Former NBA Player J.R. Smith said that he has been blackballed by the NBA.
He played sixteen seasons in the NBA and played nearly 1,000 games. He even won the Sixth Man of the Year back in 2013. He certainly had a full-fledged NBA career. He no longer plays in the NBA now and is focusing on being a student at North Carolina A&T. He also plays golf.
In an interview with Complex Sports, he was asked if he feels that he was blackballed by the NBA, he said:
“Yeah, 100 percent. Anybody can sit here and tell you that that’s a fact.”
The word Blackballed implies that there was a conscious effort to keep Smith from playing in the league. According to Smith, other players who have experienced the same treatment include Isaiah Thomas, Nick Young, and Joe Johnson.
J.R. Smith says he, Jamal Crawford, Isaiah Thomas, Nick Young and Joe Johnson have been blackballed from the NBA.
— Complex Sports (@ComplexSports) September 2, 2022
Link below for full #ComplexVolume story and interview with J.R. Smith.
: https://t.co/HJEfAcMDgC pic.twitter.com/sR7XsSbztz
Smith believes he is still capable of playing in the NBA and that his career didn’t have to end as soon as it did. “You got the top three people on those 30 teams and exclude them. Give me the 4th through 15th men, just the four through 15,” he said.
“Name one of them that’s better than me. But Im sitting here like, bro, like, Ive worked out with these dudes.”
Smith was drafted into the NBA in 2004. He was a first-round pick and he played in the NBA as a shooting guard through to 2020. Smith most recently played for the Los Angeles Lakers. He spent most years with the Denver Nuggets and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
He is a twice NBA Champion in 2016 and 2020.
In 2021, he enrolled in the North Carolina State A&T State University. He also plays collegiate golf for the University.
