10 Locked-Out NBA Players Who Should Try New Sports
The NBA athletes who are paid to entertain us with their athletic prowess have to find something to do during the lockout! They can't all play overseas!
Well, maybe they can, but for the sake of this article, let's assume they can't.
If they wanted to stay in the sporting industry, maybe some of the players could use their talents in different ways. After all, many of the NBA stars we know and love have other talents.
Read on to find out what these 10 stars could play during an extended lockout.
LeBron James: Football
1 of 9Is there any doubt that LeBron James could be a tremendously successful football player if he really wanted to be?
James is a premier physical specimen, an athletic freak blessed with track-star speed and Nate Robinson-like ups. The prospect of him playing tight end is absolutely terrifying.
Could he shake any linebacker's coverage? Could he block successfully? Are his hands good enough to haul in errant passes?
The answers to all these questions are resoundingly positive.
Tim Duncan: Swimming
2 of 9Few people are aware that Tim Duncan may actually have been better at swimming than he was at basketball.
Duncan wanted to be a part of the 1992 United States Olympic Team while he lived on Saint Croix, but that was before Hurricane Hugo destroyed the island's only olympic-sized pool. His options were to either focus on basketball or practice in the ocean...he went for the former because of a crippling fear of sharks.
The power forward hasn't swum competitively since then, but he could again now!
Paul Pierce: Poker
3 of 9At the most recent World Series of Poker, Paul Pierce managed to advance to the second day of the event before he finally lost all his chips. That means that out of the 2,181 entrants, well, Pierce beat quite a few of them.
The Boston Celtics' former superstar was eliminated roughly 20 minutes into the second day, but there's nothing a little bit of training can't fix.
Dirk Nowitzki: Tennis
4 of 9Dirk Nowitzki played three sports while growing up (literally and figuratively growing up): Basetball, handball and tennis. He settled on tennis partially because he was tired of the ridicule that came along with his height.
But back in the day, Dirk was a force to be reckoned with on the tennis court.
In May of this year, Nowitzki actually decided to pick up the racquet yet again. He registered to play professional tennis with the German club TG Wuerzberg. While I haven't been able to find any reports of whether or not he followed through with that or whether or not he was successful if he did, the fact that he committed still says a lot.
Deron Williams: Wrestling
5 of 9When he was 8-years-old back in 1993, Deron Williams won the Texas state championship in wrestling in the 67-pound weight division. Four years later, while wrestling in the 112-pound division, he won yet again.
While researching for this article, I ran across a wordpress blog written by Dave Gillaspie on this subject:
"Now watch Deron Williams play. His fakes are wrestling fakes. His baits are wrestling baits. He lulls his defenders into relaxing a moment too long before driving past them. On defense the guy has a strange presence, an odd awareness of the space around him. He is used to smaller areas of competition, like a mat, and shrinks the space an opponent gets to work in.
"
As much as he's bulked up now, imagine what he could do with some more training on the mats.
Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash: Soccer
6 of 9Our two resident superstar NBA players with skills on the soccer field happen to be the Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant and the Phoenix Suns' Steve Nash. Both players' reputation in the soccer world is fairly well known, but let's rehash here.
Kobe, an AC Milan fan, grew to love the beautiful game when his father played professional basketball in Italy and took his family with him. He once said that he "would have kept playing (if he stayed in Italy)--that's for sure. I loved basketball so ugh, but I also wanted to play for AC Milan."
As for Nash, well, literally every big NBA fan knows he's a great soccer player.
Blake Griffin: Extreme Sports
7 of 9If you've ever watched Blake Griffin play basketball, this should come as no surprise.
Whether he's jumping high enough to damage his knees upon reentering the atmosphere and colliding with the hardcourt, hitting his head on the backboard, contorting his body in the air to make the opportune play or taking abuse from defenders, Griffin is an extreme playmaking machine.
He's no stranger to putting his body at risk and would probably love this opportunity to thrill more crowds during the lockout.
Kevin Durant: None
8 of 9Kevin Durant was made to play basketball. Everything about his body and game reflect that fact (note: "fact" and not "opinion" is the word used).
The young scoring machine lives, sleeps, eats, dreams, breathes, drinks and anything else basketball. Even during this period without NBA action, Durant has made headlines thanks to his play at Rucker Park and in the other summer leagues.
I simply can't imagine him playing another sport. Basketball is too much a part of Durant for that to happen.
John Wall: Anything but Baseball
9 of 9Just watch the video.
Adam Fromal is a syndicated writer and Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.
