All you ever hear from old head NBA fans is that these young boyz playing the game now days are soft because they won’t fight or clothsline a boy going up for a layup. They won’t do what the old school cats used to do. Every time I hear that stupid line it drives me crazy. Cats aren’t soft because they won’t fight. They’re smart because they won’t fight.
Every old head and their baby’s momma was fired up on Wednesday night to see Joel Embiid and Karl-Anthony Towns go at each other during Philly’s 117-96 win over Minnesota. That’s all every dun in the barber shop and in the back rooms of pool halls in the hood will be talking about today.
What they won’t be talking about is all of the bread that those two will be losing as a result of rolling around on the floor. Joel Embiid is making $27,504, 630 this season. Therefore, he makes $335,422 per game. Karl-Anthony Towns is making $27,285,000 this season so his game check is $332,743,902.
When the NBA hands down both of their multiple game suspension today multiply that by those game checks and tell me how much sense it made for them to be out there wrestling.
That’s the difference between players today and the old heads playing 25 and 30 plus years ago. First of all, they weren’t making this type of bread. Secondly, boyz weren’t getting suspended for fighting. Cats like Bill Lambeer would literally clothsline a boy going up for a shot, punch him in the mouth or throat and keep playing the game.
Embiid and Towns didn’t throw a single punch last night and they are both about to lose at least a $1 million. If the rules have changed then you’ve got to follow them. That doesn’t make the new generation of players soft. It makes them smart and financially aware of how acting a fool will cost them a gang of bread.
If speeding tickets have gone from $65 to $250 and I start driving the speed limit everywhere I go. It doesn’t make me scared of driving or soft. It makes me become aware of how much it’s going to cost me if I speed. That only makes sense.
According to a 2009 Sports Illustrated article entitled “How (and Why) Athletes Go Broke” within five years of retirement, an estimated 60 percent of former NBA players are broke. It also states that by the time they have been retired for two years, 78 percent of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce.
So why on earth would a boy voluntarily give up a million dollars to prove to some broke cat sitting in a barber shop that they’re tough? If you want to watch boyz fight turn on boxing or MMA. Stop me when I start lyin’!