Dallas Mavs forward Josh Howard has blown the lid off of one of the NBA's top secrets with stinging comments about league-wide marijuana use among players and his own off-season pot consumption.

"That's my personal choice and my personal opinion," Howard says. "But I don't think that's stopping me from doing my job." Indeed - the Mavs defeated the Hornets last night (Apr. 25) in Game 3 of their playoff series. Howard scored 18 points.

The controversy started with an interview in the Dallas Morning News on Apr. 19 during which Howard said about marijuana: "What can I say? If you can do it and it's not affecting your everyday life, why stop? If I'm able to do it, but not while I play basketball, it lets you know I can quit whenever."

He followed up that statement on "The Michael Irvin Show" on ESPN Radio in Dallas on Friday (Apr. 25):

"Like I was saying to the [Morning News reporter], it has nothing to do with what I do as far as basketball, when I go out there and perform. That's how I feel about it. What I was stating was just [in response to] a random question he asked me about the marijuana use. I just let him know that most of the players in the league use marijuana and I have and do partake in smoking weed in the offseason sometimes and that's my personal choice and my personal opinion. But I don't think that's stopping me from doing my job."

Mavs owner Mark Cuban said, "We'll deal it. We'll do what we need to do and deal with it internally and then that's it. We won't make it public."

Coach Avery Johnson called Howard's statements "poor timing and poor judgement." 

Such bad timing the Mavs won their first playoff game in three tries against the Hornets.

The 6-7 Howard is a five-year veteran out of Wake Forest who averaged 20 points and seven rebounds per game in the 2007-08 season. He played iin the 2007 NBA All-Star game.

In 1997, the New York Times reported about the NBA that "60 to 70 percent of its 350-plus players smoke marijuana and drink excessively."

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