Birdman banned

[mavsman]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Birdman Suspended For Two Years
27th January, 2006 - 7:26 pm

Press Release - The NBA announced today that Chris Andersen of the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets has been dismissed and disqualified from the league for violating the terms of the Anti-Drug Program agreed to by the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association.

A veteran player such as Andersen who is dismissed from the league under the Anti-Drug Program cannot apply for reinstatement for at least two years.

The NBA, NBA teams, and the Players Association are prohibited from publicly disclosing information regarding the testing or treatment of any NBA player under the Anti-Drug Program, other than to announce a player's suspension or dismissal from the league.

http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap_ar...for_two_years/

Sometimes, the old Jim Brewer-excuse "Oh, I just got deep-set eyes" just doesn't seem to cut it. And I had him in my fantasy-team.

[Thespiralgoeson]

I've always liked Birdman, and this is very disappointing to hear. Good thing that the league isn't messing around though.

[Drbio]

Guy can jump out of the gym. What a dumb move.

[snoop]

That sucks

[DubOverdose]

Idiot

[MavsFanFinley]

Stupid move. It's nice to know the league isn't messing around.

[mavsfanforever]

I am sure players will think twice before messing now.

[sike]

how predictable...

[capitalcity]

Off to Europe for the Birdman. It's all good though... there he can smoke weed to his hearts content.

[sike]

Originally Posted by capitalcity

Off to Europe for the Birdman. It's all good though... there he can smoke weed to his hearts content.

dude, how far is he going to go off the deep end now?!

[capitalcity]

Originally Posted by sike

dude, how far is he going to go off the deep end now?!

Dude went to Blinn Junior College... he's already been to rock bottom.

[alby]

another player not realizing the opportunity he was blessed with

[Arne]

Originally Posted by capitalcity

Off to Europe for the Birdman. It's all good though... there he can smoke weed to his hearts content.

You don't know anything about Europe, do you...

Originally Posted by alby

another player not realizing the opportunity he was blessed with

True.

[Thespiralgoeson]

Originally Posted by Arne

You don't know anything about Europe, do you...

Well, he wasn't wrong. The Netherlands IS in Europe, after all.

[Arne]

Originally Posted by Thespiralgoeson

Well, he wasn't wrong. The Netherlands IS in Europe, after all.

Do you think Europe consists of 1 country? You call that type of stuff generalisation.

[HexNBA]

Originally Posted by capitalcity

Off to Europe for the Birdman. It's all good though... there he can smoke weed to his hearts content.

This is just stupid. Only in the Netherlands is this actually legal (actually its not, but we dont enforce it), but I highly doubt you can play any sports while on drugs. Not to mention the fact that he didnt get banned for weed use, but probably something like cocaine.

[sike]

this does not surprise anyone right????

Hex: I think the implication was not that it's leagal but that its not really a big deal in Europe...or at least not as big a deal as it is over here....would you dispute that?

[dirno2000]

Sounds like he had a rough childhood. Hopefully he can get it together and doesn't end up like Roy Tarpley.

--------------------------
It's a rare NBA player who traces his fondness for tattoos to his mother. Linda Holubec started with an orchid inked onto her back and now sports various designs all the way to her ankles. She also rides a Harley but cites a family history; her mother rode choppers when pregnant with her.

Linda Ogle and Claus Andersen were married 30 years ago in Southern California, where Chris was born in 1978. She suspects that disagreements in the marriage prompted him to move the family to Texas, where she surmises he thought it would be easier to get a divorce.

Hardship for the Andersens extended beyond any parental disagreements. While Claus was building a house on their 20 acres in Grimes County, the family made do in the barn. There was electricity, a bed for the parents on one side and a bunk bed for children April, Chris and Tamie on the other. One table accommodated meals, homework and the television. For a time, the shower was outside.

Claus left for North Texas before the house was finished – Linda said she and the children had "a half jar of peanut butter and little else" – and the divorce became final in 1986. Her brother came from California and finished the house to make it livable.

Linda worked multiple jobs to keep the family going. She even tried joining relatives in Tennessee for about a year, only to return to Iola. The situation overwhelmed her, and she settled on one regrettable solution in 1989. Her two oldest children, April and Chris, would be better off with Claus.

Any measure of relief disappeared when she couldn't contact them in Irving. Even certified letters and packages that she sent on special occasions were signed for by someone else. She said she eventually learned Claus had placed them at the Cumberland Presbyterian Children's Home in Denton.
'A place to sleep'

What initially was the entire Cumberland home founded in the 1930s now occupies one corner of the 17-acre complex just off Interstate 35E and is called Old Main. There are eight cottages that collectively can house 32 fulltime residents from pre-schoolers to high schoolers.

