In mid-January in Boston, the morning temperature dropped below minus ten degrees Celsius, and the Charles River was covered with thick, hard white ice.
In the comprehensive physiotherapy area on the second floor of the Auerbach training center, the air is filled only with a faint mist from the humidifier, and you can't smell the pungent, acidic smell that lingers in the locker rooms of most old stadiums.
Gary Payton stepped shirtless out of the -110 degree Celsius liquid nitrogen cryogenic chamber, his body steaming in white mist, shivering from the cold. A professional sports rehabilitation therapist immediately rushed over and handed him a thick bath towel, then casually shoved a cup of prepared dark red electrolyte drink into his hand.
"This stuff tastes like juice squeezed from tree bark," Gary Payton said, taking a large gulp wrapped in a towel. He tilted his head, his chin twitching habitually from side to side, and waved the paper cup at Kevin Garnett on the massage bed next door. " Kevin, if those old guys in Seattle saw me drinking this every day, they'd think I'd become a vegetarian."
Garnett lay face down on the physical therapy bed, the therapist holding a blunt-edged metal fascia scraper, gently scraping along the stiff iliotibial band on the outside of his left knee. Hearing Gary Payton's complaints, Garnett didn't even lift his eyelids, muttering, "Tree bark juice will stop your calves from tightening in the fourth quarter, so just swallow it. If you miss your old eating habits, there's a trash can to the right of the door, go pick up the burger you didn't finish yesterday."
"Come on, I ate two double cheeseburgers before the game and still played the full forty minutes," Gary Payton retorted, his palms sweating, which he habitually rubbed on his outer thighs. He then downed the entire warm paper cup in his hand. "But speaking of which, this herbal juice is definitely more effective than those big pills the Seattle team doctor gave me."
In early 2004, a silent storm was brewing in California within the American professional sports world.
The legal hearings at the BALCO Labs in San Francisco have progressed to the federal grand jury subpoena stage. The grand jury's investigative files are filled with the names of Major League Baseball San Francisco Giants hitter Barry Bonds, sprint World Champion Marion Jones, and several linebackers for the NFL Oakland Raiders. A new steroid codenamed The Clear has ripped away the glamorous facade of North America professional sports.
David Stern was on edge in his Fifth Avenue office in New York. The dire straits of other professional leagues were right before his eyes, Stern was determined not to allow the NBA to be targeted by the FBI. The league secretly issued a top-level medical inspection memorandum to all 29 teams, tripling the frequency of random urine tests. Plainclothes inspectors from the league-designated laboratory began to appear stealthily outside the training facilities of each team.
At this time, the NBA was in a transitional period where the use of drugs and physical management were still largely unregulated.
Old-fashioned ideas from the 1990s remain deeply ingrained. The tough-guy style favored by most teams essentially ignores modern athletic physiology. Many players have their lockers piled high with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) before and after games to combat high-intensity muscle contusions, bone spurs, and synovitis. The newly launched, potent painkiller Vioxx is distributed by the team doctors to veterans in boxes. Traditional ibuprofen and diclofenac sodium are often swallowed by many players with a handful of sports drinks before games. Some interior players even chew antacids while taking painkillers to suppress acid reflux.
Even worse, to allow star players with severe knee effusions to participate in nationally televised games, some team doctors administered pain-numbing injections in the away game locker room to numb the nerves, resulting in 30 minutes of high-intensity sprinting on the court. The tragedy of Alonzo Mourning, who suffered focal segmental glomerulosclerosis due to long-term high-dose nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and had to undergo a kidney transplant, has just shocked the nation. Meanwhile, Kings power forward Chris Webber, after suffering a meniscus injury last May, has been forced to watch his team play in Sacramento on crutches due to a lack of detailed load monitoring and pre-operative recovery assessment.
