He has to face the best top 0.3% of the players in the world, and he himself is only in the top 0.4%.

Disclaimer: This article is reprinted. Many people do not understand why there is depression, think that the work is very good, very relaxed, do well, better than many people. But those who aspire always want to be the top 0.3% of the qualified, and asking for it without causing suffering is one of the seven sufferings that the Buddhists say is not to be suffering.

The original post is from the Tiger Poker Translation Group: http://lite.hupu.com/s?entrance=26&type=1&u=cba/news/113264

There's a curse that goes something like this: You're good at your job, but you're still not good enough.

You may not have noticed that Jeff Ayers had a sudden emotional breakdown in front of 20,000 spectators that night.

Of course, I didn't pay attention. At that time, I was paying the bill at the bar, remembering the Spurs' crushing victory at Phoenix, and then Greg Popovich sent Ayers to the court at the beginning of the fourth quarter. After the third quarter, the San Antonio Spurs led the opponent 75-41, which is rare this season. This season, the Spurs have had a lot of games that either win or lose. This time, Ailes will get a lot of playing time, and he has a whole quarter to show his unique skills.

It's just that the plot didn't develop as scheduled. Ayers was sucking, really sucking. He made three mistakes: one to cover the violation, once to carelessly send the ball out of bounds, and once to appear in his rare back-to-back singles, where his ball was easily stolen from behind by his opponent. Alex Lane and Archie Goodwin both scored on his head. His only contribution in seven minutes was just one rebound, just after the danny-Green-style pass error mentioned earlier. In addition, he had some minor friction with Ryan.

Ayers isn't the only player on the Spurs who has made mistakes. Several of his teammates played with him: Patti Mills, Cory Joseph, Borys Dior and Marco Belinelli, who didn't help much in the first few minutes of the fourth quarter. It's true that the Spurs had no chance of being turned over by their opponents, but I'm dripping, they played like in the first few minutes of the final quarter, even if they've gone into garbage time. Objectively speaking, the team was hit by the Suns in a 14-0 mini-climax, and Dior and Joseph were more responsible than Ayers. Despite this, Popovich replaced Ayeron Baines with Aaron Baines with 8 minutes and 23 seconds left. Soon after, Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green were back on the bench as the Spurs seemed to be completely in a scoring drought. With the exception of one of Dior's shots that dangled into the basket, his other back-up shots became less and less accurate. It wasn't until 3 minutes and 23 seconds left that Ailes regained his chances to play, but his performance continued to be sluggish, and he was almost useless and non-existent on the field. Thankfully, the game ended quickly.

Then J.R. Wilco noticed the scene.

This scene will undoubtedly be moving. In this game, the Spurs won easily by the big score, and they did not play such a hearty victory in a long time. But you can't be happy with the outcome of the game, because poor Jeff Ayers collapsed in full view of everyone, and the voyeuristic masses captured him crying. I don't think I've ever seen a professional player cry so sadly after losing a regular season game, let alone win.

You will feel sorry for him, but the curiosity that follows sympathy is inevitable. If you were me, you would feel that way. You don't want to speculate, but it's human nature. It's true that Ayers played badly, but not to the point of outrage. What frustrated him so much was that he was replaced halfway through this one-sided game? Or is it because of his careless passing? Or is it because there are a lot of college friends and family in the stands (Ayers studied at Arizona State University)?[1] behaving less than ideally in front of them? Or did Popovich lash out at him in the middle of the timeout? Or maybe it was something that had nothing to do with basketball that upset him. However, that timing certainly tells us.

[Translation 1: In 2005-09, Jeff Ayers played for Arizona State University, averaging 12.6 points and 7.5 rebounds in 126 appearances in four years of college. Phoenix Suns are also home to Arizona]

This reminds me of Dennis Hopson. Sam Smith, who recorded the Chicago Bulls' first title in the groundbreaking Jordan's Law, mentions Hopson in the book. The latter was the probing show of the 1987 NBA draft, and the two in front of him were David Robinson. Hopson was selected by the New Jersey Nets with the third overall pick, but his first two seasons have been disappointing, and his range as a shooting guard is really limited. However, he began to find himself in his third season, when he made 64 starts and averaged 15.8 points per game. However, the Nets executives decided to trade him out at the height of his value, and he was sent to Chicago, while the Nets received a first-round pick and two future second-round picks.

