Grandison Tested Positive for Amphetamines vs Serbia

Nineteen minutes into the round of 16 in Riga, last August. Jacob Grandison checks in off Finland’s bench and spends the next sixteen minutes putting up four points, five rebounds and three assists, with five fouls along the way, modest numbers from a game that ended for Serbia in a way nobody in the arena expected. Nobody that night knew the Finnish forward had given a urine sample just days earlier, during the group stage in Tampere, that came back positive for amphetamine.

It took a year for that fact to surface, and now it turns out the whole story is far bigger than one positive test. According to Finnish media, Grandison’s amphetamine came from Adderall, which he takes for diagnosed ADHD and says was prescribed by a doctor. The medication itself was never the problem. The paperwork that was supposed to accompany it was: the Finnish Basketball Federation never filed a therapeutic use exemption request, even though the player had disclosed the medication when he first joined the national team back in 2021, and disclosed it again during the doping control at EuroBasket itself.

Serbia remembers well what happened on the court afterward. Finland won 92-86, eliminating a team much of the basketball world had tipped as a tournament favorite. Grandison kept playing after the round of 16, all the way through the third-place game, and the penalty only landed once the tournament was over and the test result had been officially processed.

A three-month suspension followed, during which the American couldn’t play for his French club, Boulazac, either. Sources disagree on just how much damage it did. Telegraf reports the ban expired in January 2026, while Mondo writes that it cost Grandison four World Cup qualifying windows and nearly his entire past club season. Grandison himself, according to Telegraf, says the layoff cost him 90,000 euros.

The story only became public now, through his own interview. Telegraf reports that Grandison spoke to the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, while the details of his communication with the team’s medical staff were first reported by Finland’s public broadcaster YLE, a report Nova.rs also cites. Per those accounts, Grandison exchanged WhatsApp messages with the national team’s physiotherapist and mentioned his ADHD medication; the physiotherapist passed that along to the team doctor, who replied that using the drug in elite sport in Europe required a special medical exemption. The conversation stalled there as the national team left for Japan, and the messages, according to YLE, show no one ever promised the request would actually be filed. When the positive result came back, Grandison asked the doctor whether the paperwork had been submitted and was told it hadn’t, because nobody had ever asked him to do it.

The Finnish Basketball Federation hasn’t tried to dodge the mistake. Its statement acknowledged the exemption request was never filed and said Grandison had gone through “an extremely difficult period,” facing accusations he didn’t deserve. Federation president Timo Elo confirmed as much himself.

The entire Finnish basketball family has been deeply affected by what Jacob had to go through. Things like this should never have happened to him.

Elo told Finnish media, adding that Grandison remains welcome back in the national team now that the suspension is served and the player has been eligible under FIBA rules again since January 2026.

None of this changes anything for Serbia. The 92-86 loss stands, and the round of 16 exit is history. But the Grandison case is a warning to any federation that treats medication paperwork as a formality that can wait. A form that didn’t get signed in time cost a player a quarter of a season and six figures in euros, and it could have cost far more, a medal or a World Cup spot, had the test result come back just a few days sooner. Finland’s next test comes at the Mundobasket qualifiers, and that’s where we’ll find out whether the lesson actually stuck.