In the wake of Rashard Lewis getting suspended for taking a banned supplement, people are again asking whether the NBA has a steroid problem.To borrow from a famous anti-drug ad - This is your brain functioning properly:
Lewis screwed up.
This is your brain on drugs:
The league has a lot more steroid screw-ups.
Compared to their football and baseball brethren, NBA players are Mormon missionaries when it comes to performance enhancing drugs. How do I know for sure?
Neither do you, David Stern, David Ortiz or David Crosby. All we can do is make educated guesses, and it doesn't take a PhD in Toxicology to see Lewis is not the Q-tip of an iceberg.
He is 6-foot-10 and weighs about 114 pounds. That doesn't prove Lewis is not Roger Clemens with a jumper. But if he is, he should march down to his supplier and demand a refund.
Lewis tested positive for DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone for those scoring at home). It can be found in supplements at any nutrition store. Lewis said he mixed the powder with smoothies, not realizing it was a banned substance.
Orlando's forward has an $118 million contract. You'd think he could hire a personal pharmacist to approve everything that goes in his mouth. Considering his 10-game suspension will cost Lewis about $1.6 million, it would have been a smart investment.
So call him stupid or call him Roid-Shard. Just don't call the Magic's Eastern Conference championship as tainted as the Red Sox' 2004 World Series title.
If Dwight Howard failed the drug test, Cleveland fans might have a case. We would also have the kind of steroid firestorm usually reserved for Bud Selig.
Baseball loyalists say the NBA has largely gotten a free pass when it comes to steroid scrutiny. That's what happens when a league isn't juiced to the gills. That gets back to the educated guessing game.
The only hard evidence is six players have been suspended for violating the NBA's PED policy. Two free tickets to the next Stephon Marbury video shoot if you can name them.
(Matt Geiger, Don McLean, Soumalia Samake, Lindsey Hunter, Darius Miles and Lewis).
Beyond that, it's all impressions, anecdotes and assumptions.
"Just look at Howard or LeBron James. Those bodies must be artificially enhanced!
"Steroids are everywhere. You're crazy to think they're not in the NBA!"
I'm not that crazy. I'm sure there are players knowingly putting PEDs in their smoothies and getting away with it. There just aren't enough to matter.
No series have clinched, championships won, records broken or careers made by artificial means. George Mitchell will not need to break away from his latest Mid East mission to investigate basketball. That assumption is based first on the Ear Test.
You hear plenty of rumors, off-the-record comments and sarcasm in locker rooms. I don't pretend to be an NBA mole, but in 20 years I've never heard a player or executive or beat writer or towel boy say steroids were an issue.
Then there's the Eye Test. Your average NFL lineman now shrinks about 33 percent after retiring. NBA players either look the same after they quit or they expand like the continent formerly known as Charles Barkley.
And we've never seen legions of basketball players show up at training camp with 30 pounds of freshly-minted muscle. Baseball players knew they'd undergo the first spring training steroid test in 2005, and 104 of them still failed. The only way that would happen in the NBA would be if they were testing for marijuana.One notable player did show up with baseball muscles one year. Michael Jordan after his mid-life crisis with the Chicago White Sox lifted weights to enhance what baseball ability he had.
Like football, that sport relies on bursts of power. The added bulk cut down on Jordan's quickness, flexibility and stamina. He wasn't his old self until the next season.
No doubt, the NBA has some bangers who might be benefitting from muscle juice. But turning into Lou Ferrigno would short-circuit the skills that keep most players in the league.
So are you convinced the NBA is relatively roid-free?
If not, I'm certainly willing to entertain some real evidence otherwise. Baseball's drug scandal has been good for about 500 easy columns, and I'd have no problem treating Stern like Selig.
Just please, don't point to Lewis and say his suspension shows the NBA has a steroid problem. All is show is $118 million doesn't necessarily buy a lot of common sense.
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Portland Trail Blazers guard Brandon Roy, left, is joined by Blazers General Manager Kevin Pritchard during a news conference in Portland, Ore., Friday, Aug. 7, 2009. Roy signed a multiyear contract extension with the team.(AP Photo/Don Ryan)
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Brandon Roy Jr. holds the microphone for his father, Portland Trail Blazers guard Brandon Roy, during a news conference in Portland, Ore., Friday, Aug. 7, 2009. Roy signed a multiyear contract extension with the team.(AP Photo/Don Ryan)
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Cleveland Cavalier forward LeBron James answers questions from the media after revealing his new Nike Air Max LeBron VII shoes during an event at Ed Davis Community Center in Akron, Ohio on Friday, Aug. 7, 2009 in Cleveland, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jason Miller)
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Cleveland Cavalier forward LeBron James answers questions from the media after revealing his new Nike Air Max LeBron VII shoes during an event at Ed Davis Community Center in Akron, Ohio on Friday, Aug. 7, 2009 in Cleveland, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jason Miller)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-07-2009 @ 11:13PM
danbo600 said...
What he took is HARDLY a steroid. I have used that stuff before and it didnt even help.
Reply
8-08-2009 @ 2:15AM
Child of God said...
