Former NBA player Jeremy Pargo lasted only three seasons in the league, but he might have been around for a bit longer if not for politics. Pargo appeared on the latest episode of the Run Your Race podcast, where he asked when he understood the business side of the NBA.
“Not until I was 30 or something,” Pargo said. “I didn’t know. I didn’t understand the business. I didn’t understand the business side because we grew up playing basketball. What we know is basketball. We don’t think of business in basketball. We think of basketball. If I get out here and I practice against you 10 times and I’m better than you eight, I’m the better player, but that’s [not how it works].
“If I practice against you 10 times and I’m better than you 10 out of those 10 times, but you make $30 million, and I make one, you better than me,” Pargo continued. “Ain’t no thought process to it. And I get it now. I understand it now. If I would have understood it younger, things could have been different, maybe. But no, I ran into a situation where my agent told me that teams told him I’m too good.
“And I’m not trying to pat myself on the back,” Pargo added. “… In a sense of breaking it down, it’s this guard is going to apply too much pressure on our starting guard… And I’m not even saying that’s just me. That happens with multiple players… It’s guys out here that can apply pressure from that second spot and can maybe be a little too much pressure because it is a business at the end of the day.”
Pargo went undrafted in 2009 after spending four seasons at Gonzaga. He spent the first two seasons of his professional career in Israel and then made his way to the NBA. The Memphis Grizzlies signed Pargo in December 2011, but he didn’t play much for them as a rookie. He was then traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers in July 2012, and they waived him in January 2013.
Pargo wouldn’t be without a team for too long as the Philadelphia 76ers signed him in February 2013. They’d waive him in April, though, and he headed overseas once again.
It had seemed like that was that for Pargo’s NBA career, but he would get one more opportunity. The Golden State Warriors signed him to a 10-day contract in February 2020, but didn’t keep him around for any longer. Pargo had to go overseas again and last played for Grindavik in Iceland.
In his three seasons in the NBA, Pargo averaged 4.8 points, 1.0 rebounds, 1.8 assists, and 0.3 steals per game. You do wonder how differently his career would have panned out had he been a first-round pick. Co-host and former NBA player Theo Pinson’s comments indicate Pargo would have gotten more opportunities.
“We know you could play in the NBA,” Pinson said. “You go play and there’s a young guy, he’s a backup point guard, you’re investing into him, right? If you busting his a** every day, what confidence is this man going to have going into a game playing against the other backup? He’s not going to have any. So, that’s the part that people don’t understand. And that’s another side of the business what you just said.
“They got to protect their investment,” Pinson added. “They try to make what they draft and what they invest in work so bad that it doesn’t benefit everybody else. And sometimes, you got to be a realist. You really do. And you got to understand, all right, bro. You see the writing on the wall.”
Emmanuel Mudiay is another former player who has spoken about how politics in the NBA killed his love for basketball. Mudiay said teams stuck with the players they had invested in financially, despite him outplaying them in practice. It’s just the reality of the league.
