I wanted to make a standing thread for people to chime in with stories/anecdotes/opinions on PED usage in basketball and other sports.
I've become interested in this topic of late because there are some head-scratching things happening in sports that I suspect indicate that PED usage is on the rise. In basketball alone, to name just a few peculiarities:
Athletic feats: A player (Russell Westbrook) just averaged a triple double for a season for the first time in 55 years. He had a triple double in just over half of the regular season games he played in.
Endurance/health: Lebron James, who is 32 and has already played 50,000 NBA minutes, led the league in minutes per game during the regular season, and looked fresh as lettuce and frequently the most athletic player on the floor during the playoffs.
Jumps in individual careers: A handful of players took giant leaps in productivity this past year. A good example is Isaiah Thomas, who averaged nearly 30 ppg (his previous high was 22). To illustrate IT's remarkable jump: he took far and away the most threes in his career and yet also saw a jump in his FG%.
League-wide explosion in offense: The NBA just finished with its highest ever offensive rating. This is not a long-term trend; offensive efficiency has always fluctuated over time, but since the 2014-15 season has exploded. This coincides with some amazing individual performances, like for instance Steph Curry's 2015-16 season in which he posted a 0.630 eFG%.
Of course it's not just basketball. Here are handful of other peculiarities of recent years:
- Peyton Manning easily set the single-season touchdown passing record in 2013, shortly after having two vertebrae in his neck fused together and many people assuming he was finished.
- Venus and Serena Williams are dominating women's tennis into their late 30s, a sport where the prime age used to be considered around 15-25.
- Olympic swimmer Dara Torres set a US record in the 50m freestyle in 2007 at age 40. She swam faster at 40 than she did in her early 20s.
- Baseball saw a steady decline in home run rate after the Mcgwire/Sosa scandal and the start of steroid testing in 2003, but in the past two years has seen an explosion in home runs, with a rate now higher than the pre-testing era.
There are tons more of these.
Two points to finish:
1) There are plenty of other explanations for these anomalies. Maybe the baseballs are now juiced. Maybe NBA offenses have just gotten smarter. Maybe nutrition and training are better now. All of these are possible, but I think the simplest and most likely explanation linking all of these things is this: there's huge amounts of money at stake, both for the athletes as well as the leagues/advertisers/teams/networks. And that means there is every incentive for the leagues to look like there's legit testing, and no incentive to actually bust the superstars.
2) I realize that some people don't care. But a lot of us do. First, there's a chance that many of these beloved figures will die at young ages. That alone is enough to call for some serious thought on this, especially if younger athletes at all levels risk endangering their health to keep up.
But never mind all that, the reason you should care is this: Jaylen Brown.
Jaylen Brown is working his tail off, and at age 20 he's already a physical freak. Now, let's say (for the sake of argument) that Jaylen Brown could eventually become an NBA legend if he combines his natural ability, hard work, and will to win by also taking the same drugs that other to NBA players are taking. But he doesn't. He has other interests, and he's smart enough to recognize that potentially shortening his life isn't worth it. So he keeps clean while the majority of other NBA stars use, and he has a fine career, makes a couple all-star games. The Celtics never quite become that dominant team during his tenure, unable to make it over the hump because they lack that "transcendent" superstar.
This scenario should bother you, no matter which team you root for, because it implies that major outcomes -- who wins, who loses, and who's ultimately considered the greatest of all-time in their respective sports -- are being determined in part by who's willing to push the envelope with chemicals, and their own health. For me, at least, that thought ruins a big part of being a fan.
Happy to hear from others, including those who think I'm nuts and/or blowing this out of proportion.