DHEA is at best a MINOR aid in stimulating MINOR levels of testosterone in men over the age of 30-and that is only if the DHEA is in its purest form, ideally KETO-7...and again, this stuff is more designed for middle aged men to slightly increase their levels to normal levels. It is a slight mood elevator. This is candy compared to the real juice found in the NFL, MLB, Body Building and probably MMA. I think Lewis probably read something online or got some bad advice from a 'trainer' who/that touted the 'benefits' of DHEA in terms of helping a body recuperate after taxing workouts (questionable at best)and instead of turning to the chronic for the tendonitis in the knees, and the ankle pain, thought this was some safe, legal, natural elixer. Way overblown. He's stupid if it's on the 'banned' list of the NBA for doing it, but it's also likely the guy was getting it from other sources like some of these hyper stacked protein shakes to recuperate from workouts. If anything, this incident should encourage NBA players to check the profile on every canister they buy, because today, protein producers put about everything that's not banned by the FDA in these cocktails. Lewis was probably just trying to eat healthy, workout, get a bit stronger and took all the wrong advice, as well as a substance the NBA or any league shouldn't ban because it's really not going to do anything to enhance performance at all.
Reply
8-08-2009 @ 3:06AM
Giles said...
The problem pro sports has with athletes trying to cheat to win is it makes them sick not winners. Tom Gugliotta almost died when he tried a legal, over the counter, supplement. He was never the same again. Mourning`s kidney problem, which almost killed him, was rumored caused by such cheating. Mobley missed this season with the Knicks, because of ill health rumored to have been caused by cheating. The nba is currently shrinking, not growing. These drugs are not creating super men, they are creating sick men. Which is probably a more serious problem than if it was successful at allowing them to cheat to win.
Reply
8-08-2009 @ 10:32AM
into228 said...
YOU HAVE ZERO PROOF AND SOUND DUMB
8-08-2009 @ 5:30AM
generalchaos said...
Why take steroids in the NBA it gives no advantage like it could in baseball,footbll or hockey where strength can turn you into beast. baketball is about speed and agility not brute strength.wouldn't steroids hurt your game putting more force on every shot. unless your defender i guess but even then knocking guys from shots require more timing and reaction then strength.
Reply
8-11-2009 @ 4:56PM
wwkirk said...
DW,
I finally began missing your columns in the Orlando Sentinel's Internet sports page. I quit reading the actual paper years ago so I'm really slow at picking up things like changes in sportswriters. It stands to reason however, that the Sentinel's management would find a way to lose their best sportswriters: you and Tim Povtak.
Horrors to think both of you may have been replaced by a female whose first column generated the most negative comments in the history of sportswriting. It was by far the most moronic, inept, inacurate column I have ever read on any sports subject. I estimate the negative comments went something like 98 to 2, or was it 98 to 1?
The last time we communicated the topic was Rashard Lewis' lack of energy in the playoffs. I believe we agreed that he was dogging it for a good part of most games. We sure weren't getting our $118 million out of him.
Now, finally, we have our answer: Rashard really was lacking energy and in his own way, to his credit, he was just searching for a solution. Unfortunately he didn't know DHEA was an illegal substance, or did he? It's going to cost him $1.6 million and, if he's really as good as they say, it could cost his team and his teamates a lot more than that.
I have added FanHouse to my favorites file and will make it a habit to check for your well written, humorous articles that I always enjoy so much.
Bill Kirk (BK)
Reply
8-09-2009 @ 3:26AM
Giles said...
Obviiously, sense is not common to everyone on the internet, either. In ~Shard`s case, seems like he did not start the food supplement until the Cavs got Shaq in the off season, and just assumed food/supplements wouldn`t contain banned substances. And they shouldn`t. Baseball solves the problem by not banning legal substances like this one. The officials need to reach a consensus. Athletes aren`t hired to be attorneys, pharmacists, etc., just to win ball games.
Reply
8-09-2009 @ 2:34PM
Michael gifford said...
in this day and age...with ALL the publicity around what people put in their bodies whether it's baseball, football, cycling or whatever...it's incumbent on ANY athlete to:
A. know what the rules of the league are, i.e. which substances are banned
B. know what the hell they're putting in their body..
C. give a damn about the league rules since it's the league that gives them their millions
In this case, Lewis either knew and did it anyway, which makes him arrogant...or he didn't know and did it which makes him stupid....
but then again, sports is a culture of arrogance and indulgence in most cases...there are many people who don't care how much weed, or alcohol they put in their body so why should they care about banned substances...they're not interested in taking care of their body in the first place, until or unless it breaks down and threatens their multi millions then they don't want to be pushed through rehab quickly as if NOW all of a sudden their body is a temple.
In addition, many players don't care about rules period as evidenced by the number of speeding tickets given out to players with Escalades thinking they can drive however they want to...
And lastly these are people who are of such high moral character that frequenting strip clubs is a great idea...
so, we either abandon any idea of them being somehow bright enough not to put crap in their bodies, conscious enough to know what is crap, or caring enough to follow the rules of the league that gives them their livelihood, and let them "do what they feel, after all it's a free country" OR, we hold them accountable for their actions in a free market economy by fining and suspending them appropriately....
It doesn't work with some lame ass accomodation of public position with no real consequences...
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