Tom Brady and LeBron James ‘Insatiable Hunger Laid Bare

USAaslow’s “hierarchy of needs” is very elegant. The more we solve, the more we can solve, and the more self-actualizing we will be. Solve the need problem, and people will turn to the want problem, then to the why problem.

But Maslow’s approach misses one very important thing about the hunt for self-actualization: That is never end. For final proof, as we often do, we turn to our nation’s biggest pathological pile: former New England patriots and current Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady.

For those who don’t know, it’s clear that Brady, a 44-year-old lingerie showrunner and seven-time Super Bowl winner, finally retired from football last month. Sports networks have aired their tribute packages, people on Twitter are reluctant to acknowledge his greatness, I have written about his enigmatic personality. We all waved our hands, looked into the space, and said, Thank God that’s over.

But our imagination is very weak. We cannot put ourselves in Brady’s shoes. We can’t understand what it would be like if you were so successful that finding a supermodel wife, laughing kids and insanely rich for the rest of your life is unacceptable. . And so he announced that he would not tire and return to the Buccaneers for the ’22-23 season. I don’t think anyone was that surprised.

Stephen M. Dowell / Orlando Sentinel / Tribune News Service via Getty

But as it turns out, this comeback isn’t the product of madness – the consequence of staring down the barrel of wealth and respect for a lifetime. In fact, Brady is trying to make a wild plan to get out of Tampa Bay and put himself in the driver’s seat of the Miami Dolphins’ main office. You see, when he said that he “wouldn’t make that competitive commitment anymore,” he didn’t mean that competitive commitment when it came to football, like the average person. What he means is that he has some other crap he wants to do that still involves him throwing soccer balls for money.

OK, here’s what happened during Brady’s 40 days in the desert, according to an extensive report from Boston Globe writer Ben Volin: Brady rivals Michigan man Stephen Ross, owner of the Miami Dolphins — as well as a money-making Trump donor and evil NYC real estate developer who funded the a super PAC specifically designed to target progressive NYC council members who were committed to intervening in building the city of their vision — and the two of them drew up a plan. : Ross will hire Brady to be the team’s executive chairman of football and minority owner of the franchise. Brady will then announce that he’s going back to the grid, the Dolphins will arrange draft compensation with Tampa Bay, and Brady will act as midfield/de facto/leader offensive coordinator team lord, a man who controls most of the football production with his cool demeanor and aging arms as possible.

Just imagine: everyone on the team forced to submit to Alex Guerrero’s gospel of flexibility, forced to donate their spare blood to keep Brady active week in, week out, kiss the picture on the mouth Brady’s granite statue was erected in the dressing room so they could all play the great football game in his honor. Brady basically fake retirement so that he can accumulate more power and get more credit than he did in Tampa Bay, where he is getting a lot of credit now. He would also ignore it, if not a completely unrelated lawsuit is poised to show the NFL’s ass in its entirety. Brian Flores, a former coach for Dolphins is Black, stated that NFL teams see interviews with Black candidates as merely a form of conduct to remove the Rooney Rule and that while he works for the Dolphins, Ross tried to pay him $100k. game hit the tank and improve the team’s draft status.

Brady’s plan will also involve hiring “a coach he trusts,” former Saints head coach Sean Payton, to take on the role of head coach as his partner. that. But with the Dolphins recruiting under civilian scrutiny, Ross decided it might be a bad idea to hire an inexperienced white football executive president and a white coach whom he could not trust. I asked personally in one failed attempt and abandoned the plan. Brady, having retired from football and enduring time on his own with his beautiful wife and young children, has renewed and returned to the Bucs, after arranging for the team a new coach for the cause. Bruce Arians spent too much time messing around with his precious plan of attack.

Tom Brady, again, is a 44-year-old man who plays a sport that can beat most guys before they’re in their twenties. His seven Super Bowl wins are more than any single franchise in NFL history. He has hundreds of millions of dollars to his name, MVP awards, Super Bowl MVPs, a lovely family. He fell to the Patriots, where he won six titles with coach Bill Belichick, leaving that team in the dust because he felt like he didn’t have enough opinions on what happened. with the team, and then won a Super Bowl with another franchise, where he had more leverage to call shots, seemingly defiant. Even his most ardent haters (me) are forced to admit that he is the greatest NFL full-back that ever lived.

The only failures in this man’s entire life have been to be below what he expected, never defeating Eli Manning in the Super Bowl, being lit that one time by Big Dick Nick, and… it’s done. The man has lived a life full of victories, and yet here we are, reading about him trying to arrange a messy monosquad so he can manage to get emotional authenticity. more emotional than he could get just by going back to Tampa Bay and succeeding as a normal person. Tom Brady’s thirst for authenticity is so insurmountable that he’s trying to juggle some multidisciplinary work for himself so he can, I guess, land one eighth Super Bowl.

Jason Miller / Getty

Of course, Brady is a unique nerd in this regard. A monster among monsters. The weirdest guy in pro sports – even weirder than Michael Jordan, who is speaking frankly. At least Tiger Woods plays a sport To be province of old men, and were banishing the demons of childhood whose terrors were well known at this time. Brady is an ordinary middle-class kid invaded by brain spiders that have driven him crazy for credit being able to fly into space. But he’s not the only great player out there looking for control and prestige even when they’ve received so much. LeBron James, of the Los Angeles Lakers, is widely recognized as the greatest NBA player since Jordan, rich as hell, has won four titles for three different franchises and four MVPs.

And it’s still not enough. It is never enough. Since leaving Miami, James has imposed his will on every lineup he plays, aligning the roster to his whim and that of his agent and business partner, Rich Paul. Most years are… fine, I guess. But this year, his do-it-yourself pursuit of the title threw LeBron down the stairs and shoved him into the basement of his private building, handcuffing Russell Westbrook in handcuffs. , the NBA’s leading producer of shanked mid- long jumper, a British player emphasize The Lakers have even though their games don’t have any natural synchronicity even in Russell’s good times, a few years on.

Look, man: I dig into player power. I really do. I think the stars should have a say in the team building. Are they valuable? But in a way, you can’t do two jobs at the same time, and scouting and talent acquisition is a full-time job besides having fun. Brady could take on the role of left hand guard for the Dolphins, but, really, he’s not equipped to have a good answer to the question of operating within the NFL’s complicated salary cap. LeBron may know Westbrook is good at basketball in an abstract sense, but knowledge of fit and salary and all that? He doesn’t live in the correct context to see the bigger picture.

But LeBron and Brady are just boys on the eternal wheel of karma. Get anything they could possibly want, they longed for than, like everyone else, and they’re bound to pass up when trying to make that happen. That is the eternal state of man. Heck, look at Stephen Ross. Why would someone worth $8 billion go out of their way to shoot unruly city councillors? Because they threaten his craving for than. Not even just money – more power, more credits, more buildings at the University of Michigan with his name plastered on the front of them. At LeBron and Brady, the urge is strange; in Ross and other billionaires dominating the planet, it’s tragic.