A big debate has been going on in the sports world recently about NFL and NBA players being able to play the other sport. Austin Rivers originally said that he thinks you could take 30 players from the NBA and put them in the NFL. He has backtracked a little bit as he recently admitted that the number maybe isn't as high as 30, but Rivers still stands by his original claim.
Many NFL players have disagreed with the take that Austin Rivers had, but he is doubling down… sort of. Maybe not 30, but Rivers is still confident that a good chunk of NBA guys could make it in the NFL.
“I still stand by what I said,” Rivers said during an episode of Off Guard with Austin Rivers. “Now is it 30? no, it could be 20, it could be 10, I don’t know, all I know is I could get you a handful of them.”
Rivers thinks that there are some similarities between the two, like being able to catch the basketball. He thinks that with the right amount of training, it can be done.
“You give these guys six, seven months, if I give Aaron Gordon seven months, instead of going to a gym everyday for hours, he’s out there working on footwork and running routes to just go catch a ball, and when I say go catch a ball, I don’t mean it’s that easy, because I understand those guys have special hands,” Rivers continued. “I’m just saying we also catch a ball for a living, it’s not a football granted, so I understand there’s a difference there, but most of us grew up playing football. As a boy it’s just like in your DNA to go play catch with your dad, catch the f**king ball man.”
Having good hands is a big part of Rivers' argument
It seems like Austin Rivers is thinking that these guys would be wide receivers or tight ends based on his argument. He talks about hand skills a lot, and he thinks that a lot of NBA guys have special hands like NFL players.
“I understand there’s levels of hands, again I get all these guys, I understand why people are offended but at the same time I still stand by what I said because there are guys in our league who have great hands,” Rivers added. “And they're tall and athletic, way taller than NFL players bro. Megatron [Calvin Johnson] was unbelievable as a football player, yes because he had great hands, but because he was bigger than everybody else. That’s why they call him Megatron, they used to throw it up and he’d jump up and get it. Gronk, he’s a good football player obviously, I’m naming legends here right. These guys were big guys man, at their position. The best tight ends ever were players who came from college basketball man, point blank period.”
Rivers stands by what he says, and the debate will likely rage on. Either way, both of the sports are very difficult to play at the professional level.
Follow Us
Subscribe