Jeff and Justin still wonder how players can better transition into their post-playing careers before assessing the MLB landscape and dissecting the NBA playoffs. They wrap up with a discussion on the ancient NBA art of flopping in an effort to keep the conversation going.
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Good show this week. A good cross section of topics.
Regarding the introductory topic: athletes crumbling after their sports life is over is certainly sad but I don’t know how big of a problem it is. Has anyone ever looked at the percentages? I mean there are tons of players who do just fine after the game, a majority in fact. Is this a big problem or an overreported problem? The problem, I think, stems from a lack of maturity in a lot of cases and not having a proper understanding of consequences. How to solve it is beyond me.
Flopping is a subject I’m familiar with as a soccer fan. In most leagues the league will dish out punishments after the game regardless of the in game decision if video shows a clear flop. I could see a similar situation in basketball and there would be little problem with it working. The benefit to this system is it protects the players (in the past when they came down too hard on flopping the game got more violent so the postmatch review is a little safer) while still punishing the actors.
The NBA playoffs are great. The blame for the Heat’s loss falls to the front office for not getting a better inside defensive presence. The Pacers frontcourt is dominating.
Very good points on the intro topic. It would be interesting to research the percentages of athletes that are successful vs not after retirement.
On the B.S. Report from May 17th Mike Lombardi dropped the stat that 90% of the players who made $15mil or more during their career were bankrupt. I have no idea where he get the information from but that is a staggering number if true.