By joshuak8 (Flickr: NBA: Indiana Pacers at Charlotte Bobcats) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
About a week ago, NBA superstar Paul George was injured playing in a scrimmage for Team USA. George had one of the nastiest injuries the sport has seen since the Kevin Ware injury. But my sole question is, was it really worth it? Should NBA superstars be playing in these pointless competitions? Absolutely not! Allow me to elaborate on this point.
The United States of America is a basketball powerhouse. The US is where the best basketball players in the world come to play! We blow out almost every team we play in the FIBA World Cup. Have you ever played NBA 2K on rookie mode? At first it’s fun because all you do is win but after a while, it begins to get boring. No one wants to win 24/7, you want a challenge. If we are so good, why are the best players in the NBA playing? Why is it that players like Kevin Durant, James Harden, Stephen Curry, and Paul George are playing and risking their careers? This is the United States of America people! If any thing let the college basketball players and mid level to lower level NBA talent play in events like these so they can make more of a name for themselves. Would you rather see KD drop 40 points on horrible competition or an unknown kid from Nebraska, play his heart out and put up 30 against professional basketball players from Spain? KD and other NBA stars have made it, lets give other people a chance to shine.
NBA owners shell out ridiculous amounts of money to their star players. Although players deserve every penny, if I'm paying a guy millions of dollars to go out there and win me games, do you think I want him doing anything else besides what I paid him to do? If I'm the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, I want LeBron thinking about all Cavaliers all the time. And if any of you noticed, LeBron isn't even playing in the FIBA World Cup. LeBron is at home resting, gearing up for another title run. I understand that injuries can happen any and everywhere but I don't want them happening while you have on a team’s uniform that isn't mine.
In the case of Paul George, he was the Indiana Pacers best player. He was a huge piece of their offense especially with Roy Hibbert putting up zero point games. With their best player injured for a significant amount of time, what about the Pacers? No NBA team is going to show mercy because the only person on your team who could score is gone. If I were a NBA owner, my players wouldn’t be playing. I would probably pay my players extra money to not play.
Remember Reggie Miller, arguably one of the best shooters to ever play the game? He never won a ring. Remember Charles Barkley? How many rings does he have? Zero! How about Allen Iverson? Yes AI, the man to cross MJ and almost shake him out of his playoff 12s! HE NEVER WON A RING! NBA championships mean everything to a player’s legacy and to the team he plays for. Rings differentiate the Lakers from the Bobcats. So if I'm an NBA owner, my players aren't doing anything but counting the millions I pay them and playing for me. NBA championships are far more important than a FIBA gold medal. Hopefully, the NBA owners realize this and start making changes.
"Stephen Curry defends Allen Iverson" by Kevin Burkett. Licensed under Creative Commons.
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