We have all seen the statistics and heard the stories about the majority of athletes going broke soon after they retire, regardless of how much money they made. I have this discussion with many people – especially athletes – on why this happens. The truth is very different than what many people think it is. I will discuss the mechanism at length later in this book, but the truth itself is simple. The reason that many athletes fail financially is the
There has been enough debate on the MVP award, including three columns on this site — all in favor of James Harden. Which, of course, means he will finish second. Or maybe not. I do know this: It is going to be interesting to see exactly how close the vote is from a historical perspective. And speaking of history, I have a little (OK, a lot) of my own in the NBA. So today, I’m going to share a few personal stories and
Like most fans, I found this season’s Final Four to be really good. I guess college basketball isn’t being ruined by “one-and-done” after all. While we saw a one-and-done factory (Duke) win it all, we also had a sighting of a dodo bird. That creature thought to be extinct, known as a senior star. Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan prides himself on building from within and having well-coached teams. He develops players and teams over time by having rosters dominated by kids from
The season is winding down. The excitement of the race for the final spots and playoff positioning is starting to get real, for a majority of teams, that is. But what about those who are out of it with more than a dozen games still to go. Do you mail it in? Play for draft position? While no player wants to be in that position, there can still be plenty of motivation of things to play for. After all, only the GMs care about draft
Now that the NBA Players union has rejected the league’s “smoothing” proposal to gradually increase the salary cap, we are going to see extraordinary financial changes over the next several years. When the NBA’s new television money kicks in for the 2016-17 season, the salary cap — currently at $64 million — will jump to an estimated $90 million. That means a player like Kevin Durant, who will be eligible for a starting salary worth slightly less than 35 percent of
There are few things that indicate futility more than when a coach loses the connection with his team. When that happens there is nothing to fix, nothing to do, nowhere to turn. It is over. The wonder of team sports is the coming together of a group of people willing to put personal agendas aside for the common goal of winning. When that happens you truly get a whole bigger than the sum of the parts, and magic happens. When people
During Friday’s 104-82 loss to the Utah Jazz, the Denver Nuggets had an interesting huddle. According to the Denver Post, Nuggets players broke a fourth-quarter huddle with the chant, “1 … 2 … 3 … six weeks!” As in six weeks to the end of the season. Yes, the Nuggets have given up on the season, as coach Brian Shaw sensed a month ago. And now Shaw and assistant Lester Connor have been fired. The Nuggets are 20-39, 13th and falling fast in the
The NBA lost one its pioneers with the death of Earl Lloyd. As a former teammate of my dad, Dolph Schayes, I had the pleasure of speaking with Earl on many occasions. He was a man of tremendous grace who seemed timeless. A quiet man never without a smile, Earl was a tremendous presence in any company. Earlier this year I said goodbye to another pioneer that I’ve known forever. In the 1980s my Denver Nugget teammate Kiki Vandeweghe and I were