Former No. 2 NBA Draft pick Jabari Parker didn’t have the career that many anticipated. And now that he is out of the NBA, he didn’t hold back about the league, absolutely blasting the way the league currently operates.
Early on in Parker’s NBA career, it looked like he was going to have a successful career for the Milwaukee Bucks. Unfortunately, injuries took a toll on his career.
And in the years when he was healthy, he wasn’t given an opportunity to be the primary scoring option on the team, as the Bucks quickly moved on with Giannis Antetokounmpo as their star player.
Parker now plays for FC Barcelona, one of the top overseas teams in the world. Parker was asked why he opted to leave the NBA for the EuroLeague instead of trying to get back on an NBA team. And Parker proceeded to blast the current NBA product.
“I just want to be a part of something legitimate,” Parker told Alex Molina of Eurohoops.net. “I want to be a part of ‘every game matters’. Sadly, the NBA is a business and there are 10-12 teams that try to win every game and the other half try to get a Draft pick.”
“Where does that leave good players? You either have to be super good or bad, to lose games. It’s no excuse to see DeMarcus Cousins, Dwight Howard, or John Wall, guys who are potentially going into the Hall of Fame. Seeing those guys not have a job? We are seeing the league getting watered down, unfortunately. It’s a lot of things that are out of our control. Euroleague and the fans are expecting a lot, and we as players expect a lot from ourselves and we want to compete.”
Much has been made about tanking in the NBA, and it seems like this is what Parker is alluding to when it comes to a watered-down NBA product.
There is certainly an argument that Parker’s argument against the NBA is correct. There are many fans who do agree that the disparity between the bad teams in the league and the good teams is much larger than in other leagues.
However, considering how his career went, it isn’t exactly shocking to see that Parker is now blasting the NBA since he has largely been forgotten about by most fans.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.