Damage Control and the NBA

One big misconception about public relations is that it is mainly about covering up bad news or "damage control." Public relations is a lot more than just those two things; however, damage control is an important aspect of public relations. When your firm, organization or client has some sort of bad news, whether it is a sex scandal, an oil spill, spoiled food or a drug scandal, it is imperative to immediately make a statement and then figure out the best steps to respond. If that is not done, the information will almost always become public and can in fact make the situation much worse.

During the middle of the first round of the NBA playoffs, Dallas Maverick Josh Howard admitted that he smokes marijuana recreationally during the off season. A local radio station was talking about Howard and brought up some rumors about a potential connection to marijuana. Howard who was listening, called the radio station and wanted to come clean.


"Most of the players in the league use marijuana," said Howard, "and I have and do partake in smoking weed in the off-season sometimes. That's my personal choice and my personal opinion, but I don't think that's stopping me from doing my job."

In order to be transparent, The Dallas Mavericks and the NBA offices responded almost immediately with brief statements saying they were looking into what happened and that they were going to fully assess the situation before anymore comments were made. Additionally, the NBA offices made it very clear that players are randomly drug tested during the season and that Howard had never tested positive.

Having a star NBA player admit to doing drugs is clearly very bad for the NBA's image. This is why the most important part of the response was that it was so prompt. The damage had already been done so it was important to begin to repair that damage.

If I were in charge of the situation, I would try to take a negative and make something positive out of it. The NBA could very easily do some anti-drug ads, which would not be too hard to do and would reinforce the positive image it wants to be known for. This would generate positive press and help bury the negative press that Howard unintentionally created.