Jason Whitlock: “What do you think of all the conversation around LeBron James? Kevin Garnett makes a statement during a podcast that LeBron is ‘on that new BALCO’, blah, blah, blah, and there’s been a lot of rumors and speculation to that whole Biogenesis DEA investigation, people attached to LeBron were connected to that. Should we be suspicious of the longevity of LeBron’s career?”
Victor Conte: “Yes, there’s reason for suspicion. I want to be fair to LeBron, there is no evidence that I know of that’s conclusive. We have to factor in what they call the 'standard'. You have the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ in criminal court. You have the ‘preponderance of evidence’ in civil court. Then you have what they call ‘comfortable satisfaction’ that arbitrators use in the world of sport. These things that you just mentioned -- his manager, his agent, his wife, his trainer, all being connected to the Biogenenis clinic, as well as another drug dealer at a gym, so it wasn’t just Biogenenis, there was another connection as well. Then some of this testimony that his agent on a monthly basis was going by the Biogenesis clinic and picking up a package of PEDs with the initials of ‘L.J.’ on them.
I’m just adding all these things that bring this cloud of suspicion. ‘Should they be suspicious?’ and the answer is ‘Yes'. When Chael Sonnen, the UFC, MMA fighter who works for ESPN said ‘I’LL TELL YOU EXACTLY WHAT HE’S TAKING! HE’S USING EPO, AND HOW DO I KNOW? BECAUSE I’M USING THE EXACT SAME SUPPLIER TO GET EPO!’ Why have you or other journalists not went to Chael, got him on your show, and asked him to ‘please explain who this guy is, and how he knows that LeBron James is using it?’ I have not heard LeBron James dispute that. Not a peep. Have you?
I want to be fair to him but let me tell you something else that I know. Right before I got on this program I called and talked with a writer -- there’s a lot of articles out there, in fact, I even sent some of them in preparation for this interview. This writer was on this case [Biogenesis] and this investigation for six and a half years. The word that he used was that ESPN basically ‘blocked’ him from saying certain things in his articles and his reporting. He was blocked. He said there was much in terms of information and innuendo, but they were unwilling to allow him to print this in his articles. He said ‘listen, there’s more to this than you know.’ Whatever that means, is that enough to say LeBron James is guilty of using PEDs? Certainly not, but I believe this needs to be followed up and more questions need to be asked by people like yourself.”
Victor Conte, the founder of the infamous and now-defunct sports nutrition center BALCO, joined Blaze TV’s Fearless with Jason Whitlock to discuss the controversial recent comments made by former NBA superstar Kevin Garnett during a podcast segment with his ex-Boston Celtics teammate Paul Pierce in which Garnett said LeBron James is 'on that BALCO' and 'on that new juice' when discussing the chances LeBron can last long enough in the NBA to play alongside or against his son, Bronny.
Garnett's contentious implication could seem like simple trash-talk between two former Eastern Conference rivals, but the 39-year-old James has already been linked to performance-enhancing drugs in the past.
Federal documents from 2013 that were finally made public in September in 2023 revealed James’ close friend and business partner Ernest Mims, and LeBron's wife's former trainer David Alexander were both named as clients of Biogenesis, and both were named to have received illegal performance-enhancing drugs. Alexander was cited as being an associate and colleague of Biogenesis founder Tony Bosch.
LeBron was unknowingly investigated by the DEA during the Biogenenis probe for his ties to Mims and Alexander but investigators concluded that LeBron hadn't done anything illicit.
Last year, former MMA star and admitted PED user Chael Sonnen said he and LeBron share the same ‘drug doctor’. Sonnen went so far to say that LeBron is taking EPO, a performance-enhancing drug that disgraced former cyclist Lance Armstrong notoriously took to win seven Tour De France titles before later being stripped of all them when it was revealed he had taken the illegal drug. EPO greatly boosts red blood production and allows athletes to produce at peak performance levels for long periods of time without much drop-off.
At 39, LeBron is astonishingly averaging 25.2 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 7.9 assists, and just became the first player in NBA history to amass over 40,000 career points. LeBron has publicly stated multiple times that he wants to play long enough to play alongside his son Bronny in the NBA, who is currently a freshman for the USC Trojans. Bronny is averaging just 5.0 points per game on 37% shooting, but is trying to fight his way back from a sudden cardiac arrest he suffered last summer as the result of a congenital heart defect.
Most believe Bronny will stay at USC at least another year, as Bronny's only real value at this point would be the possibility of LeBron following his son to wherever franchise he goes.
Conte's name was a mainstay in the mid 2000's during Major League Baseball's war on steroids, as Conte's BALCO labs become synonymous with PEDs in the mid-2000s. BALCO was supplying performance-enhancing drugs to some of the most successful athletes of the era, with alleged ties to Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Marion Jones, and Bill Romanowski.
BALCO eventually would go extinct after being raided by the federal government, and Conte would serve four months in prison for conspiracy to distribute steroids and money laundering.
Conte told Whitlock that performance-enhancing drugs are still a ‘massive problem’ in the four major sports [NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL], saying that the owners don’t have any general interest in catching their highest-earning star athletes who may be cheating, and that their lenient drug-testing polices are meant to ‘enable, harbor, and promote' cheating.
Check out the interview above as Conte details to Whitlock why the suspicions around LeBron using PEDs are justified, and potentially being muffled and compromised by the mainstream sports media trying to protect the NBA's most profitable player.
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