Squawkers Hawksquawk Posted October 8, 2009 Squawkers Report Share Posted October 8, 2009 Just peeking inside the medicine cabinet these days gives Rashard Lewis chills. He won't even take headache medicine. He won't take anything, really, without approval.View the full article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators AHF Posted October 9, 2009 Moderators Report Share Posted October 9, 2009 I think that "I won't even take Advil" line is just that....a line. Nobody gets banned for steroid precursors for taking Advil. Accepting his premise, he must have been taking some kind of muscle builder/energy booster type of supplement that no one else in the league was taking. For goodness sake, just take whatever you are thinking about popping into your mouth to your team's staff and get it cleared. Me thinks he doth protest too much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaceCase Posted October 9, 2009 Report Share Posted October 9, 2009 Verily Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators AHF Posted October 9, 2009 Moderators Report Share Posted October 9, 2009 I got a little curious about what exactly is banned. So I went to the CBA: http://www.nbpa.com/cba_articles/article-XXXIII.php Exhibits: http://www.nbpa.com/cba_exhibits/exhibitI-2.php http://www.nbpa.com/cba_exhibits/exhibitI-4.php And it isn't very clear as to what substances are banned. You have to look at the label of whatever supplement you are taking and look up each individual ingredient and figure out if it is banned or not. Its also not a definitive list and is a body dependent list. Example, if Shaq takes a given amount of supplement A and Teague takes the same amount there could be a situation where Teague is suspended and not Shaq. The reason? They have mandated threshold levels for certain substances, and if you weigh less then you get flagged easier. My conclusion is just that its unreasonable for these athletes to be able to understand what is banned and what isn't by this method. For their sake it would be much better if the NBA just went through a large list of currently available substances and marked whether or not they are banned. Then, an athlete could actually know what is available to them. This would never happen so as an NBA team you better make sure you have a great athletic trainer who knows the banned list like the back of his/her hand and is readily available for any questions an athlete has. That is the easy answer. Have your trainer or a nutritionist or some consultant vet what your players are taking and then there are no problems. I agree this is something that is difficult to administer as a player if you aren't going to take advantage of your team's resources. That is why you should. I just think Lewis' argument about how at risk someone is for taking aspirin is overblown to the point of ridiculousness. If you have a headache, grab an advil, tylonol, etc. Check the approved list of medicines your team should prepare. It really isn't that hard to understand with widely used substances like that. It is the more exotic supplements that are trickier. Frankly, if I owned a team I would buy each player $1000 worth of over-the-counter medicine that would cover 99% of what people need in normal day-to-day life that is all kosher under the agreement and then have a consultant vet anything else the player wants to take. As MLB proved, however, teams care less about making sure of what goes into their players' bodies and more about the results so they have no incentive to do something like this when they could get a Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, etc. type of improved production by turning their eyes somewhere else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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