Kendall Marshall was in New Jersey from Aug. 16-20 to work on his life grip along with the rest of the 2011 and 2012 rookie classes. The NBA’s Rookie Transition Program hosted 110 players because last year’s lockout canceled the event.
From new women to old friends, from newfound riches to old stories of bankruptcies and from illegal drugs to social slugs, the program introduced rookies to problems that are more common than they imagined and more issues than they could master…
“It was a real eye-opener for us,” Marshall said. “You hear the financial stories about guys who go bankrupt and you hear about the relationship stories about guys that have things go wrong with their spouse or girlfriend. You always think that can’t happen to you but the odds are that it can happen. They’ve done a great job of preparing us for that and bringing it to realization and making us want to make the right decisions.” …
“The female species are a lot smarter than us so we have to realize maybe it’s not always that we’re the best-looking guy they’ve ever seen,” Marshall said. “Maybe there is some incentive behind it. At the same time, there are great cases where guys have happy marriages. They’ve shown us both cases. We just have to be smart (and realize) that people don’t always have our best interests in mind.”
— Reported by Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic
