It was unbelievable watching March madness this year. To start, the excitement has been unreal throughout the whole month of March. What astounds me watching all these games happen is that a lot of the guys competing at the highest level aren’t much older than we are. These guys are going out and competing at one of the highest levels of basketball in the world and they are fresh out of high school. One great example of this, Zion Williamson, is a freak of nature. His size alone could leave someone in awe, but that doesn’t even include the ability he has on the basketball court. His popularity started when he was in high school and became a top prospect. Everyone watched on social media as he became a dunking sensation. The internet went crazy when Dukes recruiting class was finalized and included three of the top five players in the country. The first couple of games of the college basketball season it became apparent to everyone who Zion really was. All of the comparisons to other great college basketball greats started, and Zion helped meet the expectations everyone had. Although Duke made an early exit from the tournament, Zion’s legacy will be remembered for what he did while he was there. Now that he is on to the next chapter, the NBA, it’s very interesting to see how good people really think he is and how much he’s worth to them. First off, he will enter the draft as the best prospect since Anthony Davis, who was a national champion and top NBA player. Zion is also in line to sign the biggest rookie shoe endorsement deal in history, and that is because of his game on the court as well as his popularity. Dukes loss in the elite 8 turned all focus towards what would happen with Duke lineup in the NBA next year. Although Zion is pretty much a guaranteed first pick of the draft, you cannot forget about the two other teammates of his from Duke who are expected to go top 10 in the draft as well. Getting drafted first overall is huge and it and entitles Zion to a lot of money, but what’s more interesting is the shoe deal. The most recent talks of his shoe signing have included the fact that he will be a part of a bidding war between shoe companies that is projected to end up over $100 million. That is in fact over $100 million contract for a kid who is one year out of high school and his birthday is 2000. The reason I became so interested in the money behind what these rookie NBA players were making is because of a neighbor of mine. A little introduction to it includes Michael Porter Junior, a basketball player who played at Mizzou for year. Although he had serious injuries and hardly played at all at Mizzou, he was still drafted in the first round which comes along with a lot of money. This is where the story gets cool. My neighbor and family friend met Michael Porter through a Bible study at Mizzou. When Mike was drafted to the Denver Nuggets his parents decided that it was not a good idea for him to be living in Denver alone with that much money. So they decided to hire my neighbor as pretty much a life coach for Michael. His job is to live with Michael, hang out with him every day while making sure he stays out of trouble. Literally he is on the payroll of the family just to keep an eye on Michael while he’s so young living with so much money. It makes sense given no good parent would want an 18-year-old living with $20 million alone. Of course my neighbor had to make sacrifices as well to make it happen but who wouldn’t give in the opportunity. He had to take off school and he decided that he would give it a couple years before going back to college to finish. The whole story seemed fake to me at first because in what world would my neighbor that I’ve known my whole life get chosen to go live with a top NBA rookie. My neighbor has the opportunity to sit courtside it at every home Nuggets game, and on top of that even gets to travel with the team sometimes. His parents were hesitant at first letting him take a break from college to pursue this, but who could possibly let up this opportunity. It is unknown how long he will stay up in Denver with him, but while he’s there it has been the time of his life. Although we don’t know, he’s probably making a career salary for doing something he’ll cherish for life. It’s just all so cool to think about.
Now I’m gonna move onto gym class makeups. Being someone who broke my thumb in the class, I feel should give me some leniency on makeups. The current makeup for missing a class is 25 minutes biking for a standard class, and 50 minutes for a blocked class. Although I’m okay with that, it’s still obvious that’s way more physical activity than anyone has done in any team sports class. I just thought that was funny because I asked Dieffenbach about it and he was laughing too. I did a week of biking and then over last weekend hurt my knee. Because of that, I now am onto writing papers about sports. Not even to mention I’m doing it with my left because my right broke in gym class. The whole policy just seems a little broken to me. On top of that it’s the attendance based grade in there that’s awful. Already have a B in gym class and can guarantee I won’t be sitting out bored while doing these makeups every class until May. It sucked to end my team sports career with a broken thumb, but I have to fight through makeups for that gym honor chord.
BlakesBlog 