Why do so many NBA players take offseason trips to Germany? According to passage from his upcoming book (H/T Bleacher Report), former coach George Karl believes that they’re doping.
George Karl continues his rants… pic.twitter.com/xWTo3kVmeO
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) December 26, 2016
The NBA is not going to be happy with this quote. That will include, players, team officials, league officials and basically anyone with an NBA pay stub.
The fact that the comments are coming from Karl will only make things worse. Passages from this book have (rightfully) drawn the ire of former players Reggie Evans and J.R. Smith, which you can read about here, and Kenyon Martin, which you can read about here.
If one wanted to win the “understatement of the year” award for 2016, that person could simply say that George Karl is probably not popular in NBA circles right now. A runner up would be to say that Karl likely doesn’t care that much.
With all of that being said, it’s hard to strongly disagree with Karl’s statement here. NBA players are massive humans. Even relatively short NBA players are significantly bigger and taller and anyone a normal human will encounter in his/her everyday life. These players are unquestionably great athletes, but it’s hard to believe that the incredible speed and leaping ability of all of them is completely natural.
But there’s one huge problem with Karl being the source.
The man coached nearly 2,000 regular season games in the NBA. Somehow, this wasn’t enough of an issue for him to bring up when he was coaching. We can only speculate as to why that might have been the case. But not even a year after coaching what’s almost certain to be his last NBA game, this is something that needs to be addressed?
Even if his claims are accurate, this gives the appearance that he’s making them here to sell books, nothing more. If it was such a problem, he had ample time to go public with it as an NBA coach. That never happened. This is no more of a problem now than it was a season ago when Karl was coaching.
There’s no question that, if the NBA (or any sport) has doping, it needs to be addressed. But it shouldn’t only be being brought up by people looking to profit. When that happens, the sincerity of the messenger is greatly questioned. Naturally, when a messenger’s sincerity is brought into question, their credibility is, as well.