“Wasted Talent.”
That’s the phrase that first comes to mind after Gary Woelfel of the Racine Journal Times tweeted that the Milwaukee Bucks’ center Larry Sanders “told some Bucks officials that he doesn’t want to play basketball anymore”. Woelfel also stated that some of Sanders’ friends “were concerned Sanders wasn’t committed to basketball and wanted to explore other options.”
His agent, Happy Walters, has since denied that Sanders wants to quit. “I saw that tweet. It is not accurate at all,” Walters said. “Rumor unsubstantiated.”
Of course, that’s to be expected, but whether or not Sanders is thinking about quitting, even though there are an additional three years and $33m left on his contract after this season, the story has an air of truth about it. Especially since the rumor comes hard on the heels of head coach Jason Kidd’s recent, difficult-to-parse statements about his injured/inactive pivot on 2 January that he was out for “personal reasons” and that there was “nothing more I can give you.”
It’s been a tumultuous 18 months for Sanders, to say the least. As recently as the 2012-13 season, Sanders was considered an ascendant, dominant, rim-protecting big. At 6ft 11in with a massive, almost otherworldly 7ft 6in wingspan, the kind that makes Jay Bilas practically drool and sputter in paroxysms of pleasure Zach Lowe wrote about him so often and with such effervescent glee that he practically had to register the copyright for the all-caps usage of LARRY SANDERS!
Which brings us back to the question of wasted talent. For whatever reason or reasons, at this particular moment in time, Sanders is not making full use of his prodigious abilities and natural gifts; that’s not really up for debate.
This is a thing that pops up from time to time – an athlete who chooses to walk away from the game, not because he or she can’t play, but based on a realization that there might be more to the world than hitting or kicking or catching a ball, no matter how innately gifted one might be. Take Ricky Williams, the NFL running back that passed on a $5m paycheck (though he would later return to the league) to become a holistic healer.
“I loved playing football, but the reasons I loved football were just to feed my ego,” Williams explained. “And any time you feed your ego, it’s a one-way street ... There were so many things I had to deal with that erased the positives I got from playing the game that it wasn’t worth it. It’s like eating a Big Mac and drinking a Diet Coke.”
Which, yes. Appearances to the contrary, being a pro athlete is a job, one that’s often damaging and grueling.
The hours of practice, the debilitating injuries, the total and complete lack of anything resembling a private life are all part of the cost of doing business if you want to succeed, or heck, even cling to the end of the bench in a pro league. It requires not only superhuman amounts of dedication, but also an all-encompassing, unyielding desire to be great coupled with an unshakable faith in your own ability and the belief that this is what you are destined to do, even in the face of constant criticism and, at times, outright mockery from the press and the punters alike. It’s a monastic, borderline deranged life, one that most of us can’t even fathom.
There’s a reason Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan, is what I’m saying, and it’s partly due to the fact that he burned with a competitive fervor that might seem obscene or even monstrous if viewed objectively. (And that’s in no way to suggest that Larry Sanders is Michael Jordan.)
Without that, if an athlete has merely been kissed by the genetic gods and/or is grinding away for a paycheck, it’s going to be a fairly miserable existence, wealth, fame and adulation be damned. So when Tottenham defender Benoît Assou-Ekotto told the Guardian a few year ago, “Why did I come [to the Premier League]? For a job. A career is only 10, 15 years. It’s only a job. Yes, it’s a good, good job and I don’t say that I hate football but it’s not my passion,” he shouldn’t be met with howls of protest or indignation.
Yes, I can certainly understand the initial rush of resentment or even anger on the part of fans to a possible Hamlet-like indecision on the part of Sanders.
For those who – and I count myself as one of them – devote so many recreational hours and so much emotional currency in sports, suffering in agony with each loss and revelling in the ecstasy of an actual title, the idea that someone would give up a career that by all appearances, like pure bliss and one that many people would willingly do for free, seems like madness, especially in contrast to whatever dull, drudgerous task you or I might have to slog away at to pay the rent.
As Hunter S Thompson said about those that might be tempted to think what he does is ‘fun,’ “I’ve always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it’s a bit like fucking, which is only fun for amateurs. Old whores don’t do much giggling.”
But when this story broke, my heart went out to Sanders, if only because at one point in my life I faced a similar choice. Not to sound supremely arrogant, but when I was young, I too was considered something of a prodigy in the world of art. It was also the family business, and as such it was more or less expected that I’d follow in my father’s footsteps. But somewhere along the line, I forgot why I’d picked up a paintbrush to begin with. It wasn’t fun anymore, or even pleasurable, but rather a magic trick, something that I did to impress people or flatter my ego.
So I gave it up. Quit. Walked away. It was a difficult and frightening choice to make, but regardless of whether or not I had a reasonable shot at professional success, it’s one that, given a chance for a do-over, I’d definitely make again. Even if that means dealing with the occasional raised eyebrow from people I haven’t spoken to in years when I explain that I’m not making art anymore.
So do the human thing and cut Sanders as thick a slice of slack as you can. Should he choose to stop playing ball, he’s earned the time and space to find his own path in life. Nothing’s been ‘wasted’ here, talent-wise.
“Sanders wants to establish a shelter for battered women in Fort Pierce that will offer three free meals a day. It’s one of his many projects. He also builds skateboards that he isn’t allowed to ride – per his standard rookie contract – and he buys the parts in different cities: grip tape in Milwaukee, a deck in Toronto, trucks in LA,” Lee Jenkins wrote in a 2013 profile of Sanders for Sports Illustrated that details the hardships he had faced, and the varied interests he has outside of the game. “He wants to design boards that look like Persian rugs.”
“’I don’t get along with guys whose lives revolve totally around basketball,” Sanders said. “Someday that rubber ball will stop bouncing, and if you’ve built your whole identity around it, who will you be?”
