I grew up a baseball fan but the sport slipped out of my priority list a long time ago. The reasons are many and complicated but one of them involves the steroid and PED controversies over the recent years. Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Clemens, all ended up tainting many of the fond memories of my youth watching the sport. Football has had similar problems, though to a lesser degree.
Basketball and the NBA in particular have remained relatively free of those scandals. At least thus far. One can assume that someone out there is cheating and just not getting caught. The only way to really combat that is with more advanced testing. It sounds like the league is going to ramp up those efforts soon.
Adam Silver: NBA to add HGH blood tests; denies link to Biogenesis | SI Wire
Incoming NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a New York Post report Tuesday morning that the league will look to add HGH blood testing of its players, a policy change that will likely come once the NBPA names a new executive director. Silver, who will replace longtime NBA commissioner David Stern in February, added that he knows it will get done and said the league is “very focused” on bringing about the change for the sake of its players
The report goes on to indicate that the NBA has denied any links to the Biogenesis scandal. Like I said, it is only a matter of time before we find out about some player that has been taking illegal supplements of some sort. Fans (and haters) will immediately point to some of the league's biggest stars like LeBron James or Dwight Howard. I guess that's going to happen, but without any proof or basis it essentially amounts to a witch hunt. Besides, if we learned anything from cycling, it is that it isn't just the hulking Jose Canseco build guys that are "doping."
There's a lot of layers to a story like this and I won't pretend to be an expert in any of them. I just thought I'd start this topic and point out that I'm crossing my fingers that we don't have any major scandals around the corner that could rob me of the joy that I have in this game that we all love so much.