After Hall of Fame guard Dwyane Wade blasted Bleacher Report's Kobe Bryant ranking, former NBA player and podcast host Matt Barnes revealed how smoking weed gave him a competitive advantage against the Los Angeles Lakers legend. While specifying that getting high before games wouldn't enhance his performance, Barnes says it would help him the night before, and it helped him focus on the Lakers' game film.
Barnes discussed how he would get high during his playing days when he was a guest on the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast.
“I wouldn't say that cannabis directly makes you better from an enhancement standpoint of an HGH or a steroid or something like that. I would say it enhances your play because you get a great night's sleep,” Barnes said. “It helps with inflammation. I smoke before I play, so I'm watching game film on Kobe Bryant, and I'm high. So I'm tuned in to his moves. I know his rhythm.
“I know when he takes two dribbles right, he's going to stop and shot fake and get me up in the air. So I'm locked in,” Matt Barnes concluded.
After the NBA began testing its players for marijuana use in the 1980s, the new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) reached in 2023 removed cannabis from the list of substances for which it tests its players.
Dwyane Wade blasts Bleacher Report's Lakers' Kobe Bryant ranking
Hall of Fame guard Dwyane Wade wasn't the only one upset over Bleacher Report leaving Kobe Bryant outside its top-10 on its all-time list of NBA players. Hall of Fame center Shaquille O'Neal also blasted B/R for its Bryant ranking. Wade, speaking from experience, explained why he thinks Kobe is a top-3 all-time player, per his podcast, Wy Network.
“If you wanna ask us hoopers who played against Kob, all of us are going to talk top 3 [all time],” Wade said. “We're all gonna talk top 3, if you played against Mamba. But to assume somebody's opinion who's never played against Kobe or have never played the game of basketball at the level that we play it at, having him at 11, why am I up in arms about something like that?”
“I remember when Kobe was alive. They had rankings when he played in the league, and they had him low,” Wade added. “I remember one year, Kobe addressed it like, who is these idiots? Like, why would I listen to these idiots?”
"If you wanna ask us hoopers who played against Kob, all of us are going to talk top 3 [all time]."
Dwyane Wade called out Bleacher Report ranking Kobe Bryant as the 11th best NBA player of all-time 😳
(via @wynetwork)pic.twitter.com/TT94mBhRGR
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) July 23, 2025
For Wade, it's idiotic not to include Lakers' Bryant in the top tier of all-time NBA players.
