When you read about these players, it just feels unfortunate. You don't envy them, you don't feel sorry for them in a lot of cases. They're supposed to be mature and responsible adults earning millions of dollars, right? However, you do wonder... You wonder... Why this player, this person.
Simply put, what's wrong with Sean Williams?
The incident occurred at 2 p.m. yesterday at the AT&T Mobility store inside the Park Meadows Mall. According to police, Williams had a verbal altercation with the clerk, and picked up a computer monitor and threw it. The monitor and other equipment were broken, causing damages estimated to be about $1,200 to $1,300.
The dollar amount - above $1,000 - was the reason why the mischief charge constituted a felony.
http://www.nj.com/nets/index.ssf/2009/0 ... ams_2.html
Who can forget about Leon Smith? Quite ironic a question when you consider he's a player that never made a name for himself (or stuck for that matter) in the NBA.
But if Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett are models of players who were mature enough athletically and emotionally to make that huge jump, Leon Smith's sad and tumultuous basketball odyssey is a cautionary tale -- one that is forcing the N.B.A. to rethink how to decide which teenagers are capable of going right from high school to the pros and what to do with those who are not.
Smith stormed out of the gym during his first practice with the Mavericks last summer. He fired two agents in three months. He was arrested twice, had his contract suspended and spent 31 days in a Dallas psychiatric center after his suicide attempt.
''It would be unfair to call Leon a poster child for anything but Leon,'' David Stern, the N.B.A. commissioner, said. ''All of these young men are individuals. But I remain convinced, in a broader context, that we need to disincentivize players who have other options from coming into the N.B.A. too young.''
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/30/sport ... sec=health
