Last week was the Rookie Transition Program, which is where the league brings in all its first-year players (and this time second-year players, too, as there was no program after the lockout) and tells them all about the friends and family who are going to try and leech their money, women who are going to come on to them with ill intent, and suggest they may want to save some money off their paychecks rather than buying that fourth car as a rookie.
Tyshawn Taylor was in that class and then headed back in Lawrence, Kansas, where he went to college.
The new Net grew up in New Jersey not far from New York and now he is moving back home to play in Brooklyn. Home, where there are a lot of old friends. Some of whom wouldn’t mind a piece of Taylor’s money. You can bet some of his group who will come right out and ask him for money. He was up front in talking about it to the Lawrence Journal-World.
“I think that’s going to happen whether I’m home (in New Jersey) or not. It’s a little bit easier for them to get access to me being close to home. It was something I was going to have to deal with anyway,” Taylor said. “I am dealing with it. It is what it is. I can say no. I know who I can give money to and who not. It’s cool. Being in New York is not hard. It’s where I’m from. I am home thinking I’m Tyshawn, but I’m not just Tyshawn to everybody else.”
The NBA life is an adjustment. Not just on the court, but off it as well. And plenty of guys get swept up in that and lose focus on the game. Taylor seems to have his head screwed on about the issue, but every guy in the league faces this. All the time.
