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For instance.
People say.
Well. "Imagine these MLB or NFL players in the NBA. It could work out"
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The average nfl player is 188 cm tall. Or 6 foot 2. Ditto for the the MLB. They are 188 cm or 6 foot 2 on average.
The average NBA player is 6 foot 6 or 198 cm tall.
Now. This is the interesting part. The NFL is a much lower paying league than the NBA. And has far more injuries. Full time college basketball players like Antonio Gates and Jimmy Graham have dominated the NFL.
Meaning. The idea that you can swap the players for these 3 leagues is nonsensical.
The average NFL player isn't tall enough. And the ones that are tall enough are lacking something.
Now. NFL players are known for being the best athletes in the US. Ask anyone who they think is the fastest most explosive athlete in the US. You will see very few MLB players named.
You will see tons of people say Randy Moss or Calvin Johnson otoh.
So I don't think MLB players can do it either. They are either too short. And they are absolutely unathletic compared to NFL players. They look like elite athletes compared to the general population.
But these doofuses are not jumping 47 inch verticals without a running start like Randy Moss did. Hell look at how many 40+ inch vertical jumps we get from the NFL combine in a year. Standing vertical jumps. Not running.
So in conclusion.
There are very few athletes who are not NBA players. Who aren't in the NBA.
The NBA player is too tall on average to be swapped with fucking Tyreek Hill.
And Tyreek is super athletic.
And don't get me started on sports like Golf or lacrosse.just no.
I’ve only ever heard that argument in regards to soccer, and I do think it makes sense in that context. I think America is probably one of the more efficient countries in regards to capitalizing on its NBA-level talent, if you’re tall for your age at any point then you get asked about pursuing basketball a lot.
Am soccer fan- while that might be some of the reason it’s far from the top reason. Pay to play IMO is the bigger reason. Barcelona scouts 6-14 year olds for pro potential and pays them to train with elite facilities. It’s how they got the core of their 2008-15 group that literally won everything multiple times.
Also we only really started taking soccer seriously like 30-35 years ago. We are several generations behind Europe in terms of coaching and training infrastructure. Imagine if all of Europe wanted to compete against the US in American football. It would take decades even if the talent is there.
Pay to play is huge. I also think a lot of it comes down to real estate — same reason NYC has stopped producing as many good basketball players as it once did. Basketball courts, soccer fields, baseball fields are all not an efficient use of real estate in an expensive city.
In international cities, the richest ppl often live at the center of a dense city and then it gets poorer/closer to countryside as you move farther out, so you eventually have working class areas with a decent bit of green space around them. In the US, things are kinda flipped, so poorer ppl often do not live near green space. This does not bode well for a thriving culture in a sport that pretty much requires your working class to have access to some degree of green space to play.
Yep. & while very high school will have a football team, baseball, and basketball team, there’s a good chance they won’t have a soccer team.
Idk if I’ve heard of a high school in the US without a soccer team honestly
What? Soccer is like the cheapest shit to run for schools.
40 years ago maybe. I don't know if any high school around me that doesn't have a soccer team, same when I graduated 20 years ago
What are you talking about?
Most high schools have a soccer team.
More highschool kids play soccer than basketball.
No football club in the world can pay underage players, that’s child labour. Players only start getting payed, at the earliest, when they turn 16 and sign a profissional contract.
Claiming Barcelona got their 2008-15 squad because of scouting takes away from the actual work that is done in La Masia.
He's right though. Barcelona has scouts all over the world, that's how they got Messi from Argentina. Iniesta started with Albacete then got scouted by Barcelona at age 12. While they can't pay them with money they pay them in other ways. Like paying for Messi's medical bills and housing and schooling some of them.
By European law providing schooling and housing to a minor isn’t the same as paying someone with money on a monthly basis.
All top clubs have/send scouts all over the world. I’ve worked for 3 seasons as a scout/analyst and there were weeks where I would sleep in 5 different beds. It’s not a Barcelona thing. Thinking the 2008-15 Barca dominance happened because of scouting (a regular practice) is a really really narrow way to look at it.
As someone who played soccer extremely competitively, it’s not really that true. You don’t want to be that tall for soccer, and it’s much more about quickness and skill anyways - flat out speed, jumping, and size aren’t really that important.
The biggest issue is it’s a wealthy person sport in America, limiting the pool, whereas the rest of the world it’s a poor person sport. Imagine if the basketball talent only consisted of the kids who could afford to get private training and shoot in gyms all day - we wouldn’t be very good at basketball either.
We also have some weird labor laws in America I believe that prevents lower level clubs from benefitting from training elite players, which would subsidize training for good, financially poor players.
