This is a video of Brandon Jennings and Nick Young hanging out near the DJ booth at a dance club, originally posted on Instagram by The Game, who you may recall allegedly punched Jennings in the mouth last September and maybe, just maybe, was trying to embarrass Jennings yet again. But I digress.
As you can see, Jennings is shirtless and clearly having a blast -- so much fun, it's been suggested by, well, the entire Internet, that he's probably in an altered state. Near the end of the video, Jennings extends his hand to Young -- and for a split second, it appears he's offering, well, a tiny white pill. Or a Tic-Tac. Or an aspirin. Or, as shirtless and perhaps mentally altered dudes sometimes do at dance clubs, a drug (gasp, DRUG!) of a different sort.
Molly, perhaps? Ecstacy? I dunno. It's been a while since shirtless, extremely happy dudes that appear to be in a trance have extended their hands to me in a club. But he clearly appears to offer something to Young, who declines, because, you know, when you're standing on an elevated platform in front of a large group of people and you're a famous NBA player, maybe you should worry about the appearance of such behavior, regardless what that behavior actually is.
Or, you know, whatever. Just take off your shirt and chill a bit. Because THIS MUSIC IS AMAZING, IT'S LIKE THE UNIVERSE IS TALKING TO MY SOUL, GOD MADE CHEMICALS FOR US TO ENJOY MAN.
In any case, let me try to bring this back to basketball relevance. The NBA does in fact test for recreational drugs, but they only administer up to four random tests a year. After the final test (as I understand it), players are essentially guaranteed their privacy until the start of the next season. So assuming Jennings doesn't, you know, do what we all suspect him of doing in September or October, he should be fine.
Except.
Except, of course, there's a new head coach and team president, and you have to imagine Stan Van Gundy wasn't thrilled to punch WorldStarHipHop.com into his browser (he reads it three times a day, I'm guessing) and see his starting point guard on the front page being so blatant doing ... something.
Jennings has two years left on his contract, and even though he's basically the same exact player he was when he came into the league, at least he nominally increased his value by averaging a career-high 7.6 assists per game this past season, ranking sixth in the NBA. Even though Van Gundy has promised a clean slate to all of his players, Jennings' undisciplined style (on and off the court, apparently) doesn't quite fit with Van Gundy's traditional style. I doubt the Pistons will seriously try to move him this summer -- I'm guessing every other general manager has seen this video, as well -- but Jennings is doing his best to dirty his clean slate before even showing up to camp.
Sigh. Now your thoughts.