Larry Sanders speaks on Why he walked away from the NBA *video*

[Ronnie Lott]

I think I'm more so ragging on Larry Sanders because he basically faked the funk until he got a big contract then didn't want to play anymore..Yet he still was gifted a buyout for half of the contract.

It was a snake move on his part for cheating his employer. The Bucks should absolutely sue. They also should have voided his contract to be honest

I understand happiness is more important BUT he just signed this contract and basically robbed another man.

Fulfill your commitment like a man, nicca. You're getting paid millions for it.

A lot of misplaced anger breh

Teams cut nikkaz all the time and trade them. I highly doubt you get this outraged when organizations fukk over the players, especially nfl teams

 

[BujuBoombastic]

bigmon ting.

Good for Larry Sanders. I hope he finds his happiness.

 

[AITheAnswerAI]

Y'all act like it's not possible to live off 20-30 mil for teh rest of your life

He doesn't NEED to come back.

The thing is, people with that much money tend to live like they do. Mansion, taxes, cars, family, traveling, popping bottles, hoes etc. etc.

Now if he doesn't fall into that lifestyle and remains humble with his money, then you're right. However, we know what the likely scenario is.

 

[KOBE]

i would have finished the contract, got the rest of the MILLIONS, and then fukked off. lets not like 4 years is a long time and you can't put your "happiness" on hold for awhile in order to make about 17 million more.

i understand the life is hard: you gotta maintain your body, practice regularly, travel all the time, and can't have any bud(like sanders clearly wanted), but again it's only 4 years of your life. :kobeshrug:

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Respect. Don't ever give one year of your life away just for the money, much less four. Larry Sanders is never going to starve to death, and neither will anyone in his family. Ruining your life to make yo kids trust fund babies (which usually ruins what really matters in their life too) would be a bad decision.

Praying that the man makes a good decision about what's next. Realizing that there's a decision to be made was only the first step.

 

[The G.O.D II]

Hope he is smart with his money. Because he wont play in the NBA again

 

[TooLazyToMakeUp1]

being a pro athlete is a hard lifestyle, you barely got any time and barely see your family

And that's for the average player. Imagine the cats that go the extra mile, putting in work year round

 

[Styles]

I always felt success and happiness were one and the same. So this is weird to me.

 

[Sccit]

NBA BOUT TO BE THE FIRST LEAGUE THAT ALLOWS WEED

 

[killacal]

You can't get your mid 20's back and these dudes live on the road.
Wake up with a few hundred k in your bank tomorrow and tell you you'd fukkin go back to work and show up to meetings happy

Hes not interested. I don't get how thats so hard to get and I'm surprised more players don't go this route. Bynum is the Neil Armstrong of this shyt tho. Look what he done kicked off

 

[BXKingPin82]

The players tribune has dropped some gems this year.. Kudos to Jeter

foreal tho

 

[se1f_made]

you missed the point

I get it, "money can't buy happiness" and "can't put a dollar amount on peace of mind". No point of doing something that u don't want to if u have the means to quit and pursue what it is that u truly want from life...sounds like he just wanted to be free

But damnit I grew up with the belief that wasted talent and earning potential is a sin

 

[itsyoung!!]

Man these days that can be eaten up by child support, taxes and expenditures in a few years if not protected in investments and savings. I have a hard time believing a guy who leaves the NBA under his circumstances knows how to manage money, but hey, he made his decision.....

That goes for 2 million now a days. Anyone runnin through 20 million is just throwing money away

 

[SuperNintendo Chalmers]

Lol at anyone spinning this as a loss.

Dude has the opportunity to be young, rich and happy doing what he wants and ya mad cause ya wasn't blessed with the genetics to be a millionaire playing a game?

Ya pathetic brehs.

 

[trick]

I always felt success and happiness were one and the same. So this is weird to me.

This is from a SI article two years ago. http://www.si.com/vault/2013/04/15/106309759/the-larry-sanders-show

He started playing basketball after his mom was physically abused at home:

"I had to process what I'd been through," Sanders says. "I had to make sense of it, or it would have overwhelmed me. There's no fantasy out there, no utopia. Between our birth and our due date, we all have to accomplish something, even though a lot of stuff will try to distract us." Sanders enrolled at Port St. Lucie High in 10th grade with a plan for his future. He was going to be an animator or a computer designer.

BEFORE THE beginning of the fall semester, Port St. Lucie High has an open house at which sports teams and academic clubs set up booths in the gym to lure new students. "I was standing in the back, and someone ran up to me and said, 'There's a kid here who's 6'4",' " recalls Port St. Lucie basketball coach Kareem Rodriguez. "A half hour later someone ran up and said, 'There's a kid who's 6'8".' A half hour after that he was 7'2"."

Sanders was 6'6" and still couldn't care less about basketball, but he appreciated the idea of a team as a brotherhood, a coach as a father figure. "I haven't been on a team before," he told Rodriguez. "I don't know anything about this."

On life post-basketball:

Sanders wants to establish a shelter for battered women in Fort Pierce that will offer three free meals a day. It's one of his many projects. He also builds skateboards that he isn't allowed to ride—per his standard rookie contract—and he buys the parts in different cities: grip tape in Milwaukee, a deck in Toronto, trucks in L.A. He wants to design boards that look like Persian rugs. "I don't get along with guys whose lives revolve totally around basketball," Sanders says. "Someday that rubber ball will stop bouncing, and if you've built your whole identity around it, who will you be?"

Dude has gone through a lot in his life and basketball is not the only thing he's worried about. Might as well get his mental health in order while he's young. He will most likely be back in the NBA anyways. We see big guys like Kanyon Martin, Bynum and Jermaine O'Neal getting shot after shot despite being old as shyt or limited physically, he is definitely going to get a call back.