I watched a Malcolm Brogdon interview earlier this year where he mentioned wanting to be a pro soccer player (his favorite sport) but realized he was too tall and switched to basketball.
Malcolm is 6’5” and the only really elite player that was 6’5” who wasn’t a goalie is Zlatan, so yeah there’s almost zero precedent. You either have to be a holding CF, center back or goalie. I mean Ronaldo is pretty tall and he’s only 6’1” like 190.
I had the opposite thing as Malcolm lol. Basketball is my favorite sport, but I was 5’1” as a freshman (was also the youngest) so basketball was out, but was immediately the best soccer player on my HS team. Size just doesn’t matter quite as much.
Yup, i'm 5'8" and played on my varsity soccer team in HS. I liked basketball, but...well..you get it!
Brogdon measured 6'3.75'' without shoes at the 2016 NBA draft combine; that's fine for GK, CB or ST.
Shorter black guys ...
Most of the best players of all time are white or Hispanic so, not necessarily. And pretty much every other country is getting their best black athletes playing soccer.
Well Europe and Argentina have the best infrastructure.
Don't black players outdo whites in England, France and Germany?
I’m a big soccer fan. I think Americans overrate the importance of athleticism in soccer. Of course it doesn’t hurt, but a well-coached, disciplined team with elite technical skills but average athleticism will be able to beat a team of elite athletes with average technical skills 9/10 times.
In Basketball they do it as well. Jokic and Doncic are good examples of that, both were undervalued (Jokic much more) because they aren’t fast or jump high.
This. There are many ways to neutralize a fast attacker. Also if speed was important then why is Giroud a top level player.
I think Americans view all sports through the lens of Football and Basketball where speed kills. The problem is that soccer is more like a cross between those sports and tennis where speed is a “nice to have”.
I think that you are way off here. Most soccer players are fast, strong, high endurance individuals. Maybe the athleticism isnt as needed as height is needed in NBA, but a team of elite athletes with average skills is smoking a elite technical but average athleticism team.
I disagree 100%. You see this all the time in MLS when they play Liga MX teams. The MLS teams are almost always bigger, faster, and physically stronger than teams in Mexico but still struggle to beat them because the Mexican teams are better technically and tactically.
Nobody makes this argument you have invented a “massive fallacy”
Every wide receiver in the NFL is a failed hooper
Yeah I've seen people talking about Terrell Owens as a football player who was good at basketball. He played college basketball for UT-Chatanooga, averaged 7 minutes per game in his best year, and was a career 42% free throw shooter who never made a three pointer. Usually football players playing basketball stick out like a sore thumb because they are so spastic and uncoordinated in how they move on the court.
I don't disagree but a lot of kids also become hoopers the moment after their first Oklahomas
Lol if we wanna talk faulty assumptions…ppl will say any great NBA athlete could kill it as a wide receiver or tight end, but 95% of the NBA probably isn’t tough enough to play in the NFL
True.
99% of NBA players wouldn't even be able to beat press-man coverage from a 5'11" 195 lb DB.
They'd also suck at route running and would be useless on any kind of timing routes. Everyone says "jump ball" but they aren't getting enough separation.
It’s the opposite, NBA is the highest paying sport and takes all the highest level talent.
Lebron could have been the GOAT TE. Ja Morant elite WR potential.
Lonzo (with knees) would have been an all-time QB talent. His vision, speed and full-court accuracy is crazy at 6’6”.
No NBA talent would ever sacrifice that for another sport. Any NFL or MLB player would play NBA if they could.
Pat Connaughton is a good example
Allen Iverson is another. Pretty sure he was the #1 high school QB prospect in the country.
Crazy. He was the number one high school prospect for both football and basketball. His choice was football. He just knew early on that his stature was much more suited to basketball.
Actually he got in a brawl his senior year and lost his football scholarships. Once he got out of jail only one school offered him a scholarship and it was basketball
There’s a dude on the Warriors named Pat Spencer who was one of the best players in lacrosse and moved on from it to play in the NBA.
He wasn’t just one of, he is the college lacrosse GOAT.
NU legend!!! Dude played four years of lacrosse and dominated and then said fuck it Imma play basketball. Suited up for NU in the Big Ten and started after taking five years off. Absolutely wild story that he made it to an active roster. What an athlete.
Sad oriole noises
Worth noting Pat actually got paid like $400K by the Orioles before sticking in the NBA.
Dave Winfield was drafted by teams in the NBA, ABA, NFL and MLB and ended up choosing baseball, but at the time baseball was way more popular and basketball wasn’t lucrative.
