HoopsHype.com Columns

Caught in a five ring circus
by Tim O'Sullivan / March 8, 2003

Still mired in the controversy of recent years, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) spent most of this week breaking their collective arms patting themselves on the back for adopting a universal anti-doping policy. The policy was created during a three-day summit in Copenhagen, Denmark and is the first to globally unify rules and sanctions for doping violations, establishing a single list of prohibited substances, ranging from steroids to stimulants to blood-boosting hormones. Now all Olympians, NBA players included, will be subject to random, out-of-competition drug testing starting July 1.

"There will be no differentiation between a team handball athlete and an NBA professional," Terry Madden, chief executive officer of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, told the Associated Press. Which is how it should be. If NBA stars want the same gold medals hung around their necks as other Olympic athletes who have to work regular jobs, spend their own money on training expenses and receive thirty seconds of fame and little fortune, taking the same tests is the least the diamond encrusted pros from the league could do.

The universal policy will mark the first time NBA stars will face comprehensive testing. If the players want to play in the red, white and blue, they must pee completely clean. Of course, NBA stars do what they want, when they want, and the NBA Players Association has already scoffed at the idea their Olympic hopefuls members should be subject to Olympic requirements. Billy Hunter, the director for the players association, is already preparing a formal response to express his concerns that the drug-testing goes beyond the limits of the testing in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Of course, the agreement is between the owners and the players, and not the players and the IOC.

Ray Allen, Jason Kidd, Tracy McGrady and Tim Duncan are the only official NBA players on the Olympic team that will represent the stars and stripes in the 2004 summer Olympics in Athens. Kobe Bryant, Mike Bibby and Karl Malone are expected to join them soon. Chances are good none of those players would fail any sort of drug tests, but would you want to knock on Malone's door and ask him to pee in a cup in the middle of a dark Utah night?

If one Olympian has to pee they all should pee. But that really raises the question, should the NBA even involve itself in the Olympics? Perhaps at one time the Olympics was the purest form of athletics, amateurs competing for love of the sport and their country, but those days are fading and the presence of NBA players, whose net worth is more than some small countries, further corrupts the ideal. And any universal anti-doping policy will not
return the Olympics to a state of grace.

"We join you in the pursuit of the holy grail -- one code for all leading to the elimination of doping in sport," said Paul George, head of the U.S. Olympic Committee delegation at the Copenhagen summit. Referring to the abolishment of all drugs in sport as "the holy grail" is perfect. It's a mythical, unattainable goal (unless your Indiana Jones). No matter what policies are enacted by the IOC or any other governing body, athletes will find a way around it. Is that cynical? Yes. Is it brutally honest? Yes.

On top of everything, NBA players in the Olympics are in a no-win situation. If they crush every other team and laugh their way to gold medals, like all the Dream Teams have done, it comes off as hollow and unfair, just another notch on a spoiled superstar's belt and the antithesis of "Olympian." If the U.S. team loses, as happened at the world championships last summer, they are ridiculed by every media outlet in the world.

Many of the 73 governments and Olympic federations that were in Copenhagen condemned the American pro sports leagues for not adopting the universal code. Let me explain something, that's called private enterprise, a basic standard here in the good old U.S. of A. But you know what, maybe we should take the hint.

Private enterprise and the Olympics don't mix. If NBA players want to play in the Olympics they should take the IOC tests, but maybe they should consider if they really want to be part of an event with Russian mobsters
(Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov) bribing figure skating judges, with boxing judges robbing all-time greats (Roy Jones, Jr.) and with figure skaters turning into "boxers" (Tonya Harding).

It's really too bad. Maybe, when the summer games return to its ancient home there will be a return to the ancient ideal. I hope so. I love that Olympic theme music.

Tim O'Sullivan is a staff writer at the Concord (NH) Monitor and a regular contributor to HoopsHype.com

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