Are we being naive about steroids all over again?

I don't know.

 

Singapore:
I hear everyting you are saying, and none of it changes the fact that a fair % of NBA players are juicing. That's not a blind statement made from cynicism, but recognizing simply what PEDs can do regardless of what sport you play, whether hours of boredom with spurts of fast activity in between, 80 plays a game in football, 20 seconds of up and down basketball before another foul is called, whatever.

What others say here about recovery time and the accompanying bulk-up is what's important. I don't know enough about NBA drug testing to know how good it really is or what they do with any positives they come up with---would be worth digging into. But they are juicing, I promise. Don't know what %, but I"ll take a stab at 30-50%.

Yes, steroids, HGH, etc. aren't magic potions---well, maybe HGH is. Both have to be accompanied by plenty of serious weight training to really be beneficial, but yup, they are beneficial.

 

Singapore:

You really think NBA players are tested more than Olympic-caliber track and field athletes? I'd venture to say no athletes on earth are tested more than those in track and field.

And, yes, I think NBA players have outsmarted the testing system. They all have. Again and again.

 

I poked around a few successful high school football programs in my area and have come upon several past players who have told me certain coaches know and often support PED programs. Of course, none of these people ever want to go on the record about it.

One coach in particular seems to get a lot of mileage from a town with a very small population. He's in the playoffs every year and battles for a league crown with schools who are much bigger than his. His linemen, though, rarely exhibit any of the signs of PED use. Most look like normal kids. His skill position players, however, are just freaks of nature.

Ever run across the rich kid phenomenon? Kid with the ways and means hangs out at body builder gyms, loads up on designer PEDs and sets all kinds of records? I've seen this multiple times and usually when they get to their Div. I college program they simply fade into obscurity or quit the program altogether.

 

This has been debunked time and again by medical professionals who study steroids and others who work in the field. The best quote I could find was from the Rockies' strength coach, who said in 2000 that bulk-building neutralizes between ages 27 and 32 and actually begins to decline after age 32. Says Brad Andress, "It's very easy for a guy to go in the offseason and in three months time gain 15 pounds and say it's creatine. But anybody who's been in the industry as a strength coach knows that the most aggressive muscular development you can get in a one-year period of time - and I'm talking aggressive training like a Division I college football program, legally, where you're doing seven months of weight training - is about 7 to 9 pounds of muscle mass."

Stephen Jackson is almost 31. So, based on what reporters supposedly did wrong in ignoring baseball's problem -- looking at a guy's weight gain and putting it through a little 2+2 -- he'd fit into the category. To be honest, it hadn't even struck me until I saw this thread, so kudos for the initial observation.

Also, NBA clean because it tests? Being new here I don't have the picture-posting down quite yet, but in any before-and-after look test, Karl Malone is as striking as Barry Bonds. And yet who went to appear before Congress on behalf of the NBA in 2005?

Noted muscle man Juan Dixon.

 

We're not being naive.
We don't care.
All the baseball wonks can wear hairshirts if they like. Why should any of us care if the athletes don't is a question that's never been adequately resolved for me.

 

Then I'm right where I need to be. ;D

 

Singapore, others have said it but I'll say it again. Nobody -- and I mean NOBODY -- is tested like a track and field athlete. If you're competing on that level, not only are you subject to testing at any time, year-round, you have to let WADA know where you're going to be so that they can track you down for a test.
If you go on vacation, they can knock on your hotel room door at 4 a.m. with a piss cup. And if you don't give them an itinerary and they show up, it's your ass. One guy got suspended because he was on vacation when WADA came to his house for an unannounced test. It went down in the books as failure to show up for a test.

 

I really have to question some people's knowledge of the drugs themselves, the human body, and the NBA/NHL schedules if they keep pushing this.

 

It's your knowledge that seems questionable here, Slim. You claimed that track athletes aren't tested on a consistent basis like pro athletes, which could not be more wrong. If I'm deciphering your argument correctly, you're saying that PEDs aren't helpful to NBA and NHL players because they have too many practices and games, which is a baffling claim that I have never heard anyone make before. No offense, but most of what you're saying seems completely off-the-wall.

 

I wondered about that one myself, dd.
If I'd have written that, or published it, I'd be sweating bullets for the next 20 years, waiting for the shoe to drop.

 

You have absolutely no clue when it comes to hockey, none.