Joe Mauer is another example who could have chosen another sport but went with baseball. He was an All State shooting guard, and won national player of the year awards in both football and baseball, but chose a Hall of Fame baseball career over the others.
Mauer's from Minnesota too, so being All State in basketball is difficult. It's not like he did it in Hawaii or Vermont or somewhere that it's relatively easy.
danny ainge played professional baseball before playing for the celtics
Michael Jordan played professional baseball rather than take an NBA suspension for gambling
ainge was actually playing in the mlb though. not that he was that good by those standards but he did make the major league.
Also health wise basketball is way better, I remember watching 30 for 30s as a kid and being shocked almost all the "old" nba players were alive and extremely healthy
The most difficult position physically in all of sports, other than fighting, is playing defensive back.
The best money you can make is as a starting pitcher in baseball, because you only play 1/5 of the games and still make top dollar in the sport. The problem is that in the nba you start making millions at 19 years old, where as you could be 28 years old by the time you sign a decent contract as a pitcher
Yeah, but like 90% of MLB pitchers have some kind of permanent damage to their arms. Over a quarter of the currently active pitchers have had ligament replacement surgery (aka Tommy John), and that number is steadily going up as players keep throwing harder.
I love baseball, but besides getting hit in the head repeatedly (e.g. boxing, football), pitching at a high level is probably the worst sports related thing you can do to your body.
I’d take a pitchers arm over a catchers knees
Yeah the massive amount of team control and high "bust" rate in baseball (1/3 of FIRST round draft picks never even sniff the bigs) makes it pretty damn hard to be assured of ever hitting a mega payday.
Why do you only play 1/5 of the games as a starting pitcher? Didn’t realise that was a thing as an Aussie
Overwork. Pitching is hard on the arm, and it is standard in baseball to have a starting rotation of 5 pitchers.
Baseball gets played like 5-6 days a week for 6+ months
Edit to add: in MLB, the season begins with pitchers and catchers reporting around February 14th, and then the rest of the team shows up about 2 weeks later for Spring Training. Half the teams go to Florida (East), the other half to Arizona (West), and they play practice games for most of the month of March. Historically, the regular season would start April 1st, although this has moved up to usually one of the last days of march in recent years, and they play 162 games between April 1st and September 30th, with only 4 days off in the middle of July for the All Star Break.
Then, October is the playoffs, which with today’s rules is a total of 10 teams, and the last two play in the World Series.
All this to say, you play with a roster of 5 starting pitchers, 8 relief pitchers, 8 starting fielders, a Designated hitter and 4 substitutes (26), and on an average week you will play 5-6 games. Your starting pitchers rotate who goes, your catcher will usually take 1-2 games off a week, and your starting 8 will usually take off 1 game a week at most, usually depending on the handedness of the opposing starting pitcher. Then outside of games you can send players up or down, but that’s where you start getting more into the legal arguments and I lose interest. But the larger roster including injured players is a total of 40.
It's money longevity that NBA players seem to have the upper hand on. Even a decent starter-transition bench player could out earn an NFL all-star , think Kyle Korver etc
Korver was literally an NBA All-Star.
Yeah that's my point bro, a starter-transition to bench player.
I would say like 75% of the NBA has elite WR/DB potential.
Too tall for DB. They'd be monster defensive lineman and tight end.
They couls be good Safety, but not CB. S/LB/TE is what NBA build fits (even TE's scouting report always jokes that player x plays basketball in HS/College), especially receiving/redzone TE.
That’s because 2 of the best to play TE played college basketball. Tony Gonzalez played football and basketball at Cal and Antonio Gates played just basketball at Kent State.
Throw in Jimmy Graham who played 4 years of basketball and 1 year of football at Miami. It seems there are some skills that are useful for both.
TE but they'd have to work very hard at getting strong enough to handle defensive ends and blitzing LB's.
Most NBA guys would struggle being a DE because they aren't anywhere near strong enough to handle offensive linemen. Imagine Embiid or Jokic or even Zion trying to sack Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson. If he got past the OL, Allen would truck them and Jackson would shake them out their cleats.
Agree 100% on DBs. There's not a single NBA player with the agility, speed and strength to stay anywhere near Tyreek, CeeDee, DK etc.
Antonio Gates and Jimmy Graham who were nowhere near good enough for NBA are dominant tight ends.
Antonio Gates is like top 5 all time.
Don't kid yourself. If any 6 foot 6 NBA player chose the OT instead in HS. They'd bulk up to 300lbs and could have done it.
Maybe for a typical guy that size who ends up playing football. But I think there are plenty of guards in the NBA in the 6'2"-6'5" range who have the speed and lateral agility to play CB.
