LOL, I meant physically. They get pretty beat up for more then half their year. Unless someone here is a stuntman or a professional wrestler, I don't think you could say your schedule is physically more demanding then theirs.
Not any more rigorous than the Business exec who has to travel 5 days a week and read reports. How many athletes actually work 8-5? Not many. There games are in the afternoon usually. They report to the ballpark and take BP, or do shooting drills, etc. These are all things that I consider fun and it would be a blessing if I were able to do it for a living. I would trade places with anyone on the Rockets. Would they trade places with me? They'd take a big salary cut and they would have to worry about managing people's financial future rather than worry about guarding their next opponent. In the grand scheme of things, sports are not important. Our way of living would not be altered as drastically in a world without athletes as it would a world without mechanics, or account planners.
RocksMillenium makes a great point about the U.S. team having to go to South America next year to qualify for the Olympics. That was an argument the Chinese have for Yao playing in the Asian Games that we are so irritated about... they need to win those games to qualify. The fact that the U.S. team couldn't manage the semi-finals in order to make Olympic qualification is a disgrace. Maybe Stern should pick a division winning Eastern Conference team out of a hat and send them. Even THEY could have managed to medal, and probably win gold. You know, playing as a team.
Hell, pick any Eastern Conference team. If they play unselfishly instead of for the camera, they win it all going away. Miami, DC, Memphis, etc. They're all more talented than any Euro team, they just don't play as well as a team. These guys love the money and the cameras.
