"Never Believe An Athlete"

One of the many things I learned from my father is starting to ring true even more today than it did when I was young. The more I pay attention the more it shows up.

When I first heard my father say this, I wasn't entirely sure what he meant. So we had a chance to talk about it more a few days after he mentioned it. He was referencing ball players and injuries. When he played in the NBA the players didn't have the latitude of today's players. In some cases, the injury meant the loss of a spot in the rotation or an imminent trade. Players either, sometimes on their own, believed they could not take time off for nagging injuries or it was implied that they needed to play though such injuries. The result was players played through as much pain as they could tolerate. So players would lie and say they were more healthy than they actually were in order to keep their spot on the team.

For me, I felt that was the extent of athletes lying on the court. Now it has extended to narratives and player legacies. One thing that must be stated at the onset is marketing and storytelling run the league. That's where the money is generated. In the current NBA, players are building their own personal brands which leads to them also managing their own narrative.

I am all for players controlling their narrative because I remember when the narrative was controlled by the league via the media. The unintended consequence is the players aren't having honest and truthful conversations. I will go into a couple of things in more details but overall fans and players alike are not having honest conversations. Its understandable because their lifestyle is dependent upon their marketability.

My biggest gripe with this is if you listen to the more veteran players of this current generation, all of the GOATs are playing now. The greatest player, the greatest scorer, the greatest shooter, the greatest ball handler, the greatest team and more are all playing in this generation. I have absolutely no problem with having confidence and believing you are the best when you are on the court. You have to have that irrational confidence when playing on the highest level. The problem, for me, is when away from the court players aren't being as objective in certain conversations.

There is a famous clip of Steph Curry saying he is the greatest point guard while being interviewed. For full context he was asked that question and it was not brought up by him. On the court, he has to believe it in order to do the things that he does. Off the court, is when perspective needs to be taken. Looking at the overall position, the one thing that Steph does better than Magic is shoot. Everything else leans in Magic's favor. The current state of the game puts Steph in a lose-lose situation. Either answer is going to draw scrutiny. If he says he's the best then people are going to tear down his argument and if he says he isn't the best then others are going to question his commitment to himself and the game.

Now that players are in the media space, they also have the ability to direct the narrative of their careers. I do believe there are parts of players careers that make them more important than the numbers show. I also believe there are players that didn't have the impact that their numbers would lead you to believe. So the conundrum becomes how do you qualify what the player says versus what the fan or journalist saw. I am not sure how to minimize the spin of athlete's stories. Maybe we have to wait for players to be more removed from their playing careers. Maybe there needs to be debate shows where the players get push back. All I do know is, my father was right when he told me to never believe an athlete.