is that maybe 10% to 15% of NBA players use “hard core drugs.”
I’ve never understood the concept of syrup. But one NBA player told me that some guys just play better high (weed) because they don’t over think and is causes the game just to come to them. Before people start with the outrage and demand more testing of players. Ask yourself this, how often are you randomly drug tested at your job and would you like that number upped based off of something a coworker may or may not have done.