ESPN article that HEAVILY features Zavier Simpson

"Z gon' give it to ya" just doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

There is a difference between G-League/overseas and the NBA. Short PG who can't shoot aren't NBA caliber players. Yes, Zavier does get 10 day contracts here and there, but he has never gotten a one year contract or long term contract. It's still a death sentence for non-shooting short PGs. 

That being said, good for Zavier to stay in the G-League. 

Wasn't there a debate in the mid-90s about Allen Iverson playing soccer? Obviously his NBA career worked out pretty well. I don't remember if it was him or another athletic but smaller NBA player.

 He's clearly talented enough and an elite athlete, he would have killed it as a soccer midfielder.  

In what way is he clearly talented in soccer?  It requires completely different skills.  Controlling a ball with your feet is nothing at all like doing it with your hands.

And as it is the world's most popular sport, you've really got to beat the odds to be a world-class soccer player.  There are a lot of young men his size around the world, and most of them play soccer.

Those two 10-day NBA contracts he got already put him comfortably over six figures in earnings, in addition to whatever he made in the G-League, so I'd say he probably chose the right sport.

I've increasingly found this line of questioning tiring. I mean, I understand why people think about it, but things are more complicated than that. 

For starters, a player usually doesn't learn their full height until well after they've started down the path toward being an elite player. There are stories of a few late bloomers, of course, but a guy like Simpson almost certainly had already begun building the tools and skills to be an excellent basketball player before he found out how tall he would get. 

Second, as others above me say, the skills are different. There is more to being good at a sport than size and generic athleticism. 

Third, while "nurture" can make one a good player in a lot of sports with enough time, the best of the best are generally a combination of hard work, lifelong quality development, and 99.99th percentile physical tools. 

There are so many players that attempt to play sports and spend a lot of time at them that just don't make it that far. A tiny percentage is ever good enough. Yet a much larger number dedicate their lives to it; a rotation guy on the local D-2 team I watch, UMD, is a guy that spends hours a day in a gym, works out in the offseason, labors relentlessly to develop their skills and add new ones... and because of accidents of genetics and development, will never sniff a D-1 scholarship much less a professional contract. Guys like this are five inches too short, or have just the wrong level of peripheral awareness, or have a hand/arm structure that means they can never quite shoot consistently enough, or whatever.

Elite sports are so elite that they get the best combinations of physical giftedness and preparation. In the best cases you're looking at, not really exaggerating, 1-in-a-billion combinations of lifelong training, personal character, mental aptitude, and physical genetics. The guys who play at the highest levels are prepared for it and born to do it. 

It was a common conversational trope that Lebron James would make a great football tight end. But he probably wouldn't, honestly. Maybe he'd be ok, but he'd also have a lot of weaknesses. And the reality is that he was born to play basketball. Barry Sanders was born to play football. Leo Messi was born to play soccer. Get those guys in a different sport and they're not elite; they're athletic and ok. Maybe minor league level, middling college, whatever. Michael Jordan was a minor league baseball player at best, but the best basketball player in the world. 

Z is good at what he does. He's a basketball player. 

Just remember that Franz Wagner is only 22. That should help.