[2: Dennis Hopson was a star at Ohio State University in college, averaging 29 points, 8.2 rebounds and 3.6 assists in his senior year. In 1987, he was selected by the New Jersey Nets with the third pick in the first round, and he played for the Nets for three years, averaging 13 points and 3 rebounds per game, but his shooting percentage from the distance was dismal. He then spent a season playing soy sauce for the Bulls before being traded to the Kings, averaging 11 points and three rebounds as a substitute. He then went overseas, leaving his mark in Spain, France, Turkey, Israel, the Philippines and Venezuela.

[3: The Jordan Rules is one of the 1995 New York Times bestsellers of the year, full titled "The Jordan Rules: The Inside Story of a Turbulent Season with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls." Author Sam Smith has been a contributor to the Chicago Tribune for many years and received the Professional Basketball Writers Association's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.

Smith wrote in his book that the Bulls were excited when they moved to Hopson. The team is looking to him as the sixth man, as well as the third candidate for the athletic wing, as an alternative to Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen. He can even play with them from time to time, and Pippen can go to the main control. The future seems to be full of all possibilities.

However, this situation was never realized. Hopson had trouble learning to attack triangles, and he and Phil Jackson also clashed. More importantly, he never got along with Jordan or Pippen. In fact, Jordan has been putting a lot of pressure on him all season. Mid-season veteran Cliff Livingston and three-point top scorer Craig Hoggis jumped ahead of Hopson in the rotation roster, who eventually became the team's 11th man with just 18 minutes to play in the playoffs. In the book, Smith describes the rest of the team celebrating in the locker room, only he was crying. He missed a great opportunity and he knew it well.

The following season, Hopson was traded early to the Sacramento Kings, which at the time was almost the NBA's Siberia. In fact, playing for the Kings was the best season of his career that year, at least in terms of advanced statistics. However, in those years, the management of many teams in the league was full of Charles Barkley-esque mean people, so Hopson's NBA career ended at the age of 26. After that, he went to play in overseas leagues.

The Kings moved to Sacramento in 1985 and made it to the playoffs with 37 wins in 1985–86, before failing to reach 30 wins in the regular season for eight consecutive seasons. Because of the poor record, it is very appropriate to say that they are the Siberia of the NBA]

Ayers is now 27 years old, almost 28 years old. By any standard, he's still young, especially by Spurs. However, he has passed more than half of his career, and it is almost impossible for him to make significant progress. At this stage, he has already fixed the shape: Ailes is a well-athletic and mobile interior line, but he has no ability to attack from the back, and he is too bad to play center. His feel is terrible, his range is narrow, and he can only be regarded as a normal basketball IQ at best. He's an underrated passer, and passing may be his best on the offensive end, but he's prone to fouls on both ends of the board. He will be the ordinary mediocre, obscure passer-by on your team, and the fifth or even sixth choice in the team. Every NBA team has a player like Ayers, and the smartest of them know how to fight hard, to work hard in training, and to be silent. In other words: "Be professional". This goes beyond the work of providing for the family and requires more to pay.

But he still has self-esteem. As Marcellus Wallace put it in Pulp Fiction, self-esteem can be a big obstacle. Either way, Ayers is already one of the best 500 basketball players on the planet. I very much doubt that anyone reading my article is one of the 500 people in the world who are good at something. Of course, I also hope that I am one of the best 500 sports authors, and I am happy to be the highest paid 5000 author. Ayers can play wildball anywhere in the world, and he can play like 27-year-old Tim Duncan. In fact, he can definitely explode four or five generalists like you and me. But playing in the NBA is a different story, with he has to face the best top 0.3% players in the world, and he himself is just the top 0.4% of the players... Well, sometimes that leads to the kind of situation that happened in the fourth quarter of the game against the Suns. Especially like his playing time is still scattered, after all, he is only the team's sixth choice, and the team is a strong team that aims to win.

