Players Banned From The NBA

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We've seen NBA players hit with ridiculous fines for a variety of reasons, but these NBA players managed to get themselves banned from the league. Before Chris Anderson, or better known as The Birdman, would go on to become a local treasure with the Miami Heat fans during the Lebron era, he had been falling on hard times with substance abuse while with the Hornets during the 2004-2005 season. A season later in 2006, his troubles threatened to jeopardize his future in the NBA when he tested positive for drugs with the NBA. While it was never released what drugs Anderson had been doing, we do know they were hard drugs considering NBA rules. Anderson received a permanent ban from the league and was denied an option to appeal for reinstatement for at least two years. Had he tested positive for either marijuana or steroids, the league would have initially started out with fines. However, league rules state that coming out positive once for drugs considered in the category of abuse constitutes a ban. The drugs on that list are LSD, meth, heroin, codeine, morphine, and PCP. The Hornets were faced with no other option but to have released Anderson until he made good on his reinstatement. That was if he did. The owner of the Hornets, George Shen, released a statement following his forced departure from the league saying, Obviously disappointed and saddened to hear Chris has been dismissed from the league. On behalf of his teammates, coaches, and the entire organization, we wish him well and hope he learns from this experience. Anderson began to use the time to get clean for good while he worked on his game to prepare for reinstatement in the league in 2008 To accomplish this, Anderson attended a rehab center in Malibu, California for a few months before going off the train with fellow NBA players to help him get back his game. Two years later in 2008, Anderson had done just that. Despite sporting a few more tattoos in his neck and arms, Anderson had finally been clean. He was even able to join up with the Hornets while they were in the mid swing of the 2008-2009 season. Hornets GM Jeff Bauer said the team had been long anticipating his return, saying, We're always more concerned with Chris Anderson the person rather than Chris Anderson the player. We're pleased that he's taken the appropriate measures to get himself reinstated by the NBA. We'll now begin the process of getting him back on the court and back in a Hornets uniform as quickly as possible. Before he would change his name to be known as Metal World Peace, he ironically was not a very peaceful person from when we called him Ron Artest. One of the biggest highlights of his career didn't take place in the form of a game-winning shot or even something infamous like a scandal. Ron is known for inciting the biggest NBA brawl in the history of the sport. During the final 45 seconds of a matchup between the Pacers and the Pistons, Rashid Wallace goes up for a shot and he gets fouled hard by Artest. Wallace is noticeably aggravated by the foul and he shoves Artest. A typical team versus team huddle follows the shove to keep both players from launching off punches. The teams eventually calm down and when they're waiting for a ref call, Artest could be seen on the scorers table and he has a drink thrown at him from the crowd. Artest jumps from his position, now running up to the fan he thinks threw the drink and he just started throwing punches. All piece is broken once again and now other Pistons fans start to move in on the fight, which only leads to Pacer players to come up to the rows to fight the fans back. The site is so chaotic that even the commentators seem to be having a hard time describing what exactly was taking place. At some point, a fan even gets in the court and starts another fight, now nearby the Pistons bench. As the players are finally being escorted out, Pistons fans start throwing drinks, food, really anything they could get their hands on at the Pacers players and staff. We come to find out later that Artest first punched the fan that started the whole incident, wasn't even the same fan that had thrown the drink. He mistaking the fan for someone else. John Green, who was the man who launched the Diet Coke, starting the whole incident, later admitted, I was sitting there talking to my buddy, and I asked, does anyone have a Diet Coke with ice in it? I bet I could hit him with this cup. I just launched it in the air underhanded, went out like a perfect dart, hit him right in the chest. Now it's time for the NBA to send out its punishment. Artest was suspended for the rest of the 2004-2005 regular season and any playoff games, which ultimately amounted to 86 games missed. Fellow Pacer Steven Jackson, along with Jermaine O'Neal, was suspended indefinite and all players involved had to undergo community service. As for the fan, some were charged and banned from the Piston Stadium for life. In terms of injuries, nine fans were hit and two had injuries bad enough they had to go to the hospital. Starting on his career in 1967, Roger Brown signed with the Indiana Pacers, which at the time had been a part of the ABA. With the ABA, Brown went on to become one of the greatest players to ever play in the league prior to the ABA-NBA merger that took place in 1976 During his days as a Pacer, Brown had gone on to score a career total of 10,498 points, which averaged out to 17 points per game, along with winning three ABA championships. However, something had