W/NBA Recap: The Platinum Trophy

Wassup y’all! Ya boy (it me, ya boy) is back with another recap, highlighting a few things around the hoop world. Let’s get to it! 

The NBA Draft was recently. The two-day event saw 58 of the next crop of NBA hopefuls be selected by teams to begin their journey in the Association. The country of France, after having the number one pick come from their land, doubled down on it this year with Zaccharie Risacher (pronounced “ree-sah-share”) and Alex Sarr being taken by Atlanta and Washington #1 and #2 respectively. Various players, like UConn’s Stephen Castle and Purdue’s Zach Edey were selected. 

But that’s not what we want to discuss, is it? 

With the 55^th pick, the Los Angeles Lakers selected LeBron James Jr., pairing the USC guard with his father—the first time such a thing has happened in NBA history. In baseball, Ken Griffey Sr. joined the Seattle Mariners to play with his young son, but never had this occurred in basketball. In a time where we are seeing more and more children of the pro athletes we grew up on embark on their college careers, this puts a different level of caveat to it. I am not here to discuss the notion of a wasted pick, because of false idea that the 55^th pick is less valuable due to who was selected. Nor am I going to focus on this arbitrary idea of right or wrong here, because there is something that I feel is more important than any rightness or wrongness: perspective. Allow me to share a perspective that combines a mixture of anecdote and allegory…

I play video games—a lot of video games of many genres and types. In today’s gaming world, almost every game comes with its list of achievements that a player can strive for if they would like to play the game as thoroughly as they’d like. Some are simple and achieved by many players, even if they don’t “beat” the game. Others are rare that require both skill and commitment to acquire. But one common tether of all these games with achievements is that if a player gets all of them, they receive a “Platinum Trophy.” This trophy symbolizes that the player has done all there is to do in the game and anything else is beyond extra, past secret levels, Easter eggs, anything. Everything there is to have, do and overcome has been checked off.

LeBron James is attempting to get the platinum trophy of the game of Basketball. 

Objectively, it is really cool to see an athlete be in their sport as a player for so long that they literally created and developed their teammate. It’s truly unprecedented, and should be commended as such. As NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski pointed out, nepotism is a staple in life, let alone sports. 

That aside, look at LeBron’s career like video game achievements. The list is too long to post here, but in summary: all the points and other statistics, both as the youngest and oldest player to do achieve those things are just achievements in the game of basketball. From the more common ones like, say, scoring 20 points in a game to the rarified ones like multiple championships and MVPs, LeBron has done so much in the game that anything else he may look to do feels like a side quest in a video game after the final boss has been beaten. And as someone who has carried and been tasked with so much responsibility as the face of the NBA, and to still be as excellent as he is as his 40^th birthday approaches, maybe he’s afforded some side quest achievements like playing with his son. To me, it feels strange to some because it is so unprecedented (along with other hater-based factors), similar to shooting 30-foot threes. A few years ago, that was a terrible shot. But now, it’s a part of regular offense with more players being capable. Now, I do not believe that there will be more father-son duos in sports because time, age and attrition just will not allow that to become commonplace. Yet, I do think once-in-a-lifetime moments like this deserve some form of respect and adoration because of that rarity. Now, we will see what kind of NBA player LeBron James Jr. does ultimately become. That, like everything worth playing, takes time. 

Summertime Till Takes! 

• Congratulations to four-time All-Star Kemba Walker on retiring from basketball. The city of Charlotte owes a lot to him for carrying that basketball team as a franchise player. And yes, as a former University of Pittsburgh student, I am still salty about his game-winner when he was in college. 
• The returns on the WNBA team that will go against the Women’s Team USA squad are in, and congratulations to everyone who made it. The roster is headlines by veterans like Arike Ogunbowale and rookies Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark (leading vote-getter). But the biggest winner is the W itself, which saw exponential growth in the number of fans who voted. Check the WNBA All-Star Game out on July 20^th. Oh, and the uniforms are incredible. I need a pair of the shorts.
• Don’t look now, but at the time of this writing, the Las Vegas Aces are undefeated since Chelsea Gray returned to the lineup. As a team, they feel much more complete and that means trouble for the rest of the W.

That’s it for this recap. Catch y’all the next time!