Judith Keith, executive director of the home since 2000, emphasizes that the facility's goal is to provide children as normal a daily environment as possible until kids can return to one or both parents.

Claus Andersen chose Cumberland for April and Chris in February 1990 when, according to Linda, he wanted to travel and sell his artwork. Chris, then 11, chose living at the home over a military boarding school.

April Andersen is two years older than Chris and now lives in Houston. She said she wasn't given any option and recalls her father saying he'd be back for them soon. She wasn't as willing to accept life at the home and, after frequently trying to run away, was sent back to her father by the home.

Chris had a simple reason for not trying to leave: "I wanted a place to sleep."

[sike]

dang.

[Drbio]

Grimes county is very poor. I know several people there who have it very hard. None of those (that I know of) have fallen for drugs. Let's not categorize the poor. Most working poor that I have known would not let hardship be their excuse. Grimes Co. does have it very hard though.....very hard.

[sike]

surely his mistakes are his own....but this story gives us better understanding of this guy...

[Drbio]

Yes, it does.

[capitalcity]

Originally Posted by Arne

You don't know anything about Europe, do you...

Originally Posted by Hex

This is just stupid. Only in the Netherlands is this actually legal (actually its not, but we dont enforce it), but I highly doubt you can play any sports while on drugs. Not to mention the fact that he didnt get banned for weed use, but probably something like cocaine.

Settle down eurokids... my comment was a veiled jab at america's reefer madness, not a social commentary about the acceptance/disapproval of the drug culture overseas.

I know two cats from Tomball, Texas that used to play pickup ball with him. One of them also played with the Birdman at Blinn before he went off to University of South Dakota. My friends told me straight up that Chris Andersen is 'best friends 4lyfe' with puff the magic dragon.

Look I don't know the dude personally, but (just like Ricky) I doubt he broke up with Mary Jane just cause the nba was piss testing him. Now he has two years to get his life back in order - but chances are he's gonna sign with a squad that'll care more about chris putting butts in the seats, than chris' well-being. So he'll keep smoking...

[Milles]

dirno, do you have a link to the article?

[capitalcity]

I'm pretty sure that's from the DMN nov 05.

If you enter "chris andersen" in the archives search you'll get http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/..._useweights=no

[Stranger]

As I understand it, a ban of this type comes from a positive test for hard drugs only, not weed. As a great man once said, "Lay of the whiskey, and let that cocaine be!"

[Milles]

Thanks Cap City

[Murphy3]

A long time former girlfriend of mine worked at the Cumberland Home in Denton..

[Arne]

Originally Posted by sike

this does not surprise anyone right????

Hex: I think the implication was not that it's leagal but that its not really a big deal in Europe...or at least not as big a deal as it is over here....would you dispute that?

A good friend of mine lives in Denver, Colorado. When he came to my city he was constantly talking about how little weed there was in my town. And claimed that there's a lot more weed in his city.

One of my closest friends here in Germany went abroad to NYC. She came back having smoked weed for the first time in her life, telling me that most of the teens in New York smoke it, because they can get it in the streets, even if they're under 21, since the dealer doesn't care about any age-limits...

I'm not implying that there's got to be more people smoking pot in America than there are in Germany, and I'm not judging pot or anything like that. I just thought his claim to be a generalisation and I don't like these type of things.

Anyways, he already said what he really meant, so it's all cool.

And as to marijuana, I've got the opinion that it can really help you getting some of your fantasy back, if you're not getting addicted. I smoke it every two months for a couple of times and it really helps me to relax after weeks of endless brain work at school.

Nevertheless, if you've got the chance to play in the NBA it's just a dumb thing to do, and doesn't even serve any purpose.

[FreshJive]

Its already been said a couple of times, but you do not get banned for your first weed positive. You get fined for weed. It was probably meth or coke. If they had such harsh penalties for weed there wouldn't be much of a league left.

[Big Boy Laroux]

from yahoo player notes (from Stats Inc.)

Anderson, in his second year with the New Orleans Hornets, is averaging just 5.0 points and 4.8 rebounds in 32 games. He must wait two years before he can apply for reinstatement. The drugs on the "abuse" list are amphetamine and its analogs, which include methamphetamine, cocaine, LSD, opiates -- including heroin, codeine and morphine -- and PCP.

[grbh]

There is an article in ESPN insider I wouldnn't mind reading if someone could post it. I think it goes into detail what exactly happened.

