Bad Influences

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• LA Huey Posted: Aug.12 at 2:16 pm
  You didn’t make the NBA because you’re the type of person that takes far too long to realize the square peg doesn’t go in the round hole. I can’t believe SLAM is letting people post this stuff.

• Double J Posted: Aug.12 at 2:51 pm
  ^damn tell it like it is why don’t ya

• nbk Posted: Aug.12 at 4:56 pm
  Wait, wth did you work on if you didn’t work on offensive skills? You just dunked over and over again? Making the NBA is not about who you pattern your game after, its about how hard you efficiently work. Sounds like you didn’t make the NBA because you didn’t work on parts of your game that were obviously needed but not because you lived in the wrong city or watched the wrong players, but because you didn’t think thoroughly about what would make you the best basketball player possible. Larry Bird didn’t become Larry Bird from watching someone else who played kind of similar. Bird became Bird because he worked his f*ckin ass off. And that’s what you should be teaching these kids. Kevin Durant is a 7-footer that plays like a guard. He does it because he spent so much time playing like a guard and had people willing to help him play that way. The first way to get better at something is enjoying it, if your gonna force some kid too do something he has no interest in, do you really expect them to get better?

• UNFROZEN CAVEMAN LAWYER Posted: Aug.12 at 5:42 pm
  GRIMINESS IN HERE!! LA HUEY WINS

• Morty Posted: Aug.12 at 7:04 pm
  LA Guey is DOUCH He is just mad his town is full of sh*t sports teams and the Birds took one of the two decent athletes left in LA. Geek has probably been waiting tables for 15 years……just to hold him over in between auditions.

• Datkid Posted: Aug.13 at 11:26 am
  Nah I understand what This guy is saying…but nbk has a point. This article does have a couple bad messages

• Rob Cooper Posted: Aug.13 at 3:32 pm
  This post is awful.

• Waiting For Godunk Posted: Aug.13 at 4:08 pm
  I’m going to steal a scene from “Good Will Hunting”. nbk I thought about you said…it ate away at me for a few hours. A thought then popped into my head and I fell into a deep sleep and haven’t thought about you since. You know what thought that was? You have no IDEA what you are talking about!!! You don’t know me. You know nothing about me! Yet you read a satyrical article and presume to know everything about me. You don’t know the hard work and sacrifices I have made in my life to become a professional basketball player. You weren’t there when I turned myself from a 185 pound 7 footer to my 250 pound playing weight. You didn’t see when I would wake up at 5:30am to get 1000 jump shots up. You haven’t talked to any of my coaches through the years who would tell you I worked harder than any other player. How are you even going to comment on what goes into being a professional basketball player in the NBA? Have you ever played pro ball? I doubt it…yet you assume that because I wish I patterned my game after different players or had a chance to watch a player like Larry Bird everyday, that I went about my development all wrong. I doubt you ever saw me play. Do you think it is fair that I assume you are a talentless know-it-all because I read your comments? Does that encapsulate you? Yet you read an article and tore my life appart. You attacked not just my writing ability, my work ethic, my intelligence and my ability to teach kids basketball. Had you read my article you would have seen the word “strictly” when I described the 7’1″ 3 point shooter. He doesn’t want to dribble, or post up, or shoot from anywhere but 5 feet beyond the line. How good of a trainer would I be if I let him remain one dimensional? Again…don’t presume to know! As much as I do appreciate you “skimming” my articles, they may make more sense if you read them…Your move chief.

