Rashard "Roid" Lewis Suspended 10 Games

During the Orlando Magic's playoff run to the NBA Finals, I gave Rashard Lewis the nickname "Big Nutz" due to his propensity for hitting clutch shot after clutch shot down the stretch of ballgames. The rainbow he dropped in over Anderson Varejao's sideshow bob hair (no easy feat) and the dagger from the corner off of the inbounds pass from the man with the nastiest mug on the planet are a couple that come to mind. Turns out, his nuts might be larger than normal because of the pills he's swallowing off of the court.

Rashard Lewis was suspended by the NBA for 10 games at the start of next season for violating the league's substance abuse policy. The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Lewis was suspended for testing postive for an elevated testosterone level and DHEA, which is a precursor for steroids (DHEA is banned in the NCAA and every major professional sport except -surprise surprise- baseball). Here is the link for more details. For the record, I'm not a doctor, and I don't actually know if ingesting testosterone actually makes your balls larger (it could just as easily make them smaller but it seemed like a good lead into the story).

Rashard gave the classic excuse...he didn't realize the over-the-counter supplement he purchased contained illegal substances. We've heard that before, but not from NBA players, who, if anything, test postiive for smoking marijuana (unless your Birdman and you ingest, smoke, or snort anything you can get your hands on).

Many people will jump and say that this is a red flag for drug abuse in basketball, but I'm 99% confident that there is not a steroid issue in basketball like there was/is in baseball. Basketball is clearly a much more physically demanding game than baseball and your body would literally crumble to the floor like in those anti-steroids commercials if you tried to play a 40 minute basketball game while taking serious Jose Canseco-level steroids. The beating on your body and the endurance required to play basketball at a high-level is too high to take steroids. Plus, if there was an issue, more players would be testing positive. This incident is nothing mroe than an outlier, but regardless of the circumstances, it was unbelievably foolish for Lewis to put something in his body without consulting the Magic medical staff.