| 26 January 2010
"Harder, better, faster, stronger"
The repeated lyrics within Kanye West's 'Stronger' just seemed custom-made for this topic. Performance enhancing drugs, PEDs... or SPEDs (Steroids and Performance Enhancing Drugs - as the NBA calls them).
Henry Abbott discussed the possible presence of PEDs within the NBA in a piece at TrueHoop today (Jan 25th). He in turn links to another article on ESPN, one which has broader implications.
"Work it harder, make it better..."
The piece, by T.J. Quinn is an interview with convicted steroids dealer Curt Wenzlaff - and the main thrust of the piece is his relationship with baseballer Mark McGwire, and his response to McGwire alleging that he "...only used steroids for health reasons." (Wenzlaff smiled at that), but at one point during the interview states that he had clientele who were/are NBA players. He also stated he felt that drug testing is only "mediocre" as far as effectiveness, and that there were still many enhancers that were undectectable.
"I'll say this: the best kept secrets are still secrets."
"Do it faster, makes us stronger..."
Thinking about that, would anybody really be surprised if performance enhancing drug usage was more rampant in the NBA than we think? I guess I wouldn't be. I'd like to think that cases like Rashard Lewis are few and far between, but wouldn't be surprised if they were more prevalent than we'd like.
"More than ever, never over..."
I don't buy into the argument that "steroids don't produce the kind of muscles that would help in the NBA". Whoever believes that isn't really paying attention. PEDs make you bigger, faster, stronger. Better. And with the issue of PEDs not helping with hand/eye co-ordination? Wenzlaff, someone whose knowledge of training with PEDs is extensive, disagrees.
"And everybody comes in to the issue 'Well, it doesn't promote hand-eye coordination.' You know what? With proper training, it does."
"Our work here is never over."
Then there's the issue of recovery. Recovery rate is highly increased with the right drug regimen.
Raise your hand if you think that being bigger, faster, stronger, having a faster response time, better eye/hand co-ordination and a better recovery-rate wouldn't help in the NBA.
That's what I thought.
