“I’m pretty high right now,” Kevin Durant tells David Letterman
The NBA superstar will be speaking about cannabis use for the first time later this week on Netflix, though his league still (technically) bans THC
Next Friday, May 20th, Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant will make a giant leap for cannabis users around the world. No professional athlete of his stature has spoken publicly about smoking weed while still at the top of his game. Durant breaks that taboo in an interview with David Letterman recorded for My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Letterman’s Netflix series.
Currently considered by many to be the best basketball player in the world, Durant will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame upon retirement. So its occurrence is a long-awaited game-breaker for normalization. KD’s decision to comment will take some of the pressure off less established players who still fear linking up with the plant could hurt their careers.
ESPN announcer Stephen A. Smith has made big bucks mocking athletes for failing to “stay off the weed” over the years. But now there’s not much for him to scoff at as the man he calls the world’s greatest hooper admits he’s been getting high since he was 22.
In a clip from an interview premiering Friday (May 20), Durant Letterman shares why he enjoys smoking weed.
Burn down the stigma
Durant, now 33, knows he is walking a path few could have foreseen when he joined the league in 2008. Even as one of the NFL’s top rushers in the 2000s, University of Texas Longhorn fellow Ricky Williams sacrificed his prime just to stay near the facility.
Williams now runs cannabis company Highsman — named for the Heisman trophy he won in college — which aims to normalize cannabis use for sports spectators who prefer smoking bud to consuming bud.
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In an interview earlier this year, Williams said his legendary senior season in Texas got off to a bumpy start on and off the field. His girlfriend broke up with him and made the team quarterback. He was feeling down and it showed on the field. Then his roommate pulled out a bong and put him on a historic trail.
“I went to my room and lay on the bed. And I realized that I wasn’t obsessed with the bad game. I wasn’t obsessed with my girl. I just felt good. And then my head started thinking about positive things… True story, the next two weeks of this season (I ran for) consecutive 300 yard games.
Ricky Williams on how cannabis impacted his Heisman-winning season at the University of Texas.
Not long ago, any association with weed could derail careers and endorsement deals, turning fan favorites like Ricky Williams into punch lines. Williams retired from football in 2004 after a series of failed cannabis tests. He returned a year later, only to be suspended and publicly ridiculed in 2006 for further failed tests.
“[A former coach]explained that the main thing at stake was the reputation of the league,” Williams said in March. “You know: In the 1980s, there was a big DARE program and anti-drug sentiment in our country. It was really about protecting the league’s image.”
In 2009, headlines even attempted to scandalize squeaky clean NBA star LeBron James for admitting that he and his teammates smoked weed during their junior year of high school.
Durant and Dave swap stoner stories
The new season of Lettermans Netflix features all-varsity talent like Durant, Cardi B, Ryan Reynolds and Will Smith (👀).
On Friday’s episode, Durant and Letterman delve into the past and present of cannabis use. “For decades it’s been portrayed like, ‘Oh jeez, you’re going to hell,'” Letterman told Durant, recalling old reefer-craze stigmas about the long-debunked Gateway Theory.
“(Legalization) is confusing to a lot of people. You could look around this town in the next year or two, there will be pharmacies everywhere you can actually buy weed… And it’s even crazier that people are going to jail for 20 years for selling a pound. “
Kevin Durant
Durant said that using the plant “clears the distractions from your brain a little bit.” He told Letterman that it “calms you down, like a glass of wine.”
“Have you smoked today?” Letterman threw back in the show’s new trailer.
“I’m really high right now,” Durant replied calmly.
Letterman went on to share the time he smoked a joint with his girlfriend before attending a pro baseball game. He says he couldn’t shake the thought: “Wow, that guy’s standing on a pile of dirt. It really is a heap of earth.”
Durant couldn’t help but giggle as Letterman reflected on the stresses of the ’70s and ’80s that used to leave him motionless and stuck in his head. “You really are a curious person,” Durant remarked after Dave’s baseball history.
“Did I smoke the wrong weed?” Letterman asked.
“No, you smoked the right kind if you think so,” Durant assured him with a smile.
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