• nbk Posted: Aug.13 at 5:16 pm
  Im sorry i toook the words in your article as the honest truth. You said you should have been, and i quote, “Had I grown up outside of Philadelphia, I could have modeled my game after players like Larry Bird and Kevin McHale. I could have been working on my three-ball as opposed to my rebounding. My up and under as opposed to trying to cup the ball and dunk on a 7-foot rim” – that implies you didnt work on shooting or any real tangible skill, but focused on rebounding and dunking, on a 7-foot rim no less. And you didnt say the kid stricly wants to shoot, you said, and i quote, “i have 7’1″ high school kids who stricly want to play on the PERIMETER”. You see my confusion when you talk about kidS (plural) who want to do something (play the perimeter) and have a player to mold their game after (kevin durant) which i coincidentally thought this article was about when i read the title and the words, but have you their coach telling thwm its a bad idea for whatever reason. You elaborated in your comment that he only wants to shoot from 5 feet behind te three point like, so its a 7’1″ kid who eants to be a shooter? Then ok he definitely should learn new skills. But i cant just assume this sh*t, its your job as the author of an article to say what you mean, and to say it clear enough for people to understand. And I read every word of your article, probably the last time I do that.

• nbk Posted: Aug.13 at 5:47 pm
  No need to insult you or anything like that. And no need for you to feel insulted. Just a national piblication – if your going to submit somethin to be read by the whole world people will inevitably have criticism. If you cant take that its your own problem. If you want people to read what you write and blindly agree put the article on your fridge, not the internet.

• JTaylor21 Posted: Aug.13 at 8:02 pm
  Yawn!!! Another person that didn’t make it to the NBA, get in line.

• HEP Posted: Aug.13 at 10:19 pm
  I have now worked out with Waiting for Godunk for 8 years in that time I have been transformed from a 6th grade middle school player into a Division 1 NCAA tournament player. Waiting for Godunk has taught me all I know about the game of basketball. He has helped develop me into a complete player. I can dominate inside and have a killer jumpshot. Waiting for Godunk has always encouraged me to be an all around player, including, post, perimeter, and basketball IQ. As a post player it is very appealing to wander out to the three point line and Waiting for Godunk encourages that aspect of my game however, at the same time he makes me realize that standing on the three point line is not going to give me the results I want. While it may appear easier to just stand on the perimeter than bang inside Waiting for Godunk has taught me that it is the “bang inside” that makes you the all around player and not just another basketball player with a nice jump shot. I can vividly recall all the hours spent with Waiting for Godunk in the gym. His impeccable work ethic has rubbed off on me and for that I will be forever grateful. If someone were to ask me today who I wanted to thank for making me the basketball player I am today I would know my answer immediately.

• Aaron Posted: Aug.14 at 5:23 am
  sat·ire/ˈsaˌtī(ə)r/Noun
  1. The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. According to you, in your comment above, this article was “satirical” (<– that is how the word satirical is spelled, for future reference). However, I fail to see the satire in this piece. Were you criticizing yourself for failing to realize how your strengths could best be utilized? The humor or irony was lost on me. The point of this article appeared to be: "people should not try to be something they are not. " This point, if a bit simple, is true. People should use their strengths to help them succeed. However, this article is a convoluted mess. Hypothesizing about what "could have" happened to your career adds nothing to this article and only makes you appear bitter and regretful that your life has not turned out differently. By ending this article with details about your job search, you shamelessly advertise yourself and lose the thread of what this article was about in the first place. As another commenter above me said, if you are going to put an article on display for the world to read, you have to expect criticism. Based on your childish overreaction in your response, you do not handle criticism well. The fact of the matter is, this is a poorly written article, and both your writing skills and response to criticism do not bode well for a future in writing. Good luck with your job search.