As for nutritional supplements used in private settings, the situation is even more chaotic. Many fringe players, in order to keep a ten-day contract, hire private trainers in Miami or California and blindly take drugs that are not approved by the FDA, or even synthetic androgens leaked from underground laboratories. Arrhythmia, stomach ulcers, and the rapidly deteriorating liver and kidney function of young players after retirement are all ignored.
The Boston Celtics are the only outlier in the entire league.
Since Lin Qi bought the team, he has drawn inviolable red lines for the team's medical department: no player may bring in any supplements that have not been tested and certified by the medical team, injections of any powerful anesthetic blocks to cover up structural injuries are strictly prohibited, and the use of painkillers must be approved by the chief sports medicine expert with double signatures.
Auerbach initially scoffed at the strict system Lin Qi brought, thinking the young people were spoiled. But after a few seasons, the old man completely shut up.
While other teams were hampered by a barrage of groin strains, ankle sprains, and plantar fasciitis during back-to-back road games, Boston's rotation remained fully staffed.
Lin Qi established a revolutionary logistics system.
On the basement floor of the Auerbach Center, there is a top-tier sports nutrition laboratory in the United States. The team's meals have completely eliminated the trans fats and high-sugar sauces that are rampant in American fast food. Dedicated sports nutrition chefs precisely plan meals based on each player's body fat percentage and blood oxygen metabolism indicators. High-quality Russ deep-sea salmon, extra virgin olive oil, low-temperature slow-roasted grass-fed beef, and whole grains with extremely low glycemic index have completely replaced traditional roasted ribs and fried chicken.
On the long table in the center of the locker room, other teams would have some common sports drinks with colorful syrups, while the Celtics would have hypotonic electrolyte supplements that the medical team dynamically adjusted according to the back-to-back schedule.
The crisp sound of leather shoes hitting the ground echoed from the corridor outside. From the training hall downstairs, the sharp, piercing sound of rubber soles scraping against the hardwood floor could be faintly heard, mixed with the short beeping of the 24-second timer.
Lin Qi, wearing a crisp, dark gray wool coat, strode into the physiotherapy area.
Dr. Marcus, who was in charge of the medical team's daily operations, immediately approached with a folder, his voice low. "Mr. Lin, the anti-doping surprise inspection team officially designated by the league arrived at the front desk ten minutes ago, led by people sent from the New York headquarters."
Garnett and Gary Payton, who were on the physiotherapy bed, turned their heads.
"Have them conduct the tests according to standard procedures," Lin Qi paused, his tone calm. "All urine and blood samples will be tested in Examination Room Number Three, with our rehabilitation therapists present and supervising the sealing process throughout. Also, give them a copy of all our players' nutrition logs, biochemical monitoring curves, and supplement customs declarations for this season to take back with them."
Dr. Marcus smiled and said, "I understand. When they conduct random checks on other teams, the uniform departments are on edge, like they're dealing with thieves, afraid that some substitute might have eaten something suspicious. But here, our internal control list has more than twenty items more than the league's list of prohibited substances."
Lin Qi nodded, walked to Garnett's physiotherapy bed, and glanced at the creatine kinase and blood lactate curves displayed on the large screen.
"Has the lactic acid buildup index decreased?" Lin Qi asked.
Garnett propped himself up in bed, ripped off a piece of his collar, stuffed it into his mouth, took a bite, then spat it out. He patted his firm thigh muscles. "Lin, after soaking in the cryo-chamber, my legs feel as light as if they have no bones. As for those guys who come to collect urine samples, I guarantee my urine samples are clean enough to be poured directly into Gatorade bottles and sold. If we're playing back-to-back away games tonight, I can grab another fifteen rebounds."
"Shut up, Kevin, nobody wants to drink your piss," Gary Payton rolled his eyes and tugged down the waistband of his loose training shorts. "With that brat Dwyane charging ahead, you just need to stay in position and shoot a few threes from the high post, grab a few defensive rebounds."
Lin Qi looked at the orderly atmosphere in the locker room, picked up his paper cup, took a sip of black coffee, and turned to throw the empty cup into the trash can in the corner.