Yahoo! Sports is reporting the NBA plans to suspend reigning Sixth Man of the Year winner J.R. Smith for violating the league's substance abuse policy.
The NBA is expected to formally announce the suspension sometime late Friday and it is expected to be for five games, according to Yahoo, stressing that the violation has nothing to do with performance-enhancing drugs.
The New York Knicks signed Smith to a three-year, $18 million extension earlier this summer and soon thereafter he underwent knee surgery that is expected to keep him sidelined to sometime around Christmas.
The 27-year-old guard has spent at least a part of summer tooling around the streets of NYC in a $450,000 military-styled, armored Gurkha F5 SUV.
Smith averaged a career-best 18.1 points a game for the Knicks last season. only to be limited in the playoffs by lingering knee issues, especially in the Eastern Conference semifinals where the Knicks loss to the Indiana Pacers in six games. Smith shot just 29 percent for the ser
Smith's entire NBA career has also been checkered with issues, including a 90-day prison stint for causing an accident that killed a passenger in his car in 2007. The NBA suspended Smith seven games in 2009 for his role in the crash. While with the Denver Nuggets in 2006, the NBA suspended him 10 games for his role in a brawl against the Knicks.
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