• Jukai Posted: Aug.14 at 7:09 am
  Sometimes, the commentators on this website are really, really, really dumb. This was a good article, and if you didn’t catch Kevin’s half sarcasm when he said he’d be in the NBA if he modeled his game after Larry Bird, then you need to take some remedial english classes.
  A lot of this article is the truth. My brother IDOLIZES Nash and tries to cross out everyone, throw flashy behind the back passes, lots of stop-and-fades… problem is, he has absolutely no court vision and is absolutely awful when controlling the ball. One-on-one he kills it, two-on-one he’s pretty good, but the more people you add in, the less valuable he gets. His style simply doesn’t mesh on a team, and he’ll always be the one-on-one wizard who no one wants to play with because he trained himself to play in a way he can’t play.
  Would he make the NBA if he played more like a quick-slash two guard? No. Would he make a div II college team? I highly doubt it. But he’d be a better basketball player if he modeled his game after a shooting guard instead of a point guard. That’s all this article is about. I myself have regrets about how I play, I should have better range, I should have a better handle… but that’s not what I worked on when I was a kid. If I worked on those things, maybe nothing in my life would change. But I wish someone said “Hey, you’re not explosive enough or tall enough to really be effective playing like that. Try working on this, it will help!”
  And for the life of me, I can’t figure out how that quote means Kevin didn’t work on tangible skills. It meant he worked on skills for a power bigman rather then finesse. No one can master every single facet of the game, everyone has restraints, you work on what you are best at. The article is about how idolizing certain players may make you prioritize learning skills which wont benefit you.

• Jukai Posted: Aug.14 at 7:14 am
  In fairness to some comments above, the job search part really didn’t add anything and kinda looks like a shameless plug.

• nbk Posted: Aug.14 at 7:26 am
  If your going to use sarcasm even if its “half sarcasm” you dont back it up with reasoning jukai. I can see that you know the author and are defending your friend or whatever but his reaction to my initial comment proves by itself that this was not satirical if it was he would have said that in response an left his arrogant response be (and my comment wouldnt have bothered him) I didnt insult him just asked questions and critiqued what i read (kinda the point of the comment section, yes?).

• nbk Posted: Aug.14 at 7:28 am
  My fault slam + phone commenting = lots of typos

• Enigmatic Posted: Aug.14 at 12:48 pm
  Psshht… 5:30 AM? I been up two hours by then.

• hagekg Posted: Aug.14 at 1:18 pm
  hahaha…..nbk and writer, we can only talk so much on this site and we cannot judge how the writer play by using words to describe isnt it ? Certainly, you have to be freakin good in your athletic ability and skill if you want to make it in the NBA, or else you will just end up like manute bol, kwame brown or shawn bradley even if you make it. my advice to you kevin/writer, think about what MJ said “I can accept failure, but I won’t accept not trying” Plus, you can still go to so many other leagues in the world as a professional basketball player and live the life as how you want it to be. look on the bright side.

• datkid Posted: Aug.14 at 1:42 pm
  yeah i had no idea this was satirical

• Jukai Posted: Aug.14 at 3:02 pm
  Jesus…. the article’s POINT wasn’t satirical, the idea that GROWING UP IN ANOTHER CITY made the author model his game wrong, and the idea that if he grew up in Boston HE’D BE IN THE NBA is the satire.
  Please guys, just go back to high school. Yes, it can still be masked sarcasm if what you’re saying is true but you’re overexaggerating it. I’m not even going to spend a lot of time on this anymore. A lot of you guys are embarrassing yourselves.

• Jukai Posted: Aug.14 at 3:06 pm
  And I’ve never even talked to the dude, NBK, but you took a quote in the article and said he must have never trained in basketball. His reaction had less to do with you not understanding the article and more that you called him lazy in what is clearly a pursuit of his dream. A massive overreaction Bryan Crawford style to something that he clearly should have just sucked up? Oh yeah, if you don’t want to be called out, don’t publish things with a comment section… but understand it’s not that you didn’t like his article, it’s that you pretty much called him out on something he’s worked very hard on.

• nbk Posted: Aug.14 at 3:44 pm
  I didnt call him out. I interpreted his words, and asked him a question that was relevant to the article. Maybe I was blunt about my question, and saying wth was maybe innappropriate. I never said he doesnt know what it takes to get to the NBA, i said “Sounds like you didn’t make the NBA because you didn’t work on parts of your game that were obviously needed but not because you lived in the wrong city or watched the wrong players, but because you didn’t think thoroughly about what would make you the best basketball player possible.”. Which is basically what he’s saying, except he is blaming it on the city he grew up in, and the player he looked up to in that city, instead of blaming the fact that he didnt work on the skills that would get him to the nba on himself and/or the people that taught him how to play like coaches. And then he takes that approach (atleast He makes it sound this way, with his words) on to how he trains children. I never presumed to know how good of a coach or player godunk is, hence me asking questions, and starting sentences with phrases like “sounds like” -and i apologize for assuming you knew him, your just normally very rational about the articles posted.

