Reading the thread in NBA Dish about the Greatest Players who could've been got me thinking again about something. Great success in sports, or really anything, is something that is generally rare. Consider how many people play basketball, then how many make it to the NBA, then how many win a Championship. Imagine though if you had the physical talents to play at the highest level of any sport and provided you didn't get injured how hard would you work to be at the top? The example I think about is Ricky Williams. Here is a guy with incredible natural abilities yet how much of his career did he fritter away. If I had the physical skills of Ricky Williams I would want to very hard to make the most of that opportunity.
I'd work hard enough to win at the highest level. If it happens because I'm on a great team, or I kick ass, or both, then fine. After that though, I'd probably coast.
That's not fare to Ricky. From all accounts, Ricky was/is a very hard worker. He just couldn't keep off the MJ. The dude is just a little weird.
He worked hard but he didn't do it consistently and it often seemed like he really wasn't committed to being the best player he could be. Consider that he retired for a year just so he could smoke weed. Now I personally don't think that weed is addictive or very destructive and chalk this more up as him simply not wanting to play. So yes he was weird but that is partly why I am looking at him as an example of wasted talent. Here was a guy who could've been the greatest running back of all time who just wasted his talent because he wanted to take it easy and get high.
I hear your point about maximizing and honoring the gifts you have been given, and would like to think I would do the same maximizing if I had been given such capability, but Ricky is a poor example, and I think you are really missing the point (and are doing him an injustice) if you guys think Ricky Williams left football because he wanted to get high. He had crippling SAD, depression, and clearly mar1juana was with him all along the way, but Ricky's story is much, much more complex. He quit, he hid, but I don't think it was the easy way out for him, by any stretch.
Exactly. My idea of hard work would be checking the bank account on the 1st of each month to make sure that the direct deposited paycheck had arrived.
I had a similar conversation with a freind once about natural abilites. He wondered if there was something that he was really good at naturally but did not know about it. I told him that people who have great sucsess are sucsessfull for a reason. It wouldnt matter what they were good at they would find it and make themselves into what they wanted. To answer this question, i have to assume I would be the same as I am now. Maybe my physical abilities are the same as some player who made it into the NFL. Heck, I played football against a guy who was in the leauge for 5 years and I never thought he was all that great in HS. Dude just worked his butt off in college.
This!! I hate to lose more than I love to win. If I do lose it sure isn't gonna be for lack of hard work.
Now that I think about it do recall hearing that he suffered from depression and if so then I have been unfair to Ricky Williams. That is why I didn't site Eddie Griffin who truly was very troubled. Just speaking for myself sports and martial arts are my way of coping with depression and if I could I compete at the highest level I would do as much of it as I could. Besides Ricky Williams there are still many others who didn't give them their all and just coasted. I sometimes suspect that there isn't much physical difference between Kobe Bryant and Von Wafer. Its just that one has a much greater will and focus to win than the other.
But is money all that you would care about? I mean how much difference would your lifestyle be if you earned $6 million a year vs. $10 million? What if you knew you had the talent to be great at some point where there wasn't a lot of money, like say distance runner. Would you just decide to not compete in the Olympics since you weren't likely to get much money even if you won the Gold?