happened to Brown before success with the ABA that cost him his chance to ever play in the NBA even after the merger. After a successful high school career, Brown went on to get accepted with a full scholarship to play at the University of Dayton. His freshman season, Brown continued to dominate as he had in high school. However, disaster struck shortly after Brown befriended Jack Melinas. Melinas had been at one time a Colombian All-American NBA player, but he had been banned from the NBA for legally betting on games. And despite Brown never being caught betting on games, his close relationship with Melinas had been enough to raise suspicion. And it had later been found out that Brown had been working loosely enough with Melinas to justify banning any chance Brown would have in the NBA, along with ripping up his scholarship with the University of Dayton. Brown left the college and went to a period of despair while he lived in New York, working dead-end jobs. He had eventually cleaned his act and returned to Dayton, Ohio to work the night shift at a General Motors plant. His luck had come back around in 1967 when the ABA had just formed. The ABA and General Manager of the Pacers discovered Brown when they acted on a tip that Oscar Robinson had informed them about Brown's playing ability. Not 25 years old, Brown started his basketball career with the rival ABA in 1967 He wanted to continue playing until the NBA merger, where he decided to leave the league out of loyalty for the ABA because of his second chance they'd given him. Despite having been banned from the league in the early 60s, Brown's retired jersey could still be found hanging in the Pacers Stadium to commemorate the three championships he led the team to in the early 70s in the ABA. OJ Mayo's habits of breaking league rules had started just before he got drafted in the NBA in 2008 During his freshman year playing ball at the University of Southern California, Mayo had proven to be an excellent player. His abilities on the court attracted the attention of sports agencies who had already started scouting Mayo for representation for his eventual draft in the NBA. One of those agencies had been Billy Duffy Associates Sports Management. While playing in college, it was discovered that Mayo had been accepting gifts from the agency, which in the eyes of the NCAA was a gross overstep of league policy. The controversy forced Mayo to end his college days after just a year playing. That same year in 2008, Mayo was drafted to the Memphis Grizzlies as the third pick in the draft. Mayo would go on to lead a fairly drama-less career in the NBA, as he went on to be an asset for the teams he played for until 2016 And during the 2016 preseason, it had been found that Mayo had been violating the league's anti-drug policy when he tested positive for using painkillers. He'd been the first player to receive a ban in over a decade since Chris Anderson's ban for the same offense in 2006 Similar to Anderson, Mayo received a permanent ban that restricted Mayo from ever reinstating into the league for at least two years. After receiving the ban, Mayo decided to go public with the issues that had ultimately led to his behavior. While in the league, Mayo dealt with his father's sentence to prison for 10 years for the distribution of drugs. His younger brother passed away in juvenile jail while another close friend had been killed. The stress that he faced off the court created the perfect situation for him to start using drugs, so he did. Mayo talked about spending time away from basketball for the first time in his life, saying, Taking the game away is probably the closest thing to jail I'll get to. Since I was like 6 or 7, I've always had a basketball season. That was the lowest point in my entire life. The shell shock of not being in the NBA, all my peers are playing, and I'm not because of my boneheaded mistakes. Take the ball away? What is there to do? I didn't get a phone call last summer from anyone besides my family for 40 days. People who call me every day didn't call me for 2 or 3 months. I still haven't talked to some people who I talk to every week. Everybody was off. I was tripping. Well, I see how the world is now. That was rock bottom. And despite him being ruled eligible for reinstatement in 2018, Mayo never returned to the NBA, and he's since played international ball in Puerto Rico, Taiwan, and even China. Sherman White became better known for his illegal activities surrounding college ball than he ever did as a player. White had been a model all-star throughout his day playing college ball at Long Island University. Averaging over 27 points per game, it was said White was almost certainly going to be drafted as the number one pick for the 1951 NBA draft. Despite being on a basketball scholarship at LIU, White struggled financially to help his family, who lived in the neighborhood borough of Brooklyn. Midway through his junior year of school, White began to notice that several of his teammates had been appearing off in their games from time to time. White began connecting the dots together in a matchup against North Carolina State. White noticed one teammate began to obviously throw a bad pass to him. During his senior season, not only did White become fully aware of the point-shaving scandal many of his fellow teammates had been a part of, he began to join them. White talked about starting out saying, After the NC State game, Eddie Garbe befriends me. We sat down and started talking. He brought in Big O's and Fruito. He gave me the same old