[Fox 26 Houston] EEOC Sides with Ex-Mavericks Star Tarpley

I think you're both right and wrong to say tht the NBA is the company he worked for. The NBA isn't who signed his paychecks. It's a franchise situation. I've never been in the situation so I don't know, but if you work at a Wal-Mart and are fired for a drug test, are you then no longer able to work at ANY Wal-Mart? In that scenario you at least have the option of applying to a job at a similar retail store like K-Mart or Target. As a professional basketball player, you're left with no other venue because the NBA has a monopoly on professional basketball if you're calling it a single company. His only options are some crappy d-league making crappy d-league money (which really only make sense if you're thinking you can play your way into the NBA) or going overseas.

And so far as drug addiction being a disability, I have friends who are recovered drug addicts who swear on that, but I have real trouble with it myself. Even if addiction is a hereditary condition, you can't get addicted if you never touch the stuff to begin with. In my mind, that makes it a "disease" people choose to have. As somebody with an incurable disease that had absolutely no choice in the matter, I find that bordering on offensive.

 

Well, with the Wal-Mart example, sure you could apply at another one. But what happens when they ask why you were terminated? Just like the NBA, Wal-Mart is hiring all the time. And the K-marts and targets are the NBDL and Euro Leagues

I completely understand your views on drugs and alcohol. I had pancreatitis since i was a kid, then had a couple major surgeries that required me to take large doses of pain medications for long periods of time. But my doctors would switch them up, never keeping me on one for too long. Then use methadone to weed me off and use that as a pain medication. Most people don't know methadone is a very effective pain medicine. It just has such a bad rap because it's associated with crack heads. Then there are the idiots that OD on it thinking it will give them a buzz, which it's not meant to and takes an extremely large quantity.

I am one of those people that didn't have a choice of taking drugs. But they are all prescribed by specialists, but i can also see 1st hand how easy it is to get addicted to them. It's not something you can just decide to stop if your deep in. It is a disease, but one most people choose. Sure, most don't know how deep they're getting into. But they still made the initial choice. So how does that qualify for being disabled? If so, should the government start handing out disability checks to all the drug addicts out there?

But this guy wasn't black balled from playing basketball anywhere other than the NBA. Plus, the NBA has been trying to clean up it's image. The guy did get 2 strikes, not just 1.

In a way, i can see it both ways. But how many chances does a guy deserve. Is he getting special treatment that he wouldn't if he we're an accountant, manager, salesman, or any other common job? Should he get 3 strikes and then be barred?

 

I believe in this case Mavs snort