Selective Androgen Receptor Modulator LGD-4033 was not banned by the current Collective Bargaining Agreement when it was enacted.
The next CBA will offer a new challenge policy for failed drug tests.
Perhaps Joakim Noah, whom the NBA suspended 20 games, just tested positively at the wrong time.
SARM LGD-4033 (Ligandrol) was added to the banned list after the current CBA was signed in 2011. The drug is also banned by the next CBA, which will take effect July 1.
But the next CBA would also allow Noah an opportunity to contest his suspension – which his union says he would have done successfully..
National Basketball Players Association:“After a thorough investigation, the National Basketball Players Association believes that Joakim Noah did not intentionally or knowingly violate any policy of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). Under the recently negotiated CBA effective July 1, a player’s unintentional ingestion of a prohibited substance would be taken into consideration, and we believe the conduct here would not result in discipline. Unfortunately, the current CBA does not permit such consideration.”
“Joakim was completely forthcoming and cooperative throughout the investigation and we believe that this isolated occurrence was a regrettable mistake. Joakim has offered his deepest apologies for this infraction, and neither he nor the NBPA will pursue an appeal.”
Unlike the current CBA, the new CBA allows a player to challenge a suspension if he “did not know or suspect, and could not reasonably have known or suspected, even with the exercise of considerable caution and diligence, that he was taking, ingesting, applying, or otherwise using” the drug. He must also establish how the drug entered his system.
That’s obviously a high burden. The CBA even defines it as an “unusual circumstance.”
Could Noah have presented such convincing evidence? Maybe, but it’s far easier to make that claim in a statement than actually convince an arbitrator.