Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
What’s behind the unhappiness epidemic in the NBA?
What’s behind the unhappiness epidemic in the NBA?
Jul 18, 2025 8:00 PM

Recently Adam Silver, missioner of the National Basketball Association, spoke about unhappiness among many NBA players,

When I meet with them, what surprises me is that they’re truly unhappy. A lot of these men are generally unhappy.

With a salary minimum of $838,464 (about 26 times the $31,561.49 medium pensation of all American workers) it is safe to say the unhappiness is not rooted in material frustrations but spiritual. Silver attributes this unhappiness to social media fueled anxiety,

We are living in a time of anxiety, I think it is a direct result of social media. A lot of players are unhappy. I’m an anxious person myself. That’s why players like talking to me.

Perhaps the poster-child for this year’s unhappy NBA players is Anthony Davis, the New Orleans Pelican’s all-star talent, who was fined $50,000 by the league earlier this season for the very public trade request made on his behalf by his agent Rich Paul. The public trade request not only alienated Davis from the Pelicans but the ensuing trade promised the Lakers’ team chemistry proving to be the final nail in the coffin of a disappointing Lakers season.

Back in New Orleans,

No one would blame you if you haven’t checked in on the New Orleans Pelicans as they conclude their sixth losing season in eight years, but, yes, Anthony Davis is still playing … most of the time. The Pariah-can is being held to a minutes limit and out of fourth quarters, one leg of back-to-backs, and sometimes whole gamesjust because.

Davis gave some insight into his thinking on LeBron James’ talk show The Shop,

“All the media coverage [is] around me, and now I’m getting a chance to take over my career and say what I want to say and do what I want to do,” Davis said. “So now you see everybody [saying], ‘All right, I see AD changing.’ Everybody’s telling me, ‘You’re growing up. It’s about time to take care of your business, take care of your career.’ So now, as a player, as the CEO of my own business, I’ve got the power. I’m doing what I want to do and not what somebody tells me to do.”

This seems to validate Silver’s analysis that players are suffering under the weight of anxiety. Anthony Davis: NCAA Champion, first overall NBA draft pick, six time all-star, and gold medal winning Olympian has felt powerless. That he hasn’t been in control. And out of that frustration and anxiety he has alienated fans, teammates, and even contributed to the dysfunction of another NBA franchise. This is about more than social media, “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

Multi-million dollar contracts, fame, adulation, and even excellence in the game of basketball itself cannot give you control, absolute power over your own destiny. Nothing can. Epictetus famously made the distinction of what is and what is not in our power:

Of existing things some are in our power,

others not in our power.

In our power are conception, effort, desire, aversion

and in a word whatever are our actions;

but not in our power are the body, property, reputation,

rulers and in a word whatever are not our actions.

The Bhagavad Gita likewise admonishes us that,

Work alone is your privilege, never the fruits thereof. Never let the fruits of action be your motive; never cease to work. Work in the name of the Lord, abandoning selfish desires. Be not affected by success or failure.

What mon wisdom to the ancients has e strange to us. Without acknowledging the truth of our ultimate powerlessness we cannot but be deeply unhappy. Let us pray as the Proverbs of Solomon, “Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me.” (Proverbs 30:8)

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Is it really ‘aid’ if it goes to relatively wealthy nations?
Alan Duncan, an aid minister in the UK, says his government is “forced” to hand over large amounts of money to the EU’s foreign aid budget, but has no say in how the money is spent. The problem is that much of the $2 billion+ “aid” money (one-sixth of the British budget) goes to projects such as making a Moroccan water park more eco-friendly, an art project in St. Petersburg, and building a hotel and plex in Barbados. Britain’s International...
Did 2,362 Millionaires Get Unemployment Checks in 2009? (Answer: Yes they did.)
The Congressional Research Service (CRS), a group that works exclusively for the U.S. Congress, issued a report with one of the greatest titles I’ve ever seen on a government document: Receipt of Unemployment Insurance by e Unemployed Workers (“Millionaires”) Now the first nine words are nothing special, typical policy-wonk speak. But whoever added in the word “millionaires” with scare quotes and parentheses is a genius. Most people would have been nodding off around the word “Insurance” but seeing millionaires (that’s...
Dodd-Frank: The Other Serious Threat
At least es at us head on. The greater legislative threat may be the one that most Americans have never heard of. Economist Scott Powell and Acton friend Jay Richards explain in a new piece in Barron’s: While Obamacare received more attention, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, also known as Dodd-Frank after its Senate and House sponsors, … unleashed a new regulatory body, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to operate with unprecedented power. Dodd-Frank became law in...
Counting the Profit of a Third Party Choice
Joe Carter recently highlighted the discussion at Ethika Politika, the journal of the Center for Morality in Public Life, about the value of (not) voting, particularly the suggestion by Andrew Haines that in some cases there is a moral duty not to vote. This morning I respond with an analysis of the consequences of not voting, ultimately arguing that one must not neglect to count the cost of abstaining to vote for any particular office. One issue, however, that I...
Markets and culture: A time to play, a time to pray
Faced with the prospect of a professional athletic career, a nearly-half million dollar salary, and a perfect lady, what’s not to like? Apparently, for Grant Desme, it was the noise and unrest of the world. Can a culture of life and the noise and tumult of the marketplace co-exist? Rev. Robert Sirico, reflecting on this, says they can, so long as it is not a place where: [C]apitalism…places the human person at the mercy of blind economic forces…What we propose,...
Rev. Sirico on Life, Work, and Human Flourishing
J.Q. Tomanek of Ignitum Today interviewed Rev. Sirico about life, work, human flourishing, and his new book, Defending the Free Market: JQ Tomanek: Back in the day, holiness was misinterpreted as a cleric or religious life thing. How can a lay Catholic practice their faith? What are some ways to sanctify our work as lay Catholics? Is “ora et labora” just a monk thing? Reverend Sirico: Yes, religious people are often tempted to e so “heavenly minded they are no...
On Call with Dr. Pamela Casson
Dr. Pamela Casson, a pediatrician in Colorado Springs, knows what it means literally to be “On Call.” This week she shares with us in this video interview with Jon Hirst how she sees God working through her in her work with families, children and the world around her. Thank you Pamela for giving us an inside look at how you see your work as blessing the world. ...
Want to Help the Poor? Promote a Free Market in Health Care
Want to help the poor? Promote a free market in health care. That’s the argument made by John C. Goodman, author of the new book Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis. Timothy Dalrymple recently talked with Goodman about the best approach for restoring free-market pricing mechanisms into the market for medical care and health insurance: Aren’t there some people, however, who have little of money and lots of time, and would prefer to wait in order to receive cheaper care? There...
Stop Apologizing for Our Liberties
You cannot apologize to a fanatic, says Lee Harris. It only serves to convince him that he was right all along: The last few weeks have witnessed a peculiar and disturbing spectacle: An American administration that has spent a great deal of time and energy apologizing for our liberties—in particular, for what many would regard as the foundation of all our other liberties, namely, the freedom to express our minds as we see fit. This signature freedom, of which Americans...
How were people On Call in Culture 165 years ago?
What is so special about 1837? That was the year Abraham Kuyper was born. September 29th is his 165th birthday. So we thought we would go back to 1837 and see how people were being On Call in Culture back then. We don’t know if they were all believers on a mission to bless the world, but by seeing what was going on 165 years ago, we hope you are encouraged to engage your world in 2012! How did people...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved