O'Neal was asked if he's having more fun now that he's away from the soap opera that was last season's Lakers. "I've never loved this sport," O'Neal said. "I've always been a football guy. It's just a job. I just come out here and do my job."
O'Neal was asked if he's having more fun now that he's away from the soap> opera that was last season's Lakers. "I've never loved this sport," O'Neal> said. "I've always been a football guy. It's just a job. I just come out> here and do my job.">
David Robinson is living proof that you do not have to love a sport to be great at it. On his list of priorities, basketball probably never even made the top ten in Robinson's life. He played a fundamentally sound game devoid of passion... but he did it well enough to make the Hall of Fame. O'Neal is not unique in that regard.
Loving a sport and playing it as a job are two completely different things. Michael Jordan loved baseball and golf, however, he was really good at the basketball. I remember Jack Nicklaus saying he loved tennis more than golf, but golf paid the bills.
cLIeNUX user 25 February 2005 11:09:08 [ permanent link ]
humbubba@smart.net>Loving a sport and playing it as a job are two completely different>things. Michael Jordan loved baseball and golf, however, he was really>good at the basketball. I remember Jack Nicklaus saying he loved tennis>more than golf, but golf paid the bills.>
This is a non-issue.>
Iverson is still playing high school quarterback, just on a basketball court.
--
Rick (Richard Allen) Hohensee write-in candidate, President of the United States of America platform ftp://linux01.gwdg.de/pub/cLIeNUX/interim/platform2 personal webpage http://linux01.gwdg.de/~rhohen active in Usenet alt.politicscolorg on IRC humbubba@smart.netMaryland, USA Ground troops out of Iraq Put the CIA under INS Save Darfur Semi-legalize drugs Prosecute Bush Tighten the borders Isolate Israel Tax churches halve military aquisitions government jobs for Iraq-wounded soldiers and 9-11 survivors please email my platform to friends, blogs and countrymen -------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Zabel 25 February 2005 13:33:58 [ permanent link ]
Tons of top level athletes in the sport they play professionally have said they loved another sport better. Deion Sanders once said he liked basketball better than the two sports he played professionally. And I'm pretty sure that Tracy McGrady last year at some point said he liked to play baseball better than basketball. Iverson has admitted he likes football more than basketball...
-- "They tease me now, telling me it was only a dream. But does it matter whether it was a dream or reality, if the dream made known to me the truth?" - Dostoevsky
D. Gerasimatos 25 February 2005 21:30:15 [ permanent link ]
In article <aiCTd.14274$x53.6828@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net>, Chris Zabel <alephnull@earthlink.net> wrote:>
Tons of top level athletes in the sport they play professionally have said>they loved another sport better. Deion Sanders once said he liked>basketball better than the two sports he played professionally. And I'm>pretty sure that Tracy McGrady last year at some point said he liked to play>baseball better than basketball. Iverson has admitted he likes football>more than basketball...
When they say things like this do they mean playing the sport or watching the sport (or both)? That is, is Iverson a bigger fan of football or does he really enjoy playing football more?
Gary Collard 25 February 2005 23:26:53 [ permanent link ]
shoreke@yahoo.com wrote:>
David Robinson is living proof that you do not have to love a sport to> be great at it. On his list of priorities, basketball probably never> even made the top ten in Robinson's life. He played a fundamentally> sound game devoid of passion... but he did it well enough to make the> Hall of Fame. O'Neal is not unique in that regard.
The same could be said of Wilt. He used to contemplate retirement every summer.
-- Gary Collard SABR-L Moderator gmcollard@yahoo.com
"Freedom of speech makes it much easier to spot the idiots." -- Jay Lesseig
Jeremey Wilson 26 February 2005 00:39:37 [ permanent link ]
"Gary Collard" <revenge@netscape.net> wrote in message news:421F7BFD.6DF17F1F@netscape.net...> shoreke@yahoo.com wrote:> >
David Robinson is living proof that you do not have to love a sport to> > be great at it. On his list of priorities, basketball probably never> > even made the top ten in Robinson's life. He played a fundamentally> > sound game devoid of passion... but he did it well enough to make the> > Hall of Fame. O'Neal is not unique in that regard.>
The same could be said of Wilt. He used to contemplate retirement every> summer.
