Life can sometimes be cruel, miserable, and downright evil. Merely ask any who are down on their luck through no fault of their own.
Think of someone who has been laid off due to job cutbacks; someone who has come down with cancer; someone who has been betrayed in a close relationship; or someone who has encountered any other situation reminiscent of a play with a bitterly Shakespearean ending.
Relatively speaking, at least in basketball terms, this is something Shaun Livingston can completely relate to.
Long before he was a member of the Golden State Warriors and an NBA champion, Livingston was a high school prospect with the potential to be a different type of point guard. Athletic and 6’7″, with scouts calling him heady beyond his years, and carrying words of praise which would make any general manager blush, the world was Livingston’s oyster coming into the 2004 NBA Draft.
Livingston was by no means sensational early in his career, yet he did flash enough brilliance which made many speculate what he might look like when he reached his full potential. Then, life hit him with several vicious roundhouse punches, several twists of fortune that few would wish on their worst enemies.
In only his third year in the NBA, Livingston suffered a debilitating knee injury, the type of injury that many assumed would limit his NBA career going forward. Unfortunately, that thinking ended up being pretty accurate — he never reached his full potential, although no one actually knows what that would have truly looked like.
That didn’t stop Livingston.
Another well documented aspect of his journey was his comeback, a rehab stint that saw him having to repair nearly every major part of his knee; playing only four NBA games his first year back from the injury; undergoing a stint in the D-League; and collecting as many teams to call home as parts of his knee that were mangled in 2007. It wasn’t the easiest road for any player, but especially a player once presumed to be a future franchise building block.
Look how far he’s come.
Here we are, one year removed from Livingston fully emerging as a more than viable backup point guard by showcasing his abilities in Brooklyn. We’ve just seen a full season’s worth of the Illinois native filling every role Steve Kerr asked him to perform without question, as well as doing so in a manner that made his as valuable a player he has ever been.
Now, he is an NBA champion.
After the game, his journey was not lost on him:
“I had two careers. It felt like two lives. To be here as a world champion is the greatest feeling in the world.” Shaun Livingston
— Ben Golliver (@BenGolliver) June 17, 2015
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Now that the NBA Finals are over, most of the attention will be paid to Steph Curry, Andre Iguodala, Steve Kerr, the countless other Golden State stories, or even some will be directed — unfortunately and in a mostly uneducated fashion — to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
However, I beg you, all of you: Do not forget to celebrate Shaun Livingston. Remember him not merely because he’s a good story, but because he’s still a good basketball player after everything he has gone through, long after his NBA career seemed all but over in 2007.
It is rather fitting that the NBA Finals were shown on Disney-owned ABC. Livingston’s story fits like a plot Walt Disney would conjure up, except no one would believe it could be true.
“A highly touted high school prospect, with a promising NBA career and millions of dollars ahead of him, injured horrifically to the point of people forgetting who he was for several years, amazingly comes all the way back through multiple bad contracts and stints in the minors, to win an NBA championship, you say…”, says the Disney producer.
“I call bullsh**”
Who wouldn’t if fed that premise for a feel-good movie of the sports year?
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Hats should be off to each team in these NBA Finals. Cleveland played above its means while LeBron James furthered his legacy as being one of the all-time greats, and Golden State has changed the narrative of “jump shooting teams” as well as starting a few stars’ legacies themselves.
Still… I’m not sure anyone has worked harder mentally and physically to not only get back in the NBA, and on a roster, but to get here — literally here, winning an NBA title despite it all.
If we’re going to talk about feel-good movies that have already been made, The Sound of Music qualifies.
Shaun Livingston’s NBA life has an anthem on this championship night in Cleveland: “Climb Every Mountain.” Few athletes have climbed from a lower depth to reach the summit of professional basketball.
