Report: Unnamed NBA players linked to Biogenesis clinic scandal

http://m.nbcsports.com/content/report-unnamed-nba-players-linked-biogenesis-clinic-scandal

The performance enhancing drug scandal tied to the Florida Biogenesis clinic that has embroiled baseball and led to the suspension of MVP Ryan Braun could touch the NBA.

Porter Fischer, the whistleblower who came forward to give the Miami New Times boxes of information that blew up Biogenesis into a scandal, told ESPN’s investigative show Outside The Lines that there are NBA players who used the clinic.

Fischer said he and associates have identified athletes from the NBA, NCAA, professional boxing, tennis and MMA, in addition to other professional baseball players who have not yet been identified. As far as he knows, Fischer said, Bosch had no clients from the NFL or NHL….

He said the only sports entity he has heard from was Major League Baseball.

No names of those other athletes have been released.

As anyone who has followed this story even casually knows, Fischer has plenty of credibility issues of his own. That said, the people at Biogenesis did a good job of keeping records, not only of who came to the clinics but of emails, texts and other correspondence.

The NBA has a policy of testing for PEDs, although the people doing designer PEDs have always been one step (or more) ahead of enforcement efforts. The NBA does not have a blood test in place for Human Growth Hormones yet, with Commissioner David Stern saying at Summer League that has to be negotiated with the union, and those kinds of negotiations are on hold until they get a new full time executive director. The current NBA rules call for a 20-game suspension for the first offense of testing positive, a second violation earns 45 games off, a third means banishment from the league.

Count me in the group that thinks there is more PED use in the NBA than people realize. I don’t think it’s as rampant as other sports, but the idea that a PED to help speed recoveries from workouts would not benefit a player in the off-season or during long road trips is naive at best. The fact is when millions of dollars are on the line people will cheat the rules, and that is the case with NBA contracts.

But as of now there is no evidence of which — if any — NBA players were tied to the clinic and what they may have taken. (I know a bunch of you will end up speculating in the comments and name players you hate, everyone is innocent until proven guilty and as of right now there is no proof of anything here.)

 

I call LeBron in the office pool!

BNM

 

Because it's cheating. Why not let them use robotic arms and legs? Rocket packs? Springs in their shoes. etc.?

BNM

 

Because not all the players do it.

 

Kobe, Carmello and Griffin, DWill?

 

Those are obviously much different than drugs, you're talking about using some kind of equipment to improve their performance.

Players do all kinds of things to get better, whether it's a diet, special medical procedures, training, or drugs.

 

Whatever the rules, it needs to be an even playing field.

So do we want sports in the US where they endorse PEDs? Is that what we want our kids of today to see, mimic and idolize?

 

Not everyone wants to put drugs into their body. The one's that do would then have an unfair advantage. Hence, the playing field would be uneven.

 

Dieting, special medical procedures and training are much different than doing drugs. Why don't they just let them do pot on the bench? Maybe instead of the ball boys handing out gatorade to the players during timeouts they can just give them a joint to smoke.

 

Ideally, I agree. I don't care. I'm a freak who thinks that cortisone shots are PEDs.

Literally, because it's against the rules. Don't like the rules? Well, they're the rules.

 

I'd argue that cortisone shots, which caused Alonzo Mourning to have kidney damage, are a "drug", too. So are painkillers like Oxycontin and Percocet. Yet those are legal according to sports. HGH is a legal drug, if prescribed, by the way, with no known long-term side effects at this point that have caused the FDA to ban it.

 

PEDs would likely turn Wes Matthews into a better player than non-PED Wes Matthews, though.

 

I don't think that would be sad at all, and I don't think it's Roy, anyhow.

 

might help him with all of those little nagging injuries, for sure.