No they don't. NBA and NFL speed and quickness are different tiers with NFL guys being much faster and quicker. There are only a handful of guys in the NBA who could run a sub 4.5 40.
The fastest guy in the NBA would get absolutely smoked by dozens of NFL guys.
Not really, just only the Shorter Players like everyone 6'5 or under
Being that tall becomes a hinderance at a certain point. His center of gravity is too high and his legs are exposed. No way he stays healthy. If he somehow did stay healthy then he’d probably be great by virtue of his athleticism and sharp mind but that’s a huge if.
Yeah the NBA is where the most athletic AND skilled athletes wind up
Also, I think most people would prefer to play in the NBA over the NFL considering it doesn’t come with lifelong brain damage.
Are you saying Morant Elite WR potential literally just off his build and saying random shit or was he actually a great college football player?
Because a build means very little by itself lol
Just build, but he’s 6’3” with a 46” vertical. That would be an NFL combine record (45”).
He also has great body control, spacial awareness, and hands. You underestimate how much NFL relies on athleticism as a talent indicator.
He would get a contract offer if he announced a transition today.
That's not the NFL combine record. I know for a fact Josh Imatorbhebhe jumped over 46" a few years ago. He's also much bigger, stronger and likely faster than Ja and he still couldn't make it in the NFL.
Remember too...the NFL vertical test is a standing vertical while the NBA is a running vertical.
If NFL guys could run, you'd probably have some folks approaching 50".
I think NFL >NBA because there have been a lot of NFL players that were good at sprinting (Tyreek), above average at MLB (Deion), Olympic caliber at shotput/discus (Michael Carter)...Ray Lewis was a state champion wrestler, Jim Brown is still considered one of the greatest lacrosse players ever....kickers that played soccer in college or low level pro leagues.
NFL athleticism translates to more sports and most elite NFL players have backgrounds playing multiple sports and being really good at them. Feels less common in hoops.
I don’t underestimate that at all, I just know how little that matters when you don’t play or understand the game lol
Which is why the combine is always full of people being wowed by the 40 yd dash and vertical of folk who barely ever see the field because being an athlete means nothing, there are thousands of athletes, very few though have the right skill set and understanding
But those combine standouts still get drafted based off potential.
All the top contracts in American sports are baseball players and quarterbacks. Why would they switch to NBA?
I think of it the other way:
Seeing DeMar throw that football in practice made me think about how scouts would drool over his stats as a QB. 6-6, huge hands, cannon for a arm, incredibly fast and agile. He would be a unicorn in the NFL.
Most conventional forwards would be good tight ends, que all the Lebron to the Browns talk from years ago.
Imagine jokic as qb
Tom Brady finally finds his athletic equal in speed and mobility.
Hehe, just so long as we're talking AMERICAN NBA players and not the french ones...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAlSr05IwVQ
poor guy.
He shoulda brought out a soccer ball for revenge
So why would they play in the lower paying sport thats a guaranteed concussion fest
Look at Charlie Ward. Heisman Trophy winner, NBA role player. If you can play in the NBA you do
It’s a complete fallacy. All the top athletes want to be NBA players because it offers the best combination of pay and social capital after you retire. The NBA has a dearth of americans at the top of the league (see recent MVPs) because kids nowadays aren’t being taught fundamentals and are doing it just for the money.
The MVP was American every year from 2007-2018, and as good as Giannis is he wasn’t MVP because of his fundamentals. He was MVP because he has the platonic ideal of a basketball player’s body. Also the reigning MVP is a naturalized American citizen who was taught basketball in the United States. There is no evidence for a lack of American top tier talent due to a lack of “fundamentals” when every MVP ever has been brought up in American basketball except for Giannis, Jokic, and Dirk.
Giannis has great fundamentals except for shooting. He is an athletic freak, but has high BBIQ (esp on defense), knows how to get to a spot, boxes out, and runs offenses well as a point forward. Without a good jumper, he uses spin moves, up and unders, etc. to get off layups and hook shots. Would you say LeBron has poor fundamentals? Giannis is like LeBron except without good shooting abilities.
You're also forgetting about Luka, who will likely win an MVP soon. SGA is Canadian as well. I think AAU is destroying youth basketball by making them play way too much and play far too much iso ball.
I’m not saying Giannis necessarily has bad fundamentals, I’m saying it’s disingenuous to say he’s better than top American players because of that. He’s dominant because he’s Giannis. Also SGA played high school and college ball in the US.
It’s not because they are doing it for the money.
AAU and every talented player only playing 6 months of college basketball is hindering it more than the prospect of money.