Two months after getting hit with a five-game suspension by the NBA for failing a third marijuana test, J.R. Smith has been disciplined by the league again.
In his second fine for twitter abuse in 20 months, the Knicks guard was whacked with a $25,000 penalty Friday for “directing hostile and inappropriate language to another player via his Twitter account, in violation of NBA rules.’’ And Knicks coach Mike Woodson is not happy.
Smith recently dodged another Twitter fine, according to a source. On April 20, the renegade shooting guard issued a tweet “Happy 4-20.’’ The NBA mulled disciplining Smith over the tweet, but decided against it, feeling it wasn’t direct enough. April 20 is a day commonly associated with marijuana use. Sure enough, Smith got nailed four months later for marijuana use in violation of the league’s drug policy.
On Friday, the NBA took action over another offensive tweet from the fingertips of Smith, who went to verbal war this week with the Pistons’ Brandon Jennings.
Smith appeared to threaten Jennings via twitter when he wrote he would send “his street homies” to Detroit. Smith was responding to Jennings’ tweet that Smith’s younger brother, Chris, doesn’t deserve an NBA roster spot over Bobby Brown and Pooh Jeter. The Knicks face the Pistons on Tuesday in Detroit.
On Thursday, Woodson said he would “address’’ the matter with Smith and threatened to shut down his Twitter account.
“There’s got to come a time where you stop putting yourself in that position,” Woodson said Friday on his ESPN radio show. “You can’t keep putting yourself in that position. It’s going to come a time when you keep doing it, eventually no team is going to want to deal with you. You got to learn from it. Those are the things where I’m trying to get this young man to do.”
This is Smith’s second $25,000 fine for tweeting in a long list of transgressions. He was assessed a similar fine in his first season with the Knicks for tweeting a photo of a nude woman in his hotel room in Milwaukee.
Smith said Thursday his tweet toward Jennings wasn’t a threat, but rather “frustration’’ over his brother taking flak.