[aexchange]

Originally Posted by grbh

There is an article in ESPN insider I wouldnn't mind reading if someone could post it. I think it goes into detail what exactly happened.

yes, please.

[jthig32]

It's really just more info about his upbringing, but since you asked:

-------------

By the time Chris Andersen is eligible to return to the NBA, his arms should be as colorful as those alternate road uniforms he used to wear for the Hornets.

There's a fascinating human interest story behind the first player banned from the league for a major drug policy violation since Stanley Roberts in 1999.


Andersen is the son of a second-generation Motor Maid, a woman who grew up on Harley-Davidson motorcycles. His mother, Linda, could probably tell you where Sturgis is before she could tell you who Stockton was. She brought young Chris along when she went for her first orchid tattoo, later adding hummingbirds and butterflies, and Andersen returned the favor the first time he had ink injected under his skin.



Before now, Chris Andersen was best known for his failed dunks.




But Andersen spent 3½ of his formative years without his mother. His father, an artist, put him and his sister, Tamie, into a group home when he was 11. It was either that or a military school, because dad was heading off to New York to try to sell his paintings. Linda regained custody after initially being unable to find them and brought them back to rural east Texas, where she would pick 14-year-old Chris up from school on her chopper. Andersen's mom took her Harleys seriously, mind you, because it ran in the family. She says her mother (Andersen's grandmother) was riding the back of a Harley when pregnant with her.

Andersen eventually became one of 34 members of the Class of '97 at Iola High School, and after a year and a half of community college, he ditched his letter of commitment to Clyde Drexler's University of Houston Cougars and decided to go for the money by playing professionally in China, where he faced Yao Ming before hardly anyone in America had heard of him.

Andersen eventually played minor league ball in North Dakota and New Mexico before the Nuggets saw him in a summer league tryout. Known as "The Birdman," he was a hit with the free-spirited home fans in Denver and later New Orleans and Oklahoma City, and gained some national fame (or shame), by missing his first seven attempts at the dunk contest in Denver last year. (A year earlier, he spiked his hair for the dunk contest in L.A.)

Andersen apparently failed a drug test last week, testing positive for one of the so-called "drugs of abuse" (including heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, LSD and PCP) that bring an automatic two-year banishment.

No one has said exactly which substance Andersen tested positive for, but the players' union has filed a grievance on his behalf. Citing strict confidentiality rules that have cost high-ranking people their jobs when breached in the past, the union has not even disclosed the grounds for Andersen's appeal.

Under league rules, the four-year, $14 million contract Andersen signed over the summer is now null and void. If his dismissal is upheld and he misses two seasons, the Hornets will have first dibs on Andersen should he be reinstated. If they were to want to bring him back, they'd have to tender him a contract at his old salary of $3.5 million.

Not to be trite, but it really is a shame that Andersen just threw away more than $12 million. He seemed like a good guy every time I spoke to him. We once discussed the specifics of his tattoos, how one arm was tattooed with the Chinese symbols for good, the other with the symbols for bad. He also had the outlines of a few new tattoos on his arms and shoulders, explaining that it was an ongoing process to have all of the colors filled in. He expected it to take years, but I guess he'll have the extra time for it now.
Chris Sheridan, a national NBA reporter for the past decade, covers the league for ESPN Insider. To e-mail Chris, click here.

[EricaLubarsky]

Do we know that it was an ampthetamine or opiate?

Do we know that it wasnt related to strength conditioning?

[jthig32]

According to everything I've read, performance enhancing drugs and marijuana carry lesser penalties than the one he was hit with, which is why people are saying it had to be one of the "drugs of abuse"

Here's an excerpt from Hollinger's chat sesssion today:

John Hollinger: It wasn't marijuana, it was one of the more heavily penalized drugs as defined by the collective bargaining agreement (cocaine, LSD, methamphetamine), which is why he was banned immediately (Incidentally, no word yet on which it was, and due to confidentiality rules we may never know). I don't understand the distinction in penalties here -- last I checked marijuana and steroids were just as illegal as those other drugs, so the sanction should be the same.

[Big Boy Laroux]

last I checked marijuana and steroids were just as illegal as those other drugs, so the sanction should be the same.

does john want the NBA as we know it to crumble? banning players for marijuana would dissolve the league...

[Drbio]

Portland would have to fold if that happened.

[EricaLubarsky]

Originally Posted by Big Boy Laroux

does john want the NBA as we know it to crumble? banning players for marijuana would dissolve the league...

Just think if Sheed had been booted 2 years and hadnt gone to Detroit

[capitalcity]

All this talk has me a little paranoid.

...I can still go to games stoned right?