THIS SPORT COULD BE YOUR LIFE
Looking back, it’s clear that my entire childhood was inexorably tied to my love of playing and watching basketball. Almost every waking moment of mine from the ages of 8 to 15 was spent near a basketball court. From weekly practices, to pick up games at the Lions Park on the Bedford waterfront in the summer, to intense rounds of indoor mini-basketball where I would attempt to repeat the moves of my idols on a hilariously small indoor basketball net, I was obsessed.
Along with most of my friends, I had a subscription to SLAM Magazine. Beyond fetishizing over the cool new kicks in each issue, devouring the cover story and predicting what the dunk of the month would be, I would eagerly look at the back page of each issue to read the diary of that year’s chosen high school student poised for greatness. Before my talent caught up to me, I would sometimes think that one day with enough hard work, that might be me.
The covers of those SLAM magazines now serve as silent tributes to all of my fallen childhood heroes. From Allen Iverson to Tracy McGrady and Steve Nash to Kobe Bryant, most of the people who were on the cover of those magazines are now either retired or on the last legs of their NBA careers.
Sports exist on a spectrum wholly separate from real life. Athletes are constantly evolving but it is generally assumed that the prime of an NBA players career will come between the ages of 25-30, with a long and gradual decline after the age of 30. Being a professional athlete means always considering your own mortality. Although there are always brief exceptions to this rule, in the end time catches up to everyone.
Players I lionized like Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady simply did not last as long as players like Kobe Bryant or Vince Carter have in the league. Regardless of whether it was injuries, doing too much too fast or just a gradual and natural erosion of their talent, both Iverson and McGrady left the league unceremoniously.
Other players have continued to have a surprising relevance and vitality into their old age. Tim Duncan just came off a championship last year. Kobe Bryant, though injury plagued in his past few seasons and starting to noticeably be missing a step on defense this year, is still Kobe. And hell, Dirk Nowitzki is still throwing up hooks and off balance jump shots with an almost unfair level of ease.
In September of this year, Steve Nash was forced to retire due to injury. Nash was able to start and play as many as 75 games in a season as recently as 2011. Starting around the time he left Phoenix and signed with the Lakers however, Nash’s career devolved into a series of almost comically frustrating injury setbacks and a once great athlete limped to the end of his career.
You expect your sports heroes to have final acts befitting of any underdog or fictionalized sports story. Ideally, all our heroes would end their careers like Jordan should have, with a kiss-off game winning shot that delivers them the championship. Alas, real life is not that neat. McGrady, Iverson and Nash did not get the storybook ending. Their careers ended in a way much more true to life —- gradually, and then all at once.
Earlier this year Nash was the focus of The Finish Line, a short documentary series for Grantland. For anyone like me who has spent most of their adolescent and adult life worshipping Nash, the series was very hard to watch. It focused on Nash at the end of his NBA rope. In The Finish Line, Nash discusses his imminent retirement and describes it as being, “almost like a death in a way.” Even though players like Nash are already millionaires several times over, it’s easy to see the heartbreak there, the tension between wanting so badly to continue to do the thing you love and the reality that to continue to play basketball in the NBA forever is impossible.
Professional athletes essentially live two lives, separated by their time competing and the time after they’ve retired. Every athlete is eventually replaced by a younger and healthier new model. Although they aren’t exactly the same as old iPhones and the players replacing them may not be any better than they were in their prime, players like Iverson are still nonetheless discarded. In tennis right now, a more pronounced version of this is happening with Roger Federer. One of the all time greats, Federer is starting to be outpaced by an opponent far greater than anyone he’s ever faced on a tennis court: his age
It’s impossible to ignore the impact that Nash and all these other fallen SLAM idols have had on my own process of growing up. I probably didn’t become aware of Nash’s existence until I was seven or eight but ever since then he’s been a part of my day to day life. I used to always think about this anecdote I had heard about Nash dribbling a tennis ball to school every day in BC growing up whenever I was hesitant to go outside and practice. And I can still remember huge swaths of time, including what I was doing and who I was with, by the memory of who Nash and his Suns were playing in the playoffs any given year. In that way, basketball is pretty similar to listening to an old overplayed album for me. Thinking about specific games instantly transports me back to an earlier time in my life.
Even outside of basketball, these players have held meaning for me. Watching them succeed and fail has always moved in step with my own process of growing up. Now that I’m older and my favourite childhood players are beginning to leave the league in droves, I feel a void. Sports are sometimes dismissed as superfluous or vacant distractions; just mere diversions used to pass the time. But watching these players in the NBA spotlight and seeing them succeed on such a large stage taught me so many things about life. I don’t think any athlete should be burdened with the expectations that come with being a role model off the court, but oftentimes their on the court play can’t help but be nakedly inspirational. The usual cliches apply here, but basketball was one of first places I clearly saw that hard work, relentless focus and determination will get you far in life. I don’t think that should be discounted.
Becoming an adult means coming to terms with the fact that you can’t control everything that happens around you. It means accepting that everyone you’ve ever loved and cared about will die. You will lose touch with old friends and you will grow older with new ones. In a sense, however, I think that growing up in earnest means accepting the gradual erosion of the things that you once held in place as constants; letting go of your childhood bedroom, the town you grew up in, your family pet and eventually your heroes.
I was five years old when Nash started in the NBA and I’m 23 now. By the time Kobe retires, I will probably be closer to 30 than I am to 20. There is no clear mark separating childhood from total adulthood, but I think that will be it for me. A new, slightly scary world where the only constant I can rely on apart from old friends and my family is the knowledge that the players I used to love will be replaced by new players (and most already have been). Like that old Arcade Fire album that still sits in permanent rotation in the CD deck of my parents car, I’ll always have the memories, of the players that raised me on the game and helped me grow and fall in love with basketball in the first place.
1. If you want to check out The Finish Line, here’s the link to the first episode
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