Marcus Canby: Recovering Pot Smoking Whiner

Marcus Canby is a professional player for NBA who has managed to attempt to change his ways over the years in the face of on and off court problems.  He is one of the players who have managed to keep their basketball career going after an arrest. Canby currently plays center for the Denver Nuggets.

Canby’s most recent award was NBA Defensive Player Of The Year, which he nabbed in the 2006-2007 season. He also won awards for his playing in college at University of Massachusetts.  One of these was Player of the Year in their 1995-1996 season.  Unfortunately, his acceptance of money from agents (to the tune of $28,000) while still an amateur at UMass meant that their coveted place in the 1996 Final Four was vacated by the NBA.

After all of the brouhaha died down from the Final Four fiasco, he was nabbed by the Toronto Raptors in a second round draft pick in 1996.  He stayed with the Raptors for two seasons. He was picked up by the New York Knicks for four seasons starting in 1998.  He was traded to the Denver Nuggets in 2002, where he’s been ever since.

He was arrested in 1997 for marijuana possession while he was still with the Toronto Raptors.  They were playing an away game in Connecticut, and the cops pulled him over for a traffic violation.  He was lucky enough to get a lenient judge for his first offense. The judge gave him a light sentence of fines and 16 hours of community service in exchange for expunging the charge from his record. Or course, when the charge is in all the papers and sports rags in the nation, expunging it doesn’t do much to keep it quiet.

His family went through a traumatic experience in 2001 when his mother and sister were kidnapped, beaten, raped and held hostage by a man named Troy Crooms. Crooms kept his mother and sister hostage at knife point for over eight hours, eventually being arrested and charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, burglary and possession of a weapon.

Canby has chosen a path of community outreach over the last few years of his career.  He is involved in his own charity, Canbyland Outreach Foundation, that brings opportunity to young people all over the country.  He also does other youth outreach programs and advocates for youth wherever he plays.

He hasn’t been completely free of bad bahvior since his arrest, though he does get points for trying.  Most notably he is remembered for whining about the expense of the NBA dress code when it was new, causing him to get teased about his millions not being enough to keep him clothed.  He was also involved in the memorable and nutty New york Knicks versus Denver Nuggets brawl in 2006.  That bad decision cost him court time.  Regardless, he has kept his playing prowess honed over the years, which has kept him in the NBA long after other players would have been let go.