Bill Livingston of the Cleveland Plain Dealer has a relevant column today:
If any one word can serve as the epitaph for the modern NBA player, it would be "Practice!"
As in Allen Iverson's notorious rant: "Man, we talkin' 'bout practice. Not a game, not a game. Practice! We talkin' 'bout practice!"
Commentators nationwide identified Iverson as the epitome of "What's Wrong with Basketball." The braids, the tattoos, the savage rap CD, the late hours, the guns 'n pot image - Iverson put up big numbers when it came to turning off ticket buyers. But it was the diatribe about practice that lingered most. No wonder he didn't represent the game well, critics thought. He dishonored its principles.
Surely, it was different in the old days, when the Boston Celtics were forming the game's greatest dynasty by subordinating individual glory to collective achievement, serving as a model for race relations in a country rocked by the civil rights movement, and practicing, by golly, until they were perfect.
Well, not exactly.
Bill Reynolds, a sports columnist at the Providence Journal, is back on the bookshelves with "Cousy," a biography of the NBA's first great showman, Bob Cousy, as well as an analysis of how basketball went big-time. Reynolds is always a good read on basketball. His "Glory Days" remains, behind only Pat Conroy's "My Last Season," the most heartfelt love letter to the game in recent years.
In "Cousy," Reynolds writes: ". . .[Bill] Russell's dislike for practice became apparent. He loafed, expending as little energy as possible. He viewed practice as meaningless, at least for him. . . . Later, he would have days when he simply wouldn't practice at all, would simply sit on the sidelines as the practice session went on."
This is subversive stuff. It might not be Iverson skipping practice entirely, but it's only a 3-point shot from it. It was accepted by the Celtics, writes Reynolds, "for the simple reason that once the game started, and the lights went on, Russell played with a certain fury."
That is absolutely a picture of the littlest warrior, Iverson. That it indicates superstar treatment for the biggest cog in the Celtics' wheel is another indication that the more the NBA changes, the more it stays the same.
Cousy adds that he never thought Russell loved basketball. It was just something he could be good at.
Back when NBA practices were open, reporters could get a line on who could play and who couldn't, who disliked whom in practice scuffles and what was the coach's top emphasis for a coming game. This is no longer available.
But John Havlicek, one fine spring day in the playoffs of 1976, was walking around in Boston Garden, seeing if he could hit a particular rafter with a ball thrown like a Rick Barry underhanded free throw. Havlicek is considered the all-time nose-to-the-grindstone workaholic. Apparently, that was in games.
Not every player had an obsessive need to win every shooting game, every scrimmage and every practice drill, although Julius Erving, Michael Jordan and LeBron James all were that way.
Iverson, for all his rebelliousness, is a great player, too. He scored 60 and 38 points in back-to-back games recently, which historians note still failed to match Wilt Chamberlain's average of more than 50 in 1961-62.
When he scored 100 points in a game in Hershey, Pa., Wilt was living in New York and playing for Philadelphia. Not even Iverson does that.
Chris Zabel 26 February 2005 12:36:42 [ permanent link ]
"D. Gerasimatos" <dim@soda.csua.berkeley.edu> wrote in message news:cvnnb7$2ura$1@agate.berkeley.edu...> In article <aiCTd.14274$x53.6828@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net>,> Chris Zabel <alephnull@earthlink.net> wrote:> >
Tons of top level athletes in the sport they play professionally have
said> >they loved another sport better. Deion Sanders once said he liked> >basketball better than the two sports he played professionally. And I'm> >pretty sure that Tracy McGrady last year at some point said he liked to play> >baseball better than basketball. Iverson has admitted he likes football> >more than basketball...>
When they say things like this do they mean playing the sport or watching> the sport (or both)? That is, is Iverson a bigger fan of football or does> he really enjoy playing football more?>
Dimitri
For Iverson he said he liked to watch and play football more. I'm not sure of the others, but I hear it's pretty common for pro athletes to not watch the sport they play professionally in their leisure aside from highlights. I guess it becomes too much of a job for them.
-- "They tease me now, telling me it was only a dream. But does it matter whether it was a dream or reality, if the dream made known to me the truth?" - Dostoevsky