• Jukai Posted: Aug.14 at 5:49 pm
  It really just sounds like you are having trouble interpreting his writing style. I found it easy to tell what part was serious (the training kids who idolize players who they can’t properly mimic) and the parts which were meant as jest (blaming Phili for screwing his priorities as a kid). Perhaps it wasn’t well written and I just figured it out, perhaps not. But people need to stop getting annoyed as if he’s making excuses. That part was meant for humor. He tried to clarify that, but was a bit too angry at your response to do it properly.
  Also, whenever you have a disagreement with me, you always pretext it with “you’re normally very rational but THIS TIME….” Haha, I kind of hate it when you do that.

• Kyle Posted: Aug.15 at 12:53 am
  I knew this writer growing up… he could have been the next Rick Mahorn but he was white. This drove him to attempt failed satire that caused confusion on a site for basketball that attracts retarded people. He didn’t have the heart… This is why you don’t watch Hoop Dreams for inspiration. You watch Hoosiers or “Fletch.”

• Caboose Posted: Aug.15 at 1:08 am
  If I may jump in, it seems what nbk is annoyed at (check me if I’m wrong) is the author’s underhanded arrogance. He could have made the NBA. He does deserve a job. He knows what’s best for his players. In some of this I agree. The job search was unnecessary (we’re all in agreement on that). To the author, I think if you are going to go for satire, make it a bit clearer because I can see where many wouldn’t appreciate the “making of excuses.” I see your facetiousness but others wouldn’t. However, I will ultimately side with nbk. To the author, I agree you should definitely encourage kids to work on a variety of facets of their game. That’s undeniable. However, the article did not convey that properly. Thus, to sum it up: good message, less than stellar presentation.

• Ugh Posted: Aug.15 at 8:44 am
  “satyrical article”
  I saw what you did there, you horny devil.

• Boing Dynasty Posted: Aug.15 at 3:44 pm
  Dude, i just looked @ your blog – maybe you should just be thankful ppl took the time out to comment on your posts on SLAM, i had to scroll back over a year to find a single comment…& it was a spam link for party suppplys.
  This post is hot garbage & ppl are telling you so, its not a personal thing against you(i dont think). Write better sh!t n the feed back will be more postive.

• RPC Posted: Aug.18 at 9:36 pm
  I don’t know why I wasted even a small fraction of my life reading nbk’s flaming trail of comments, but I did. I find myself asking what kind of an idiot spends his time lurking in comment areas waiting to bitterly attack a good natured post like this?
  Some types come to mind:
  1. A loser that never did anything with his life himself.
  2. A pseudo-intellectual bully that prefers to tear others down rather than add anything of value.
  3. A person so angry at the failures that he sees all around him in his own life that he has to lash out at someone, anyone rather than look in the mirror.
  Looking at his initial post, nbk obviously KNOWS how to make it in the NBA, right? I’m so glad he took time out from his NBA career to enlighten us as to how he made it. To try to make a coherent thought out of it, his tried and true NBA formula is “work really hard”. Ingenious! Why didn’t the writer think of that? He not only thought of it, he actually did it, something that an arrogant angry wannabe can’t comprehend as he lounges in his lazy boy and types oh-so-intelligent-and-insightful critiques of people that actually do things with their lives.

• nbk Posted: Aug.20 at 6:19 pm
  Pot, meet Kettle.

• nbk Posted: Aug.20 at 6:22 pm
  And I didnt make the NBA because I didnt work hard enough. Or have the physical tools that make it possible to make it without devoting your life to playing the sport. I have no excuses.