LeBron James has been accused of utilizing efficiency enhancing medication by former UFC star and self-confessed drug cheat Chael Sonnen, who claims he and LeBron even have the identical “drug man”.
“Different basketball gamers will hear about what LeBron does and go, ‘That doesn’t matter.’ When you knew what these efficiency enhancers did, you’d comprehend it does matter,” Sonnen stated in a brand new episode of the Flagrant podcast.
“We’ve got the identical drug man, I do know precisely what he’s doing,” Sonnen claimed. “EPO [Erythropoietin] issues, it’s the explanation LeBron takes it. It issues. EPO will increase your purple blood cells, which provides you the endurance to play all recreation lengthy… It’s the king of efficiency enhancers. EPO is king to every little thing. That’s why cyclists do it.”
Sonnen’s feedback seem on the 1 hour, 40 minute mark of the present:
Sonnen himself has admitted to utilizing EPO and Human Development Hormone up to now, so he is aware of a factor or two about efficiency enhancing medication.
The NBA does conduct random blood checks to detect steroid use in its gamers. Of their joint anti-drug program, the NBA and NBPA state that “this system topics every participant to not more than 9 random, unannounced drug checks throughout every season and low season — as much as six urine checks and three blood checks.”
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It wasn’t at all times that means, nonetheless, as Invoice Simmons famous a decade in the past.
“NBA gamers get examined as much as 4 instances throughout the course of a season,” Simmons wrote in 2013. “The fourth time can occur at any level from October to June, however as soon as it occurs, that’s it. So in case your fourth take a look at happens after your 71st recreation, you’re clear the remainder of the way in which. It’s a operating joke inside NBA circles, one thing of a get-out-of-jail-free card: When you pee in that fourth cup, you’re good to go.”
It’s actually rather a lot tougher to imagine James is taking PEDs now than it was again then, as a result of elevated drug testing and LeBron’s sturdiness crumbling.