Basketball isn’t as demanding physically as cycling. You need to be fit but not to the extreme degree cycling demands. I would expect doping to be most beneficial in sports where pure physicality is needed. Marathon, triathlon, track running.
Basketball isn’t as demanding physically as cycling. You need to be fit but not to the extreme degree cycling demands. I would expect doping to be most beneficial in sports where pure physicality is needed. Marathon, triathlon, track running.
There's a lot more money in basketball, though. And money is the number 1 incentive. Growth hormones might be used.
You can reasonably assume that some NBA players are using PEDs. However, the effect is different. To be an NBA basketball player you need to have several attributes, such as height and hand-eye coordination, that cannot be affected by PEDs AFAIK. If basketbally are using PEDs, it is probably to recover faster, which means coming back from injury or training more. More training can lead to a higher level of skill, but it's a second order effect. It's not like cycling where, for example, EPO directly affects performance on the bike.
yes, but those epo-esque drugs aren't exactly trivial to use these days. the testing process makes the doping process much more difficult for drugs that have these direct performance benefits.
recovery help is where it's at these days i expect, in most sports.
Look at all the incidents of blood clots or DVT in NBA players and it starts to look pretty suspicious.
have you seen the physiques and workloads that nba/nhl/mlb players are dealing with these days? these athletes have more incentive than cyclists to dope ($$$), and the testing in those sports is a joke.
there are obvious performance benefits for traditional endurance sports, but the testing infrastructure is pretty robust and the financial incentives are much less than those big team sports. it's harder to dope (and get away with it) and the financial pressure is less.
I totally believe that a lot of basketball/football/baseball players take something. But the effect won’t be as important as in cycling or marathon or 100 m sprint where you need pure physicality.
The effect doesn't really matter. If it gives you a 2% edge, and you don't take it, then you're 2% off the top. That may be the difference between having a career at all and thinking about what could have been at your desk job.
Sure, there's no drugs that will turn you into prime Messi. But there are drugs that will let Messi play like prime Messi for 90 minutes, 3 times a week, 48 weeks a year, which is incredibly valuable.