Terrence Jones @ IU & Ubiquitous Whining plus Haters
In Sports, Stupidity, thinking out loud, UK Basketball on December 16, 2011 at 6:34 pm
I’m tired of hearing people whine about Terrence Jones and the criticism thereof. The guy is supposed to be a leader and an All America Candidate. He made statements that he came back to win a Championship. He told the world that he was more mature and ready to be a leader.
A leader isn’t out at 2 AM the night before a game. A leader doesn’t flee the scene in an attempt to hide from Coach Cal. A leader doesn’t disappear in one of the biggest games on one of the biggest stages of the year.
That’s hard. Yeah, it is. Tough! That’s life. Cry me a river.
America has kids in the eastern Afghanistan who are doing some heavy lifting. That’s difficulty. That’s a challenge. Those are warriors. Those guy have it hard. Some of those guys actually do give all.
When Terrence Jones has the enemy firing their RPGs and AK-47s at him from the moment he exits his front door to the moment he re-enters. When he has to run to a bunker at 4 AM because the Taliban are shooting rockets or mortars at his base camp, then I’ll see something in these complaints.
That isn’t going to happen. Jones, like all UK basketball players, leads a pampered life. Most of these kids are heading to the NBA to be paid Millions to PLAY a game. YES! They’re going to be paid Millions to play. A GAME! The kid won’t actually work a day in his life. His hands will never get dirty. Some people got it like that. The only way Jones will get dirty hands is if he decides to pot a plant to hang on the deck of his multimillion dollar home in 2 or 3 years.
I’m not hatin’. More power to ‘em. Some people got it like that and it’s likely that Jones will have it like that. Good for him. Just don’t expect me to cry for him when he faces a few “challenges” along the way. Especially when those challenges are self created/self imposed.
The rest of the UK Basketball players. The ones who do not make it to the NBA are going to get a free ride through College to a degree of their choice. Well, if they’re smart, they get a degree. They’ll be guided through life in ways that 99% of the rest of the kids at University will not be guided. These UK Ballers will have a leg up on most for the rest of their lives. That’s just the way it is. If they don’t take advantage of it, that’s on them. Still, they’ll have opportunities that most Kentucky Degree graduates will never have.
I don’t want to hear the whining.
They face scrutiny. More scrutiny than most. Yet, if they work hard, that scrutiny pays off in spades. In diamonds and gold. Unless they’re an idiot like Antoine Walker and they squander it all away on nonsense and a gold diggin’ Posse. (How the hell do you spend your way through 110Million Dollars in a decade? One has to be incredibly stupid to accomplish this.)
Back to the present. Terrence Jones had a bad game. He had an atrocious game. Terrible. Everyone agrees on that. However, no one would have been all that bothered by it IF Jones had actually been putting forth EFFORT. I watched that game. Jones had a look that I recognized fully. It was the same look that Tubby Smith had in his last year at UK. The infamous Tubby Thousand Yard Stare. It looked like the kid was anywhere but Bloomington and in the game. Jones wasn’t there. I don’t know where he was, but, he wasn’t at the game. Period. An All America Candidate can not afford a game like that. An All America Candidate who wants to be a Lottery Pick in the NBA next year definitely can not afford an “effort” like that.
I thought I’d seen the last of the Tubby Stare when TLT fled to Minnesota to be a Golden Goofer. Guess not.
It was partially because of that lack of effort on the part of Jones that UK lost that game. Not all of the blame goes to Jones. Some credit has to go to Crean and the Hoosier kids. Which brings me to this:
Congratulations to Indiana? Hell No! It’s not because I hate the IU kids. I don’t even dislike them. Though, Corey Zeller is a goofy lookin’ SOB. I just don’t like IU. I don’t like all that Red and Cream. There’s no congratulations to IU for beating UK. That would have been like congratulating Pakistan for obtaining Nukes (metaphorically speaking, of course). Indiana is evil and full of hypocrisy. I hate that they defeated UK. I hate it even more so because they shouldn’t have beat UK. Not this year. Not any year that UK has this much talent.
There’s the rub. All that talent on the UK roster. Coach Cal coaching. And the biggest star of the 2011 team takes the night off. No way IU beats UK if Terrence Jones comes out and plays like HALF of the All America Candidate that he can be. If MKG, a Frosh, can bring it to that game, there is absolutely no reason that Terrence Jones can not bring it in that game.
I know folks who know Terrence Jones. I’ve heard things about the kid. It’s nothing too bad. Just stupid things that he does. Like being up late the night before big games. Then he comes out and plays poorly in those games. Stupidity is ok for normal people in normal situations. Terrence Jones is not a normal kid in a normal situation. He’s an Elite Basketball Talent at the University of Kentucky. He plays Basketball at a premier College Basketball Program. He wants to make the jump to the Pros and he want to do so in Elite Fashion. He wants to be a Lottery Pick.
If he wants to meet these goals, he can’t be a normal kid. That’s the way it is. If Terrence Jones wants to be a normal kid, then he should transfer from UK and go play at Murray State or UofL. He should give up his NBA dreams.
Then he can be a normal kid and stay up until 2 AM on the night before a meaningless game about which only 2,000 people give a damn.
However, Terrence Jones isn’t a normal kid. He doesn’t have to be a normal kid. He’s got a talent for the ball. He possesses a talent for a sport that can help him reach dreams unattainable by 99% of humanity. If he puts forth an effort for 3 more months that matches his talent, he’ll attain those dreams and he’ll be a Sports Hero.
If he doesn’t, he may end up with Josh Selby or any one of dozens of other Elite College Talents who for a myriad of reasons couldn’t or wouldn’t make the Big Stage.
That’s just life.
And hey, if he doesn’t make it in the NBA, he’s always got Europe Ball. If that don’t work out, there’s still some work to do in the Eastern Afghan Theater of Operations.
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- Kaboom!Dawood Kahn and UK basketball. Dawood is no Casper Milquetoast. He speaks his piece. If Terrence Jones gets this message, he will do well to respond on the basketball court, else he could get his hands dirty and less than a mansion here on earth.As Dawood’s friend and also a UK basketball fan, I pray for Terrence and Dawood. Terrence doesn’t know me. Dawood should!SamKat KegleySamKat16 December 2011 at 6pm
