LAS VEGAS -- The vast majority of basketball players will fail. They won't make an NBA team or immortalize their brand. They won't land that soft drink commercial. They won't sign that big contract.
It's the same in the music industry. Ninety-nine percent of bands fail. Even the bands you think are successful are failing. The numbers just don't add up.
I am drawn to those on the fringe. I am intrigued by those who fight and those who do not accept their lot in life.
I know because I am one of those people. I have played drums all my life, and I moved to New York City on my own when I was 16 to pursue a life in music. For the past six years, after dropping out of conservatory, I was on the road touring, gone from home for upwards of 200 days a year. It was exhilarating.
What stuck in my mind the most were the wakeup calls. It's four in the morning. The alarm blares. Lobby call is in half an hour. You've slept for an hour and a half on the ground in a dirty sleeping bag. Three other adult men in the room are snoring. Another four are next door because you're just not making enough money to get more than two rooms.
The lobby call, the slow stroll to the van, figuring out whose turn it is to drive. Trying to fall back asleep as the vehicle jostles along some dusty highway. On the way to the next gig. On the way up? Forward? At a certain point, who even knows.
Being on stage, flinging energy at the crowd -- that is the ultimate high. All the pain and fear and soul-tiredness melts away. You're free and pure. For that hour and a half, things make sense.
The similarities between a touring musician and a pro basketball player trying to make a team at last week's Las Vegas NBA Summer League struck me hard. There's an aspiring band hoping to be discovered wherever you turn. There's the new guy on the block, trying to make his name. There are the rising stars playing the main stage for the first time. There are those bands recently written up in the trendy magazine and those basketball players recently picked in the top 10. Fans show up to the event wearing their jerseys. They have all the hype, and the noise.
And then there are those bands struggling to pay for gas, struggling to make a name for themselves. The band that has to camp out in the artist area, or sleep in their truck because they can't afford the hotel. You have those end-of-the-bench players fighting for their NBA future. Those who are destined for Europe, or China. Those who will take the D-League contract dreaming of an eventual call-up, hoping against hope that this year they'll make it. This time, it'll be different.
I posed this analogy to Bruce Fraser, an assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors. He agreed, but pointed out that basketball is an even harder grind.
"I think our travel isn't as tough as like someone as a musician," he said. "Ah, what's a good word to articulate this? I think there's, you know, more goes on. We're constantly busy when we're on the road. Whether it be practice, or actual travel, or for rest. Because if you're not practicing, you're resting and getting ready. So there's no real time when you're in a city and you're enjoying it."
The basketball player's day typically ends with a flight and begins with a morning walk through in a completely different city. There are bus rides, team meals and down time where a player must summon the energy for that night's game.
"You go out, you compete, and then you fly to the next city and do it all over again," Fraser says. "So, I wouldn't say it's a completely glamorous life. It's pretty exciting if you like the game, if you're involved in it. But at the end of the day, it's basketball, and that part of it is fun."
How hard must it be for a 19-year-old kid to have a healthy perspective on his own life while acclimating to the glamour of the NBA? It must be strange to be someone's hero.
"Yeah I think for the young guys, it's a tough transition," Fraser says. "You know, like Kevon Looney. We drafted him 30th pick this year out of UCLA. He's 19 years old. So, this is his first experience with, sort of this lifestyle. And this is only a small glimpse of it.
"The adjustment is tricky from just a lifestyle, life change," Fraser continued. "He was in college for one year, now all of a sudden he's in this pro in the NBA. Now, the next adjustment for him is to get around, sort of like the glamour of it with our real team. What you're talking about where you're prestigious, you're a role model in your own town and you have to sort of navigate those waters, too. Trying to acclimate to this whole big change. It's a tricky thing."
★★★
In the non-stop madhouse of the Thomas and Mack Center, with agents, players, writers and fans rubbing elbows, it's easy to forget that Las Vegas is surrounded by mountains. Driving west, away from Summer League, great peaks blossom against the horizon, beckoning me through my borrowed car's dusty windshield.
For a moment, I was tempted to just keep going. Drive up and through winding passes, to the high desert beyond. Drive until I saw the ocean. Instead, I turned off onto S. Buffalo Road and found the high school where the Warriors were practicing throughout the week.
