The performance enhancing drug scandal tied to the Florida Biogenesis clinic that’s already led to the suspension of MLB’s Ryan Braun is now being linked to NBA players. This comes via ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” who recently spoke to the former Biogenesis Clinic employee and whistle-blower, Porter Fischer.
If you haven’t been following the case, it was Fischer who turned over boxes of Biogenesis documents to the Miami New Times. Those published documents rocked the baseball world, implicating Braun, Alex Rodriguez and others who are now be facing suspensions, like Braun, or outright bans from MLB.
But now the Biogenesis scandal appears to have infected other sports, including the NBA, with reports from Fischer that Biogenesis founder, Tony Bosch, provided PEDs to at least one athlete from a number of other professional sports:
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 other names have been mentioned, and it should be noted that Fischer’s credibility has been called into question as well.
The NBA tests for PEDs, but they don’t yet have a blood test in place for Human Growth Hormones (HGH), and David Stern said that negotiations with the NBPA to implement HGH testing have been put on hold until the Player’s Union gets a new executive director.
There will be accusations about certain players even though only a handful have been caught and suspended, outlined in this piece by True Hoop’s Henry Abbott.
That being said, the witch hunt for athletes hasn’t yet spilled over from MLB to the NBA. Most casual observers believe NBA players aren’t ideal candidates for performance enhancing drugs. That assertion doesn’t really make sense, though, since anything that can help you recover from injury faster could mean the difference in millions of dollars whether you’re in the NBA or any other professional sport.
Sports On Earth’s Patrick Hruby tackled that very fallacy back in February after Hedo Turkoglu tested positive for steroids and was suspended for 20 games.
Where Fischer’s newest revelations lead is anybody’s guess, but if the pallor of PEDs settles over the NBA like it has MLB, we could be questioning NBA players any time one of them recovers faster than expected. That’s not a fun thought for players or fans.
Do you think the NBA has an unreported PEDs problem?
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