![]() The owners are at fault if there's a lockout, but the owners are right to claim the players are overpaid? Since the crux of the dispute is the manner in which the billions should be disbursed, that seems to reflect confusion surrounding the issues, at the very least. It's hard to make too much of a poll of less than 800 people with results that state fans side with the players by the oddly incomplete margin of 35 percent to 22 percent, but it does reflect well on the disconnect. In a meandering way - meandering: theme for the day - this led me to the situation with the NFL labor negotiations, and the confusing result of a Seton Hall University Sports Poll that indicates most fans back the players and yet buy into the owners' claim that players are overpaid. ![]() (And yes, I know there are a lot of people who do far more important work far earlier in the morning for far less money and no adulation. I'm simplifying here, but the point is LeBron gave off the impression that the merger was the thing, that by merely bringing together three of the greatest talents in the game, a handful of championships was the rightful and just result.īut watching Pierce the other day and spending three days at spring training a couple of weeks ago, watching guys go through the monotony of fielding endless ground balls early in the morning made me think we don't always appreciate the process. The congregation of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami is shaping up as a wild miscalculation that failed to take into account the importance of cohesion and intensity and the kind of sheer egoless desire that compels a guy to dive on the floor when it doesn't appear to matter. And in some cases - the Heat, for instance - athletes overplay their hand and believe that simply showing up is all that matters. This isn't meant to suggest pro athletes are underappreciated or undervalued. (Of course, that mentality would change immediately if we could actually do those things, but that's another nagging fact we don't talk about.) ![]() Many of us look at these guys and begrudge them the money simply because we see them playing games in front of adoring fans, which leads otherwise sane people to say they'd do the same "work" for one-hundredth of the pay. And by extension it struck me that moments like Pierce diving for a ball are the kinds of things we rarely acknowledge because we choose instead to focus on the millions the players make and the women they get and the lives they lead rather than the grinding hard work it takes to get there, stay there and excel. It was an example of what we don't see often enough, or don't acknowledge often enough - just how talented/committed/intense/competitive professional athletes have to be to reach the top.Īt the risk of sounding like a Successories poster, it's the stuff that happens when nobody's looking that defines how well these guys perform when everybody's looking. (He was really excited about it, too, which made it even more poignant.) I know there was a camera rolling, but it didn't give off a staged vibe. ![]() Here was a 33-year-old man, a probable Hall of Famer, diving for a loose ball during a midseason practice that most of us would consider meaningless. In a strange way, this struck me as a profound bit of footage. At one point, he knocked the ball loose in a one-on-one drill and flung his body onto the floor to gain possession. In the few minutes I watched, there was a segment showing Paul Pierce at practice, playing defense like it was personal. I was watching the end of one of the Heat's recent losses (hard to keep up I think it was San Antonio) and an episode of "The Association" came on afterward. You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browserĬonsider it a case of accidental inspiration.
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