I waited in the entryway to the gym. There was a table piled high with paper bags full of catered lunches from a local sandwich chain. Jerry West paced in and out of the small room, talking on a cellphone in that same lilting twang I remember from my grandfather, who was also from West Virginia.
When security let us in, I walked straight to Matt Stainbrook, a mammoth, sweet man who became an Internet sensation during the most recent NCAA Tournament. I told him about sometimes going to larger music festivals, like Bonnaroo. How you'd see your favorite band backstage, but they'd be tired, hungover, and eating chicken wings. I then asked him how he's dealt with the exposure of being on TV and what he had to say about the disconnect between the reality of the NBA grind and people's perception of what he did.
"Being able to see people come up to you and say, 'Oh, I saw you do this. Oh I saw you do that, I'm a big fan,' and whatever. That's a really cool aspect," Stainbrook said. "You know, and staying in the nice hotels, getting a lot of gear, getting the, you know-that's all a really cool aspect."
He ran a huge hand through his light blond hair, eyes shining with genuine kindness. He was wearing thick prescription goggles that later I'd try to convince him to trademark.
"But," he continued, "There's also drawbacks. People are watching your every moment. You can't walk through the Bellagio without someone knowing who you are, seeing you, watching what you're doing. And sometimes you get the people who yell at you, who don't like you, who tweet about you, who say mean things, whatever. So you take the highs, the lows and that."
He looked out over the practice court as his teammates hoisted extra shots post-practice. "There's a lot that goes on that people don't know."
Nothing is guaranteed. Matt knows this.
Yet through it all, his mind is set. When I asked him where he saw his life and career headed, he steeled his eyes, shook his head and stood firm.
"I will try to continue basketball no matter what. Whether it's in the NBA, overseas, D-League, whatever. I want basketball to be a career for as long as I can. And then, after that, I'll go from there."
Being in Vegas, watching hundreds of young men audition for the NBA -- knowing full well that the majority will fail -- brought it all home. The NBA, just like life, is a collection of talented people trying as hard as they can. There is no magic, there is no mystery. The lead singer of your favorite band gets sad sometimes and just wants to curl up and watch Netflix. The team executive has a bad day.
Or, a player can't handle the stress. Perhaps he has a young daughter. Perhaps he has outstanding debts. His hometown friends see him on TV and text him. But when they are on the court, when you are on stage, everything melts away and it all makes sense.
Music, like basketball, at its core, is a type of performance. You are onstage, you are revered, you are reviled. How many people grow up chucking a leather orb upwards towards the hoop? How many bands start in someone's garage? I know mine did.
Yet, how many high school superstars turn into serviceable college players and then international journeymen, never destined to wear the jersey of an NBA team? How many artists, regardless of talent and ambition, flame out? How many one-hit wonders have there been? How many cautionary tales are there?
It's a tough life, boy. You wanna put it all on the line? You want to reach the top? God speed. Because you can be really, really good and still not make it. You probably will not make it. Life is cruel. Life is exacting.
It is in the NBA's (and music industry's) best interests to have stars. To make stars. To sell commodities. To sell jerseys, sell merchandise, sell tickets, sell advertising space. There are those players who are born into the spotlight. LeBron James came into the league as a fully formed money-generating machine. He took meetings with Nike and adidas when he was 17. By the time he was of legal drinking age, he had already made the finals. Much like, say, Taylor Swift, he has all the corporate backing in the world.
But, of course, it takes much more than corporate backing and good luck to achieve immortality. A successful career is the hardest to sustain. Everyone wants what you have. Everyone is gunning to knock you off your throne. The grind of stardom is a whole other grind.
★★★
At that same practice, near the foothills in the desert of Nevada, Stefan Nastic was also playing his heart out for an NBA chance. A 6'11 Serbian-born center, he recently graduated from Stanford University with a degree in psychology. He sat, tired, in a folding chair, his impossibly long hands and arms resting on his rough knees. I knelt before him and asked about the disconnect between reality and perception in the NBA.
He smiled, shook his head slowly, and put it in simple terms.
"I feel that's with every profession," he said. "At every profession, everybody's putting in hours that people aren't seeing them in. And, you know. I'm fine with it. A lot of the public does understand how much we put in. Because they're putting in that much with their respective jobs as well. Ultimately, you do it for yourself and what you stand for."
Ultimately, you do it for yourself and what you stand for.