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Ty Lawson has a long road ahead of him after getting his second DUI this year handed to him last week and being traded to the Houston Rockets.
From this point the Rockets will assist point guard Ty Lawson in his rehab which obviously is bigger than basketball, and Lawson will fight an addiction that effects one in twelve people in the United States.
ESPN sources say Rockets will ask Houston-based John Lucas to provide off-court counsel to Ty Lawson if Lawson (two DUIs in 2015) open to it
— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) July 20, 2015
One thing the Rockets have already got the ball rolling on is to have someone by his side who’s suffered from the same addiction if not worse.
John Lucas II who played in the NBA for 14 years where he was a member of the 1986 Houston Rockets that made it to the NBA Finals but lost to the Boston Celtics, and coached for about 18 years most recently with the Los Angeles Clippers as an assistant back in 2009-2010.
Lucas has his share of issues though in his playing career where he dealt with longstanding problems with illegal drugs became public.
Several of his teammates with the Rockets, including Mitchell Wiggins (Andrew Wiggins father) and Lewis Lloyd, were banished from the NBA due to positive tests for cocaine usage. Lucas, was also a cocaine user and an alcoholic, submitted voluntarily to anti-alcohol treatment in order to stay in the NBA.
John Lucas has no focused his career on helping athletes recover from the issues that he suffered from during his career which he helped former NFL player JaMarcus Russell which he later stepped down after a year.
At this point entering a rehab facility will certainly help Ty Lawson, but to have someone that’s gone through the same situation and recovered from it is huge to his recovery.
Hopefully Lawson can get his career back on track which we will look back on this as a hiccup so he can continue his success in the NBA to hopefully help lead the Rockets to another NBA championship, but more importantly get his life back on track.