{"id":34178,"date":"2023-06-21T02:24:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-21T02:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=34178"},"modified":"2023-12-17T14:36:56","modified_gmt":"2023-12-17T14:36:56","slug":"for-some-nba-draftees-who-overcame-adversity-making-the-transition-to-fame-and-fortune-is-no-slam-dunk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/for-some-nba-draftees-who-overcame-adversity-making-the-transition-to-fame-and-fortune-is-no-slam-dunk\/","title":{"rendered":"For some NBA draftees who overcame adversity, making the transition to fame and fortune is no slam\u00a0dunk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rob Book<\/a>, University of Southern Denmark<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a young athlete is drafted into the NBA \u2013 as 58 players<\/a> are expected to be on Thursday, June 22, 2023<\/a> \u2013 it is often seen as a life-changing event<\/a>. The money makes it so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salaries for first-round draft picks this year are projected to range from about $2.4 million at the low end to $12 million at the very top<\/a>. That\u2019s a lot of bread for a young person to handle. The three youngest prospects<\/a> this year will still be 18 at the time of the draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps for some spectators, the big salaries might seem as if they should cushion the young players from whatever economic hardships or social challenges they may have faced growing up. But through research that I conducted with NBA coaches, NBA union representatives and former NBA players, I discovered that it\u2019s not always so easy<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPoverty is a trauma, and there is a lot of data<\/a> to support that,\u201d one NBA union representative told me. \u201cMen are essentially incentivized to say nothing, be tough, man up, and this mask is what I call invisible tattoos. We\u2019re talking sexual trauma, incarceration, spousal battery, alcohol, or gang violence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I point out in my study, these issues are not necessarily unique to professional basketball players and affect athletes in other sports as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overnight fortunes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Through the draft, newly-minted NBA players may skyrocket into an astronomically higher tax bracket overnight. But just because they\u2019ve become instant millionaires doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re going to easily transition into lives of prosperity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This may be particularly true, I have found, for players who have faced the adversity of poverty in childhood<\/a>, or who grew up in low-income communities<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, one former NBA player, who retired in the late 2010s, told me that rookies may find it difficult to break ties with friends who could derail their careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will always feel a tight bond to the community in which I was raised, and I know that people from the outside might not understand that,\u201d the player told me. \u201cSo, even though my new coaches or agent might tell me to stop hanging with my old friends, it isn\u2019t that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The player told me that when he was a rookie, what he needed back then was \u201csomeone from this new world who actually went through this transition to help because I certainly made a lot of mistakes.\u201d Specifically, he said he found it difficult to sever ties with old acquaintances who were still involved in lives of crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lessons for new professionals<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not that the NBA is completely oblivious to the need to orient new players on how to comport themselves and handle their newfound fame and fortune. And it\u2019s not like the story of basketball players seeking to overcome adversity is an unfamiliar one, if somewhat of a misleading cultural trope<\/a>. Researchers have found, for instance, that despite the popular image of NBA players rising from impoverished backgrounds, \u201cMost NBA players come from relatively advantaged social origins<\/a>.\u201d But that\u2019s often not the story that gets told.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As early as 1979, movies like \u201cFast Break<\/a>\u201d and TV shows like \u201cThe White Shadow<\/a>\u201d portrayed the challenges that young players faced off the court. A more recent example is \u201cLast Chance U: Basketball<\/a>,\u201d a Netflix docuseries that chronicles the lives of community college basketball players who are seeking to go pro despite their difficult pasts<\/a>, which is one of my focal points of study. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/b-YCKtBb0L4?wmode=transparent&start=0 The official Netflix trailer for \u2018Last Chance U: Basketball.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NBA \u2013 clearly cognizant of the challenges that young players face \u2013 offers a four-day rookie transition program<\/a> to get the young athletes acclimated to their new lives as professional basketball players. Among other things, speakers advise the young players to avoid the pitfalls associated with guns, drugs and sexual relationships with groupies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some \u2013 myself included \u2013 question whether the four-day symposium is enough, or whether there needs to be a more sustained effort. Among the skeptics is one former coach of an NBA player who got sent to prison after being convicted of a felony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like, we gave you the information and now it\u2019s on you because you are a grown man,\u201d the former coach said. \u201cBut even though he was grown, he was still young, and he had lots of chances to make some bad decisions, which he obviously did,\u201d he said of the player who went to prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between worlds<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One former NBA player told me of a time when he drew attention after he lashed out at someone for stepping on his shoe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was out one night with some teammates and someone stepped on my shoe and I just lost it and I remember everyone looking at me like I was crazy,\u201d the player told me. \u201cThe thing is that where I was from, you simply couldn\u2019t let these things pass or else it would make me look weak and then you became a target. In that moment I realized that the same behaviors I learned which allowed me to survive and thrive in my old environment could cause me to get locked up in my new one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the rookie transition program, players are advised to seek out veteran players for advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, one former NBA official told me, that may be the best advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf a rookie gets to the NBA and the only place he feels like he belongs is athletically, he is going to revert back to past behaviors because of the trauma he has endured,\u201d the former executive told me. \u201cIn these cases, NBA teams need to understand this transition has a lot of underlying issues that very often aren\u2019t addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rob Book<\/a>, Associate Professor of Cultural Sport Psychology, University of Southern Denmark<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rob Book, University of Southern Denmark When a young athlete is drafted into the NBA \u2013 as 58 players are expected to be on Thursday, June 22, 2023 \u2013 it is often seen as a life-changing event. The money makes it so. Salaries for first-round draft picks this year are projected to range from about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[292,6],"tags":[6412,7266,3081,6145,14262,2592,803,6326,203,10213],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34178"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34179,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34178\/revisions\/34179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}