Positives and Negatives of the NBA Lifestyle!
00:00:00.320 | All right, next question.
00:00:01.200 | Somebody asked, what's something you weren't prepared for, good or bad,
00:00:05.740 | that comes with the NBA lifestyle?
00:00:07.560 | People might not believe me on this, but I literally never played basketball with
00:00:13.200 | the thought of one day I'll be playing for a lot of money.
00:00:18.440 | I always just play because I loved it and I wanted to be the best.
00:00:21.080 | So I had no even concept of what it would be like to have money and
00:00:24.700 | to be able to take care of my family and to be able to do things I wanted to do.
00:00:29.680 | I didn't know what it would be like to be able to go to dinner and spend $250,
00:00:34.180 | $300 on a bill and that would be okay.
00:00:37.120 | Like I remember calling my mom like the first week when I got my first few checks
00:00:41.720 | or whatever, and I was like, wait, mom, so like I'm good to go, to go get,
00:00:46.960 | like I'm good every day if I wanted to this week to go out to dinner and spend
00:00:50.200 | $200 and she was like, yeah, Michael, like that's okay.
00:00:53.000 | And you know, my mom, like she's, she's still to this day wants me to be very frugal
00:00:57.340 | and whatever, but that wasn't even a concept in my head that I would have money
00:01:01.000 | to do, do stuff with.
00:01:02.740 | Like I, for some reason there's like a misconception out there that I grew up with
00:01:07.060 | money or whatever, but like my, I'm in a family of 10.
00:01:10.920 | My dad was the only one that worked and he made $30,000 a year.
00:01:14.200 | And my mom was a stay at home mom homeschooling all of us.
00:01:16.520 | Like my mom would pull up to Panera and wait to the end of the day so they could give her
00:01:22.000 | the leftover bagels that they were going to throw out.
00:01:24.120 | So, but the thing is like, we never felt, we didn't feel like we were broke, but bro,
00:01:28.340 | we were broke.
00:01:28.940 | Like my mom and dad did such a good job of making us feel like we had everything in the
00:01:32.900 | world and everything we needed, but we were broke.
00:01:35.760 | You know what I mean?
00:01:36.480 | $30,000 a year for 10 kids.
00:01:38.480 | Like, I don't know where that misconception comes from that I grew up like with, with bread,
00:01:43.340 | but that was my biggest thing that I didn't really prepare for was the fact that I'm gonna
00:01:48.240 | have money, I'm gonna be able to take care of my mom and dad, I'm gonna be able to buy
00:01:50.880 | them a car.
00:01:51.460 | I'm gonna be able to go to dinner when I want and not worry about the bills.
00:01:56.040 | So that was, that was like obviously a good surprise.
00:01:59.840 | And then, you know, something that's kind of a bad, a bad thing that I didn't really prepare
00:02:04.400 | for was kind of the loneliness.
00:02:06.300 | You feel a little bit, um, just through the process of the season, all the traveling, all
00:02:12.120 | the nights in the hotel alone, all the, all the, um, it is isolating.
00:02:17.100 | Like you do feel very isolated, especially probably when you don't have a significant
00:02:21.100 | other and you don't have somebody who's traveling with you on the road.
00:02:24.440 | Like most of my friends at this point are married and got kids.
00:02:27.000 | Even my two younger brothers, they're married.
00:02:29.100 | My sisters are married, got kids.
00:02:30.360 | So besides you, I never had anybody like pulling up on me.
00:02:33.600 | Uh, you know, I don't, I don't have a lot of friends.
00:02:37.800 | So I feel like the isolating fact of that can be kind of tough.
00:02:42.140 | I would say that I would say the fact, I would even add to that, bro, because your
00:02:46.280 | experience is different because you had three surgeries and you're having surgeries in the
00:02:50.940 | midst of the NBA season.
00:02:52.340 | So like sometimes where you have that brotherhood, you're traveling with your teammates, you have
00:02:56.940 | them, you're staying back in Denver because you're doing rehab or we're in Dallas because
00:03:01.660 | we're at Dr.
00:03:02.600 | Doss's office and you're having surgery.
00:03:04.620 | So even within, you know, most people have their teammates to lean on.
00:03:08.740 | Sometimes you didn't even have that at moments.
00:03:10.840 | Yeah.
00:03:11.340 | Yeah.
00:03:11.640 | And I think also the fact that I was homeschooled growing up, I didn't make a lot of
00:03:17.520 | relationships growing up.
00:03:18.540 | I got a few homies that are still my friends to this day, but like, I think that's
00:03:22.680 | another thing is I just never was a dude that had a lot of friends.
00:03:25.780 | I had my family and that was, that was really all I needed.
00:03:28.660 | So I think the isolating fact about the NBA would, would probably be the thing that I
00:03:33.420 | didn't prepare for.