With the NBA’s lockout just starting and likely to last several months, and the NFL’s lockout (we hope) nearing its conclusion, one NBA player is talking about giving pro football a try.
Nate Robinson of the Oklahoma City Thunder, a 5-foot-9 point guard who has won the Slam Dunk Contest three times, says he’s hoping some NFL team will consider giving him a shot in training camp.
“I might go play football,” Robinson told SLAM. “Do something that nobody’s tried to do.”
It might sound like a joke, but Robinson says he’s serious, and it’s not totally unreasonable to think he could do it. Robinson was a pretty good cornerback at Washington before he decided in 2003 to focus full-time on basketball. And in a column at NFL.com, Gil Brandt, the former Cowboys executive, writes that if Robinson had been around during Brandt’s time in Dallas, the Cowboys would have brought him to camp.
However, saying Robinson could do it is a lot different than saying Robinson will do it. As our buddy Kurt Helin pointed out at ProBasketballTalk, if Robinson wants the $4.5 million remaining on the final year of his current NBA contract, there’s no way he’s going to risk a serious injury in an NFL training camp, where he’d be putting his body on the line just for a shot at an NFL minimum salary.
On the other hand, if Robinson really wants to play football, and if he thinks the NBA lockout could wipe out the entire season, maybe attempting to play football is worth the risk of injury. It would be fun to watch Robinson give it a shot.