Chris Bosh seems a likeable and intelligent sort, and he’s certainly an underappreciated member of the Heat’s “Big Three.” But this quote from a story the other day (I just saw it) rankles me.
“I don’t think anybody really enjoyed this season like in years past,” Bosh told The Associated Press. “There was no, like, genuine joy all the time. It seemed like work. It was a job the whole year. Winning was just a relief. Losing was a cloud over us sometimes, and then we’d break out of it — and then go right back. But we got here. We had a chance. They were just better.”
I don’t think Bosh meant anything derogatory by the quotation — it was just an expression of his frustration after a terrible finals for his team — but it exhibits the same tone-deafness that Hillary Clinton demonstrated recently when she declared that she and former President Bill Clinton were “flat broke” when they left the White House. Bosh said the team’s efforts this past season — one in which the 30-year-old power forward earned $19 million, according to Basketball-Reference.com — “seemed like work.” It was unenjoyable, he said, difficult. It is not supposed to be like that.
Why not? He plays basketball for a paycheck — which fits the basic definition of work. For most of us, work is unenjoyable (I am lucky in this regard that I like what I do), difficult, a grind. It is a way to pay the bills and little more. Bosh’s comments indicate that he understands there is a difference between what the men outside my window are doing today — ripping up old sidewalks and curbing and pouring new concrete in 90-degree heat — and what he does, i.e., get paid an exorbitant sum to play a game. It’s just that what he does is not supposed to be like work at all and, when it is, well, it isn’t fun.
Again, I doubt any of this ran through Bosh’s mind at the time and I also doubt he has anything but respect for the people who do real work. He has been one of the more grounded people in sports for a long time. But his comments are consistent with those made by many who end up lucky enough to earn a large paycheck, which is why I brought up Clinton and her comments to Diane Sawyer. Here is what she said:
Well, if you — you have no reason to remember, but we came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt. We had no money when we got there and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea’s education, you know, it was not easy. Bill has worked really hard and it’s been amazing to me. He’s worked very hard, first of all, we had to pay off all our debts which was, you know, we had to make double the money because of obviously taxes, and pay you have at debts, and get us houses and take care of family members.
I have no reason to doubt her story’s accuracy — the Clintons may have been in debt, due to lawyers’ bills and other massive expenses — but its context. She was defending the speaking fees both she and her husband have earned over the last 14 years, time when she served as a high-profile U.S. senator and then as U.S. secretary of state and her husband had the cachet of being an ex-president and head of his own philanthropic organization. She may have been broke, but she walked out of the White House and into the Senate with an eye toward running for the presidency. Unlike most of us who are “piec(ing) together the resources for mortgages and houses,” she was connected. She was part of the American power structure. She was not at the whim of economic forces outside of her control. That’s why her comments struck such a nerve — or at least seemed to (there is no polling on this, admittedly, so the negative reaction may not be widespread). Her explanation, which was meant to show how much like the rest of us she is, ended up doing the opposite.
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Hank Kalet 