Andrew Bogut - Just normal people - Detroit Pistons Fan Community

roscoe36 · #1 (**permalink**) 06-18-2007, 08:39 PM

Link courtesy of TrueHoop.

The bling and I - Basketball - Sport - smh.com.au

You gotta love how international players (ie. Darko, Delfino) are more comfortable speaking with their home media. Makes for the kind of fascinating insight you will never read in the domestic news market.

Quote:

"The smarter guys don't do that. They like to live a regular life and want to retire and be set up. About 80 per cent of them go broke by the time they retire or come close to it.

"We have compulsory tutoring each week where they teach you to manage your money and they tell you about all the things that can happen to you, people trying to take advantage of you, but it's amazing how many guys totally ignore it. I guess if you're a normal person and suddenly you're getting $10 million a year, it can go to your head.

"But it's just the culture over there. I would never want my child to be brought up in an environment like that, where if you have money you're supposed to flaunt it and make everyone jealous.

"The American attitude is 'We're the best'. That's why the NBA guys who come from other countries, the Europeans, all sort of stick together away from the game."

Bogut may loathe aspects of American culture. But it's not as though he thinks Australia's tall poppy syndrome is a healthy alternative.

webz · #2 (**permalink**) 06-19-2007, 05:45 PM

Yeah, I'm still not really sure how to take Bogut. Sometimes I just think he is an ass. He called out Luc Longley once before he was drafted, saying he was rubbish. And some of his comments haven't seemed entirely thought out or intelligent.
We're still going to love him because he is one of us, and despite the tall poppy symdrome in Australia, we do love a winner, but sometimes what he says just doesn't ring true for the majority of Aussies.
Yes, the world at times does think of America in that light - "we think we're the best", but for me its never one of disrespect. Completely the opposite. You always want to prove yourself against the best and beat the best, so hopefully this is what Bogut is trying to elude to.
He is not one of my favourite Australians on the international scene (sport or otherwise), but I do think he is good player with a strong work-ethic and as long as he does us proud on the court I couldn't really care what he does off it.