NBA Olympians should be paid

[Eagle Eye]

http://www.tsn.ca/nba/news_story.asp...94&hubName=nba

Man o Man it just never ends in the world of professional sports

[the_only_turek_fan]

"Most athletes, they hunger for the Olympics every four years. They spend their lives wanting to get there and that's what they want to do. But we're different. We just finished an 82-game season and we want to chill out. People put so much pressure on NBA players, that you should be playing for your country, but you don't realize that many of us just want to do nothing in the summer."

Wow, what has happened over the years?

What happened to playing for the love of the game?

What happened to playing for your jersey?

Pro athletes have been spoiled so much in the last 10 years that it has come down to this.

Sit at home Ray, I am sure the Americans will find someone else that wants to play for there country.

[looooob]

if anything you would think it should be the reverse

starving college students might reasonably ask to be paid to play in the Olympics for their chosen sport, most do not (and although obviously some elite olympians get mucho sponsorship etc, they are likely the minority)

however multi-multi-multimillionaire athletes, what are they going to do with an extra 10 or 20 K?? frick play for the honor or experience or don't play at all

[JiriHrdina]

Unreal.

These guys just don't get it at all. It is getting REALLY hard to root for pro athletes at all. On the weekend I found myself getting the most enjoyment watching Vince Carter choke, instead of rooting for a player I liked. When this starts to happen there is a real problem.

The growing disconnect between the fans and pro athletes is going to be a MAJOR challenge I think for pro sports.

[Eagle Eye]

What they don't understand is that if the fans stop going to games and stopped buying merchandise they wouldn't be making all this money. The arrogance is overflowing so badly that I wonder what professional sports will look like in 20 years.

Also it doesn't seem to be confined to one sport, it happens in the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL.

[Homer_J]

I can understand the players wanting a cut of the cash made off their name (ie. jersey's with "Allen" on the back). But needing money as an incentive to representive your country is disgusting. These guys seem to care less and less about the 'red & white' or the 'red, white & blue'. It's all about the 'green'.

[flames_1987]

As a die hard sports fan for all my life, it's things like this that make me question where sports and society are going? It makes me sick to my freaking stomach, imagine if some of the greats, from generations past came back and saw this happening.