Pulp Fiction is a 1994 film directed by the famous American director Quentin Tarantino. Marsellus Wallace, a gangster character in the show, has a classic line: Pride only hurts, it never helps.

Two years ago, that summer, the Spurs ventured to sign Ayers, then 25, in hopes of unlocking some potential from the physically bouncing player. The team offered him a relatively affordable two-year contract, and perhaps the team's coaches, known for developing players, could turn him into a useful piece of the puzzle. I reckon that by about halfway through last season, Popovich figured it out: it wouldn't work, and of course it wasn't unusual. For every time Hassan Whiteside appears, or even Gary Neal, 50 players come and go. But Ayers blended well with the team, he was a great guy in the dressing room, so he stayed this season. It's just that now it's different from before, it's obvious that he's just a water dispenser player, as long as everyone can play healthy, then he doesn't even have a chance to be activated.

[Note 6: Hassan Whiteside was drafted by the Kings in 2010 but had few chances to play. Whiteside had only made 19 NBA appearances prior to this season. He has been playing in the Development League, China and Lebanese Leagues for many years, and this year he finally made a difference with the Miami Heat.

Gary Neal was a high-scoring backcourt killer during college. Neil competed in the NBA Draft in 2007 but was not drafted by any team. He has since travelled overseas, where he has played in the Spanish, Turkish and Italian leagues. In 2010, Neal was signed by the Spurs, and in his first season he averaged 9.8 points, 2.5 rebounds and 1.2 assists per game, and was named to the rookie first team that year. Currently, Neil plays for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

So, that's probably why Ailes cried out immediately after the game. He has only played 34 games this season and has had little chance of making an appearance on a major occasion. The last time he played more than seven minutes was on Jan. 22, when the team lost to the Bulls by as many as 23 points in Chicago. Cutting playing time from 12 minutes to 7 minutes may not seem like a huge change. But for a player like Ayers, it's undoubtedly a heartache. In saturday night's game, the coach didn't believe he was enough to keep a 21-point lead. It's really embarrassing.

Perhaps, the tears we see are the natural outpouring of a man watching the end of his NBA career. He realized that no matter how hard he tried, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he cared, he couldn't get back to heaven for his part, like the "moonlight" Archibald Graham in the movie "Dream Stadium".

"50 years ago, you played 5 minutes... You've come so close. Some people are so close to their dreams but untouchable that they are worse off than dead. Gosh, they'll think it's a tragedy. --Ray Kinseira[8]

Archibald "Moonlight" Graham is an American baseball player who has experienced the oddities. On June 29, 1905, he made his debut for the MLB New York Giants and his last game for mlb. Subsequently, Graham played in the Lower Leagues and he completed his medical degree at the University of Maryland, becoming a doctor.

Fields of Dreams is an American film released in 1989. Ray Kinceara is played by the famous American actor Kevin Costner, who is also the main character in the play, and he and Graham once crossed the dialogue]

Everything was in front of him, so close that he could smell and taste it, but he just couldn't catch it. It's much worse than not joining the league at all, so at least you can have a little reverie: "What if I joined the league?" And do self-consolation. But for players like Ailes, that question already has an answer.

Suddenly, it doesn't matter even to be one of the 500 best basketball players in the world, and you find yourself crying in front of 20,000 people who have a harder time reaching your level than ascending to the sky, and you seek solace in the arms of one of the greatest six or seven players in basketball history. Ayers was far closer to Tim Duncan's level than you and me, but at that moment, he must have felt like his heart was hollowed out, and the small universe was getting weaker and weaker. Even the man gave him a comforting hug.