

If you're anything like me, you bolt upright from a deep slumber two, maybe three times a week, brow laden with sweat, gasp and whisper, "What's going on with retired longtime NBA forward Clifford Robinson?" Well, luckily, our shared breathless wonderings need persist no more; thanks to the fine reporting community of the great city of Portland, Ore., we now know the answer to the question that has haunted our dreams:



View photos Ex-NBA player Clifford Robinson is going into a different line of work. (AP) More

Robinson, now 49, is now a "cannabis advocate" with plans to speak at a cannabis-related business conference next month, to open his own weed-growing operation in Oregon later this year, and to adapt his hardwood nickname of "Uncle Cliffy" (which, lest we forget, described his celebratory dance before it became synonymous with the man himself) to the more pot-friendly handle of — wait for it — "Uncle Spliffy." (Please, please, please tell me there are going to be branded headbands.)

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All of this sounds like a bit, but all of this is evidently very true, as brought to us by Andy Giegerich of the Portland Business Journal:

The 2016 Cannabis Collaborative Conference, which takes place Feb. 3 and Feb. 4 at the Portland Expo Center, will host former Blazers great Cliff Robinson. The former NBA All-Star has become a cannabis advocate and will address the expected crowd of 2,500 attendees. [...]

"It's an opportunity for me to get out there and tell people a little bit about myself outside of basketball," Robinson said. "People in Oregon know me as a basketball player, but I want to distill the stigma around cannabis, the misperception that athletes and cannabis are incompatible."

It is perhaps unsurprising that Robinson — who spent eight seasons with the Portland Trail Blazers after they selected him in the second round of the 1989 NBA draft before moving on to the Phoenix Suns, Detroit Pistons, Golden State Warriors and New Jersey Nets in an 18-year career that included one All-Star berth, two All-Defensive Second Team nods and the 1992-93 Sixth Man of the Year trophy — has decided to come out in support of the sticky-icky.

Robinson was involved in multiple pot-related incidents during his playing days — a 1997 citation for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana found in his vehicle during a traffic stop, though he insisted the weed wasn't his; a 2001 arrest on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol during which cops found weed in Robinson's car and Robinson told them he had smoked earlier, which would result in a one-game suspension in February 2002; a five-game suspension for violating the league's anti-drug policy in February 2005; and another five-game suspension in May 2006 that sidelined Robinson, then a reserve forward/center with the New Jersey Nets, for the remainder of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Miami Heat, a series they lost in five games.

Under the terms of the 2005 collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association, that five-game ban comes after a third positive test for marijuana use. That punishment schedule was carried over in the 2011 CBA, with Charlotte Hornets center Al Jefferson most recently running afoul of the clause.