By Joe Torosian
Kick it!
I’m taking it that Christian Pulisic being out with a calf injury on Friday is a bad thing for Team USA.
With the New York Knicks, Jalen Brunson demonstrating what can be accomplished with a smaller lead guard. Is Trae Young someone the Lakers should have interest in?
Or is he too ball-dominant to work with Luka Doncic?
Ironically, it was a 2018 draft night deal between the Atlanta Hawks and Dallas Mavericks that landed Young with the Hawks and put Luka Doncic in uniform with the Mavericks.
We’ve all heard the story from the fiend, acquaintance, or some dude down at the park about how they would have made it in sports if not for the coach who did them over.
I was asked about my sports aspirations as a kid. I originally wanted to play quarterback at USC. I loved the way Pat Haden, Vince Evans, and Rob Hertel looked pitching the ball to the tailback on a “Student Body Right.”
I was pretty good at basketball, but I wasn’t big enough, talented enough, or skilled enough to play anything beyond the park, high school, and church league… And later, I’m positive, I became the inspiration for “Earth Day.”
The only hockey I played was Broom Ball…and baseball was played everywhere, but never organized.
The closest I came to Major League Baseball was in high school. I attended El Monte, and I was told I looked like Fred Lynn.
(I did have a baseball tryout at Mt. SAC, but a breaking ball on a 3-2 pitch ended that MLB path. I’ll save that self-deprecating story for another time when the word count is low.)
Finally…
Is it the responsibility of a professional athlete to take less to help the team? I would say no, but he may have a responsibility to himself.
For every performer, every entertainer, there is that desire to be remembered. We can all name the guy who wallowed with a bad organization and withered out of memory.
Like Roy Hobbs from The Natural, we want to walk down the street and hear them say: “There goes Roy Hobbs, the best there’s ever been.”
But only nerds, fat guys, and/or the people paid to remember, remember who made the most money. So, while an organization in almost every case deserves nothing from the player beyond the fulfillment of the contract, the players themselves owe it to themselves to make the decisions that will affect their legacy.
By taking less money, like Brunson with the Knicks, it is a calculation that by winning a championship, he’s adding to his legacy account.
And that legacy account will convert into dollars when playing days are done through endorsements and seats on the dais for the networks and platforms.
Taking less allows them to stay or go to a place that is best for them.
Because I’ve seen it up close in other walks of life, it must be asked: When is enough, enough? And when does enough become too much?
No one wants to hear it, but generational wealth is seldom the path to generational happiness.
I’m for the player making as much as they can while they can.
(Use football before football uses you.)
But within that context, the athlete should decide what’s best for himself, his family, and his legacy: the right amount, what to take, what not to take, and what to defer.
And to do it…without any overriding input from agents, peers, or players’ union.
#69—May the San Francisco Giants rot and lie stinking in the earth…
The Dude abides…
1,316
James 4:4
jtbank1964@yahoo.com
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Lindberg was injured in rookie camp, and yesterday the Rams cut him with an injury settlement. The story that is never talked about enough in sports is that one day, you’re getting the call of your life, and five weeks later, you’re being asked if you finished your degree because your football career is over.
By Joe Torosian
