J.R. Smith revealed how NBA players coped with the stress and seclusion of the 2020 Bubble Tournament. As a guest on Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes’ All the Smoke podcast he confirmed smoking weed was how the athletes managed their time in Orlando.
“We was blowing it down in there,” Smith confessed when asked if players were getting high in Orlando. “You know what’s funny though…that was the only way you could really function in that joint.”
“It was cool, I’m glad it happened because it finally broke that barrier and that stigma that you couldn’t play and all of this, it was a drug, it was this and that,” he continued. “But when you go to the bubble basketball, some of them dudes…granted, it was like practice games and some of ‘em really can’t play that well in front of 30,000…but at the same time you saw some of the best level of basketball.”
He added, “when you can be at peace with your mind, your body, and your soul, and you can go out there and just hoop, that’s all you want.”
The 2020 NBA season was forced to operate in a bubble due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Los Angeles Lakers came out on top after defeating the Miami Heat in six games.
View the full episode of the All the Smoke podcast below.