- It’s extremely rare for athletes to be able to play two sports at the very highest level
- When it comes to the NBA and NFL, Magic Johnson named only two who could have pulled it off
- Magic Johnson said Allen Iverson and Deion Sanders are the only two players that could have done it
Making it to the highest level in any professional sport is among the toughest challenges in the world. There are only 450 spots in the NBA every season, for example. So it’s the rarest of rare feats when one athlete competes in two professional leagues across sports.
No player in the last 70 years has gotten close to playing in the NBA and the NFL. And talking about it on the Dan Patrick Show recently, the legendary Magic Johnson named only two players that could have realistically achieved it.
“I think that it’s hard to say a football player could go into the NBA, and it’s hard for an NBA player to go into football,” Magic Johnson said.
“I think it’s so difficult, they’re two different games, but, both are special athletes… And that’s why also we admire each other. Now, if anybody could probably pull it off, it’d probably have been Allen Iverson. I think he played football, he played quarterback.”
Magic Johnson also added another name, saying, “And maybe Deion Sanders could have went from football to basketball. You know, you see certain athletes that probably could pull it off, but they were dominant in their sport, they probably wouldn’t have been dominant in the other sport.”
(starts at 7:31 minutes)
Allen Iverson was a star recruit as a quarterback during his high school days. And Deion Sanders was a multi-sport athlete anyway, playing in the NFL and MLB and becoming the only player ever to play in a Super Bowl and the World Series.
Magic Johnson’s picks in this department certainly make a lot of sense.
Allen Iverson Thinks He Could Have Played In The NFL
Allen Iverson is one of the greatest point guards ever, he won MVP and was an 11-time All-Star in the league. He played quarterback in high school as well as point guard for the basketball team.
Allen Iverson once opened up on his abilities on the football field, and he said he could have been a better player in the NFL than he was in the NBA.
“Not being cocky, not being arrogant. I think…no, I know that I would have been a better player in football than I was in basketball,” Iverson said on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay.
(starts at 21:18 minutes)
Considering all his accolades along with being a 4-time NBA scoring champion and a 3-time steals leader, this is a big claim from Allen Iverson. But knowing how good he was in high school, it doesn’t seem too far-fetched either.
Mark Vital Is The Only Player To Have Come Close To Achieving This Feat In Recent Memory
A name that many sports fans won’t remember is Mark Vital. But the Baylor University guard is the man who came closest to achieving this feat in modern sports history.
After going undrafted in the 2021 NBA Draft, Vital signed with the Portland Trail Blazers to appear in the NBA Summer League but didn’t make it to the roster.
He then played overseas for a season before shifting careers and becoming a tight end in the NFL. He signed with the Seattle Seahawks and the Kansas City Chiefs but never made it to playing a proper game there, either.
The fact that he came this close but couldn’t make it in either league shows just how hard it is to achieve such a feat. As great as they were, Allen Iverson and Deion Sanders were probably the only ones who could have made it happen.
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