It had almost been too long since a Miami Heat superstar put his foot in his mouth. Lebron James and Chris Bosh had been displaying an unbecoming mature silence of late, and perhaps aware of his slipping on-court contributions, Dwyane Wade made an odd mis-step with a very foolish public statement: That NBAers should be paid to play in the Olympics.
There's so much wrong with this: that it got said in the first place; that Wade isn't fit with the pride that comes from bringing your country the greatest honor you can; that he tried to cloak his selfishness by contrasting it to the plight of broke college students who are actually being taken advantage of...
Lost in the framing of ridiculous context is the single valid point Wade managed to make: "The biggest thing is now you get no rest,"... "So you go to the end of the season, [Team USA] training camp is two weeks later. You're giving up a lot to do it. It's something you want to do. But it's taxing on your body. You're not playing for the dollar. But it would be nice if you would get compensated." This is pretty reasonable, especially for a guy like Wade who hasn't taken a possession off since AAU, but does a guy like him with a $100 million contract, countless endorsements, and even more public appearance checks really need to pilfer his country's basketball program? You're either playing for the dollar or you're not Dwyane. Just be glad this isn't 1941; that'd be much more taxing free labor.
While Wade's statements are sure to rile up tons of misguided debate about the general selfishness and pretentiousness of pro athletes (remember, stupidity sells), the above excerpt calls to mind a very valid point made by Mark Cuban; that it's really the owners who are getting screwed. And even after I spent months ripping the owners for their near-squandering of our NBA season, I'm inclined to agree with him.
It's a touchy topic, especially without a large sample of players having been injured in the Olympics to draw scrutiny to the issue, but the truth about what International play can do to a player can be drawn from the tragic story of Yao Ming, who had his career stolen far too early in the name of his country's pride.
A lot of fans are quick to incorrectly lump Yao in the Greg Oden/Sam Bowie category; a massive body that wasn't built to hold itself and was bound for self-implosion. A fallacy. It doesn't take a Rocket scientist (sorry, couldn't resist) to see what happened with Yao, who played in 82, 82 and 80 games over his first 3 NBA seasons.
Meanwhile, his native China was developing technologically at an astounding rate, discovering basketball, and fucking loving it. Conveniently for their government, this explosion of popularity coincided with (and was undoubtedly helped by) Yao's dominance, and he became the face, heart, arms and legs of their national team. But this wasn't some once-every-four-years-biggest-tournament-in-the-world type shit; Yao would fly back to Beijing the day he hung up his Rockets jersey, every offseason, and begin touring with the Chinese team, essentially prolonging his basketball grind year-round. It's not like he had a choice in the matter...
The effects took hold quickly: Yao would play in 57, 48, and 55 games over the next three years, eventually missing entire seasons before shutting it down for good at the ripe age of 30. It sucked for Yao, but you know who really got the short end of the stick? The Houston Rockets.
Yao might've been cut down way before he was due, but he's still doing fine: he's a multi-millionaire, global basketball ambassador, and nothing short of a hero in China. The Rockets, on the other hand, were robbed of the NBA's best center in his prime. They had a #1 overall pick that they labored for years to get snatched from them, which in the process set their franchise back another decade or so. Forget the millions of dollars they lost, they gave up their equity in a championship foundation. Houston had plenty of reason to act a fool when David Stern shut down their Pau Gasol trade, but the underhanded crippling of Yao Ming was by far the decade's most overlooked NBA disaster. That a league allows its players and owners to be taken advantage of without protecting them against such crooked and self-destructive stupidity (you think Yao wouldn't still be the best player on the Chinese team?) is mindless.
The answer isn't obvious, but the question lingers and has to be addressed. With all the clamor about Wade's ridiculousness, there's got to be something said for this mess. If he goes down fighting for his country, he's not taking the ultimate loss, and at the end of the day, a couple extra dollars in his pocket will mean nothing next to what his absence will for his team and their fans.
No comments:
Post a Comment