15 NBA players you’d like to have on your beer league softball team
By John Buhler
If 15 NBA players decided to get together and form the most interesting beer league softball team this summer, here is what that roster would look like.
The 2016-17 NBA season is over. Same for the 2017 NBA Draft and NBA free agency will be upon us here shortly. Some NBA players are taking a couple of me-weeks to get ready for next fall. So what are these basketball millionaires do to pass the time?
Well, wouldn’t if be amazing if say 15 of them decided to give beer league softball a whirl? That’s the exact exercise we’re going to do today. Beer league softball is about hanging out with your buds, knocking bad some suds and trying to pretend that the majors just haven’t discovered you yet.
The NBA is an increasingly international game, so do expect a handful of guys that have never held anything closer to a whiffle ball bat in their hands to definitely make this team. Winning is important, but beer league softball is all about having fun. Here are the 15 hoopers we’d definitely want to see what they’re all about on the softball diamond.
Steven Adams
Did Steven Adams even play baseball growing up in New Zealand? Does it matter? No, because Adams is both a fun and amusing player and basketball personality. Even if he doesn’t figure out baseball right away, he’ll be awesome to hang out with in the dugout to pound some beers ith.
Ideally, he’d be a trash-talking power hitter that we’d end up sticking in left field or behind the plate. Adams might be one of a handful of players on this beer league softball team that might literally stand on home plate when at bat. Could he charge the mound when he’s struck by a 10 mile an hour underhanded toss? Let’s hope so.
If and when Adams figures out which batters box to stand in, he will connect on a pitch and hit it 300 feet somewhere. He might run the bases clockwise third to first, but that’s just part of the allure of having Adams on the beer league softball team. Every pitch is an adventure with this long-haired and bearded giant from Oceania.
Adams would absolutely talk a bunch of smack from behind the plate or in left field. It’ll be loud and crass, but he’s a prime candidate to be part of the NBA’s beer league Bad News Bears. He will take ownership at catcher, blocking the plate from the other team from scoring. Adams could shock us with a howitzer of an arm from left field, but that ball might shoot out sideways like a Josh Jackson first pitch at an Arizona Diamondbacks game.