The NBA boasts the greatest players in the world. The NBA has established its position as the best basketball league in the world and has become the landing spot for the best players in basketball from across the world.
Players have to work incredibly hard in order to reach the league, whether that be plying their craft in the American collegiate system, or establishing themselves in professional leagues across the world. But a group of players that is not well represented is street players.
In a recent documentary on streetball entitled ‘The Greatest Mixtape’ on ESPN, NBA players responded to claims by streetball players saying that they could make it to the NBA.
Current and former NBA players like Baron Davis, Lou Williams, Kyrie Irving, and Iman Shumpert dismissed street players saying that they could make it to the NBA, noting that the NBA has the best players in the world, and if streetball players were on that level, they would have made it to the league:
NBA players reacting to Streetballers thinking they could play in the NBA pic.twitter.com/eEyGndRiR4
— Daily Loud (@dailyloudclips) June 1, 2022
Baron Davis: “Are you f*cking kidding me? No way!.”
Lou Williams: “We just trained professionals. We play basketball on days we don’t wanna play basketball.”
Kyrie Irving: “ ‘Yeah we could have played in the league’. No you couldn’t have. You are not taking care of your body. You are not taking the game serious. Everybody jumps high, everybody is fast, everybody thinks that they are the worlds greatest player. There’s only been 5000 something people in the NBA. Total. Ever.”
Iman Shumpert: “I remember Hot Sauce going to the pro-am and getting his a** bust. Hot sauce came down and they was calling that man ketchup by the time he left.”
Many NBA players have played streetball, either before or after making it to the league. Kevin Durant and Kobe Bryant both made appearances at the legendary Rucker Park to play against some of the best streetball players in New York.
Clearly, NBA players take a lot of pride in being some of the best players in the world. So for streetball players to claim that they are on the same level as them was not going to be something that sat well with them. So their reaction in this clip is not at all surprising.
