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Geaux_Hawks wrote:I think we can survive without him. We're a better team with him of course, but our success hinges more on Trae, than it does for John to be on the floor.

HMFFL wrote:

Geaux_Hawks wrote:I think we can survive without him. We're a better team with him of course, but our success hinges more on Trae, than it does for John to be on the floor.

I hate to come off as negative but with JC for 25 games we won't survive. I look forward to watching other players grow during his absence.

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HMFFL wrote:

Geaux_Hawks wrote:I think we can survive without him. We're a better team with him of course, but our success hinges more on Trae, than it does for John to be on the floor.

I hate to come off as negative but with JC for 25 games we won't survive. I look forward to watching other players grow during his absence.

...a player who simply argues “I had no idea this would happen, you’ve got to believe me, I’d never do anything like this” would lose his appeal. Establishing an absence of bad intent is not enough. The player must also demonstrate that the manner in which he ingested a substance would not have given an ordinary NBA player in his position reasonable grounds to suspect he might have consumed a prohibited substance.

For Collins, he’ll need to detail how he obtained the supplement and what steps—if any—he took to assess the supplement’s ingredients. If, for example, Collins regularly uses this particular supplement and if he had not previously tested positive, he might credibly maintain that he had no reason to suspect that he would test positive this time around.

It appears Collins will argue such a point. His statement references alleged contamination of the supplement. This implies that the supplement would not ordinarily contain the “illegal component” that triggered the positive result. To the extent Collins preserved the bottle or other materials that contained the supplement, and to the extent other samples from that bottle/materials also show contamination, the more persuasive a defense Collins can raise.

The union expended bargaining power in negotiating a drug policy that clearly distinguishes violators based on degree of fault. As Article XXXIII establishes, a player who mistakenly ingests a SPED or diuretic ought to be treated differently from one who knowingly or recklessly does so.

Does John Collins’s PED Suspension Signal a Larger Change in the NBA?

The Hawks forward is the third player to be given a 25-game ban this season for violating the league’s antidrug policy



According to the league’s statement, Collins tested positive for growth hormone-releasing peptide-2. If the appeal fails and the suspension stands, the “position” Collins has put the Hawks in is trying to win games without its starting power forward, no. 2 scoring threat, and leading rebounder and shot-blocker for nearly two months. It’s not a great position to be in.

Perhaps more notable than the suspension’s impact on the Hawks, though, is the fact that Collins is the third NBA player in less than three months to receive a first strike (and 25-game ban) for violating the antidrug policy. PED suspensions have been relatively rare in the NBA. Three players getting popped in three months is, in the words of NBA executive turned ESPN analyst Bobby Marks, “unprecedented.” The possibility of a new precedent in drug testing in a league that has avoided PED scandals like the ones that rocked baseball, but where there’s always been some whispering about who might be taking what, is noteworthy. Is this a random concentration of violations, a coin landing on heads three straight times? Or is it something else?

What will the NBA—and the NBA’s fans—do if the next guilty party is a present-tense superstar with a marquee name? We’re not there yet, and it’s possible we never will be. Chandler, Ayton, and now Collins all getting suspended in short order, though, is enough to make you wonder whether the sound you’re hearing is a blip on the radar or an alarm bell just starting to ring.