In the 70's NBA players smoked cigarettes at half-time
So I'm watching the Wizards-Pelicans pre season game in Baltimore. They were talking about how their used to be smoking allowed in the arena and.....
Phil Chenier (Member of the 1978 Washington Bullets championship squad and current commentator for the Wizards) just said that players used to smoke in the locker room during half-time. He called out Wes Unseld and Gus Johnson by name, plus a few other guys.
What should we think of this? Did they really take the game so lightly back then?
(In other news, Kevin Seraphin is still a ****ing bum. The dude is 260lbs of solid muscle and he refuses to take any contact ever. He always throws up these dumb ****ing hooks where he's fading away from the hoop and those never draw any fouls)
Re: In the 70's NBA players smoked cigarettes at half-time
Smoking was totally different back in the day. They used to smoke on the bench in the 50s. Also players used to take their guns with them. Marvin Barnes would have the metal under the bench.
also, they used to smoke in courtrooms. This was before the health craze of the 80s.
Re: In the 70's NBA players smoked cigarettes at half-time
My highschool had smoking areas outside the lunchroom for student or teacher use. By my time you couldnt smoke...but you could at one time.
Re: In the 70's NBA players smoked cigarettes at half-time
I thought Silkk already made that clear? lel
Yea, was common..
Re: In the 70's NBA players smoked cigarettes at half-time
So wouldn't not smoking give you a huge advantage over a smoker? In terms of stamina and respiration and all that? Hard to ball when you're winded
Re: In the 70's NBA players smoked cigarettes at half-time
[B]Yea, different times.
Ron Artest also said he used to drink Hennessy at half-time though, and this was not long ago. Allen Iverson dealt with an alcohol addiction, I don't know if still during his playing days though... Which reminds of Pete Maravich, dude was heavy drinking at some point while still in the NBA, and still playing over 38 min, dropping over 27 ppg, lmfao.
Speaking of Phil Chenier, he was a baller in his best days, seen him in some taped games, dude had them handles and a good jumper.[/B]
[QUOTE=L.Kizzle]Smoking was totally different back in the day. They used to smoke on the bench in the 50s. Also players used to take their guns with them. Marvin Barnes would have the metal under the bench.
also, they used to smoke in courtrooms. This was before the health craze of the 80s.[/QUOTE]
[B]Yup, airplanes too. Yes, got different at some point.
Not to mention that plenty of players screwed their careers/potential due to drugs, during those days.[/B]
Re: In the 70's NBA players smoked cigarettes at half-time
So? Ron Artest drank Hennessey at Halftime.
Re: In the 70's NBA players smoked cigarettes at half-time
[QUOTE=ralph_i_el]So wouldn't not smoking give you a huge advantage over a smoker? In terms of stamina and respiration and all that? Hard to ball when you're winded[/QUOTE]
[B]In theory, yea... Still must've been plenty of times where a player who was a smoker (or even an alcoholic) was just out-balling another player who was not. Never know, not everybody is the same.
[/B]
Re: In the 70's NBA players smoked cigarettes at half-time
Yea that stuff just affects some people different.
I had a homie that would drink and get high before games and would kill it. Dude had one of the sweetest jumpers I've ever seen.
Artest drinking during games would explain some of his behavior.
Re: In the 70's NBA players smoked cigarettes at half-time
I've seen it mentioned in more than a few documentary's that players in the 70s used to do coke in the half time breaks. That 30 for 30 film on the celtics draftee (not len bias think it was called unguardable or something) also said he used to do drugs before games since college. At one point he says he was waiting outside the celtics arena in uniform for his drug dealer because he couldn't play with out them. This was in the 90s.
Re: In the 70's NBA players smoked cigarettes at half-time
Still much much better than the coke during the 80's and early 90's.
Re: In the 70's NBA players smoked cigarettes at half-time
now they flop around the court like europeans.
Re: In the 70's NBA players smoked cigarettes at half-time
A lot of NFL players used to do coke back then too. Hell everybody did coke back then.
Re: In the 70's NBA players smoked cigarettes at half-time
[QUOTE=buddha]now they flop around the court like europeans.[/QUOTE]
The transition came with this man
[IMG]http://www.notinhalloffame.com/UserFiles/Image/article_images/Basketball/41.%20Vlade%20Divac.jpg[/IMG]
combined both worlds
Re: In the 70's NBA players smoked cigarettes at half-time
[QUOTE=TheReal Kendall]A lot of NFL players used to do coke back then too. Hell everybody did coke back then.[/QUOTE]
Richard Pryor used to fux Pam Grier with cocain on his dick.
