What If LeBron is Using PEDs?
If Woj dropped a nuke tomorrow, tweeting that LeBron had been popped for using steroids, how would you feel?
My knee jerk reaction would be to say, “I knew it. I knew he was too good to be real.” I mean, c’mon, if you’re spending 1.5 million dollars on your body every year, either the cost of hyperbaric chambers has gone up or there’s a line item that says ‘nutritional supplements — $500,000.’ Just look at what he did to his head to try and maintain some semblance of a hairline. It looks like a sloth was learning how to draw on the back of his skull. Imagine what someone like that would do to push the limits of the human body and explore the frontiers of athletic greatness.
Still, an announcement like this would be shocking. But would it be surprising?
A little. But not super.
Just look at the dude. Look at all these dudes. These dudes are beasts. Have you seen Nene? He looks like some new super hero who leads hallucinogenic root ceremonies in the backcountry of the Congo by day and fights crime by night. Or Eric Bledsoe. He looks like he ate Zoran Dragic. Has anyone seen Zoran lately?
Then of course there’s LeBron. On a nightly basis we watch elite athletes try and wrap him up to prevent easy layups, and fail. We watch him back down guards in the post like he’s Serena Williams at a middle school dance and the DJ just put on Ying Yang Twins, (I hope they still play Ying Yang Twins at middle school dances. That’s an American pastime). And who could forget that one time when David Blatt drew up a play that LeBron didn’t like and LeBron calmly placed his hand on Blatt’s shoulder, looked at him and smiled patronizingly, then gently pinched Blatt’s collarbone between his pinkie and his thumb, shattering it?
The point is, it is not hard to imagine a lot of these guys using steroids. NBA players have potentially been juicing for a long time (cough* Karl Malone cough*).
Or maybe, probably, hopefully, they are just natural, elite athletes.
Beyond the eye test, LeBron’s durability and consistent athletic dominance is staggering. Over 14 seasons, LeBron has played an average of 76 games per season and 39 minutes per game. That includes the lockout season of ’11-’12 when the season was only 66 games long and his two-week (7 game) break to “rest” his body in 2015. During that break he went down to his old stomping grounds of Miami and after that break he was noticeably more explosive on the court. There’s something about that Miami sun isn’t there? Maybe he had some Seasonal Affective Disorder going on in cloudy Cleveland.
LeBron’s only injury bugaboo throughout his career has been the occasional ankle sprain. Which is the basketball equivalent of a surgeon getting an occasional splatter of blood on his scrubs.
The dude is a machine.
There are a few things I know in this life. One is that the sun will rise tomorrow. Another is that LeBron is going to play, and he is going to get 27, 7 and 7. Which somehow, this year, became 27, 9 and 9. Even DeMar Derozan DeVoiced his DeThoughts on LeBron’s gaudy athleticism despite his age saying, “He seems a lot faster and quicker this year from last year. With that extra hop, step, everything out there on the court. It’s incredible for somebody with that amount of mileage on him, to come back seeming faster and quicker.” LeBron is so consistent it may ultimately cost him multiple MVP trophies. His greatness is taken for granted. Not unlike the rising sun.
To play so many high-level minutes and perform so consistently while suffering only the occasional ankle sprain… can you blame me for wondering?
Look, I’m pro-LeBron. I’ve been rooting for LeBron since he became public enemy number one after ‘The Decision’. In fact I once had the police show up at my apartment door because of an argument turned shouting match between a college roommate and myself. I guess we scared the neighbors. My stance was that LeBron is not an asshole. My roommate’s stance was that LeBron is an asshole. My argument was that my roommate only thinks LeBron is an asshole because of the tasteless nature of ‘The Decision’ and the ensuing villain-ization of him and the Heat by the media. Whereas everything I’d heard and seen indicated that LeBron is a good family man, teammate and consummate professional. My roommate’s argument was that ‘The Decision’ is only a small part of it but that you can just tell he’s an asshole based on his mannerisms on the court.
I was right.
Bottom line is that watching LeBron James play basketball is like watching Watson play Jeopardy. He’s playing Chinese Checkers and everyone else is playing Hungry Hungry Hippos. It’s amazing.
He’s probably the best basketball player that’s ever existed.
Full disclosure: I’m also fine with a lot of drugs that people take just to maintain themselves physically in their industry. Everybody knows Kobe went to Germany for Regenokine therapy — and probably some stem cells. I don’t care. Do you? To be honest, it enhances his legacy in my mind. It demonstrates his unrelenting will to be great.
But there are definitely lines that shouldn’t be crossed. At the end of the day, we want a game that is fair and safe. By “safe” I mean, no more dangerous than basketball inherently is as a high speed, hard contact sport. Fair and safe, that’s the goal. I’m guessing that there are drugs that make the game either unfair or unsafe or both.
Now I don’t know about you, but when I watch LeBron play basketball, it often seems unfair. And on this play it didn’t seem safe for John Lucas.
Wear a helmet next time bud.
Now, maybe, probably, hopefully that’s just all-natural greatness.
But what if it isn’t? What if LeBron is caught using drugs that give him an unfair competitive advantage?
I know I’ll still be thankful for the decade-plus of jaw dropping entertainment. I’ll still appreciate witnessing true mastery. I’ll be glad to have been shown what it means to carry oneself like a professional. And I still wont like most of his shoes. It’s just an aesthetics thing.
However, the mental asterisks will pop up every time I reminisce. All the memories will still be great, but they won’t be honest. It would be a fascinating, sinister twist to an already epic story.
Maybe history would be kinder to him than say, Barry Bonds. After all baseball is a sport where the use of PEDs don’t seem so necessary for being good. For hitting 70+ home runs? Sure. You probably need them for that. But just to compete? Nah. In basketball it seems different. It would make sense if LeBron — or any of these professionals — needed steroids to perform physically at an NBA level.
How much of his success would people credit the drugs for? When you really think about it, it couldn’t be that much. So much of the game is still predicated on skill, awareness, teamwork and leadership. All things that LeBron possesses in spades and all things that seem to exist on a plane unrelated to steroid use.
Maybe his legacy would be safe.
Or maybe there would be riots.
Maybe both.
I don’t know. This is all just speculation. Just a fan entertaining the little cynic on his shoulder.
On Wednesday, the sun will rise, LeBron will drop 27, 7 and 7 on the some unlucky bastards, and I, a meager peasant, will watch The King continue to reign.
