There are some star athletes who are almost monk-like in their devotion to their craft. Guys like Tom Brad are an extreme example, but you also can’t argue with the results, as he went down in history as the best quarterback to ever live.
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Still, there are plenty of athletes who reach the mountaintop of their particular sport without the fanatical discipline that the seven-time Super Bowl winner exhibited. Pretty much none of them were able to sustain their success in the same way, but they were champions nonetheless.
Some of them even became all-time greats, meaning they got to have their cake and eat it, too. Take Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O’Neal, for example. Their former Miami Heat teammate Jason Williams was on the Flagrant podcast a while back, and he said that those two superstars knew how to have a good time.
“I didn’t go out, bro, I didn’t go to no clubs or anything like that,” he said. “But for the Heat, though, when I played for the Heat, it was like Shaq and D-Wade are pretty big stars, right? So any city we’d go to, they’re having a party. One’s having a party here, one’s having a party there, but that party’s gonna ravine at the hotel lobby.”
Williams was nicknamed White Chocolate for his smooth moves on the court, but he may have been channeling Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks with this one to earn his moniker another way.
Williams said that there used to be girls waiting everywhere the team went because they’d stalk their itineraries and know which hotels to be at, and when to be there. That surely wasn’t isolated to just the Heat, but it also didn’t stop them from winning the 2006 title behind Wade’s all-time great performance.
Williams himself kicked in 8.8 points and 4.7 rebounds per game to help the Heat take down the Mavericks in six games, earning his only ring in the process. Wade went on to win two more once LeBron James and Chris Bosh came to town, while this was Shaq’s fourth and final championship after his three rings with the Lakers.
NBA players today face even more scrutiny for their hard-partying ways thanks to the prevalence of social media and the increased reach of outlets like TMZ. Last year’s champs, the Oklahoma City Thunder, seemed pretty straight-laced and well-behaved, but we’ll have to wait a few months to see if they can do what that Heat team couldn’t do and repeat.
