NBA Player to try the NFL?

Nate Robinson a guard in the NBA wants to play in the NFL? It doesn’t sound that crazy after you look at some facts. Robinson, who currently plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder told SlamOnline that “I might go play football. Do something that nobody’s tried to do.”

You don’t see a lot of athletes try both the NBA and NFL because their seasons both start in the fall, and go through winter. This year is a special situation because both leagues are in a lockout. The NFL lockout looks to be ending in a couple of weeks. While the NBA lockout looks to a lot nastier than the NFL lockout, with maybe the whole season being missed. So Robinson could likely play a NFL season without missing the NBA season.

As Nate Robinson is getting more years in the NBA; he is getting less playing time. When he played with the New York Knicks he got a ton of playing time; he was a star. Robinson is 5’9’’ tall and weighes 180 pounds but still he usees his quickness to get to the rim. He could also knock down the wide-open three. Being small didn’t stop Robinson from dunking the basketball.

With the Knick’s during the 08-09 season he averaged a career high 29.9 minutes per game and averaged 17.2 points per game. However the next season he fell out of favor with the Knicks and was traded to the Boston Celtics. Many times he would not even get into the game with the Celtics. During the playoffs run with the Thunder and Celtics he very rarely played. As his career goes on you have to wonder about his future in the NBA. His role is really diminishing. You can really see that by the following stats.

Season               Games                       Minutes per game         Points per game

07-08 (NY)             72                                  26.2                                        12.7

08-09 (NY)             74                                  29.9                                         17.2

09-10 (NY)              30                                 24.4                                        13.2

09-10 (Bos)             26                                14.7                                           6.5

10-11 (Bos)              55                                17.9                                           7.1

10-11 (OKC)             4                                   7.5                                              3.3

Playoffs

09-10 (Bos)           17                                   7.5                                             4.2

10-11 (OKC)             3                                    4.0                                              2.7

You might also ask why would Robinson try football if he hasn’t even played. Well Robinson did play in college for the Washington Huskies his freshman year. During that season he picked off 2 passes and made 34 tackles. Robinson’s father also played football at Washington and was in the NFL for one season. So Robinson already has some concept of the game of football.

“If I can, I would love to play football a little bit,” Robinson said. “I’ve been doing a little bit of training. Why wouldn’t you want to have an NBA player that can play football try out? That’s a lot of publicity for your organization.”

Could Robinson make it in the NFL, who knows probably not, but teams are always looking for quality corners because they don’t grow on trees. Yeah he might be a little undersized but his leaps will make up for that. Think about it, he is a lot more undersized in the NBA. I hope to at least see Robinson in a NFL training camp.

Tags: Nate Robinson, New York Knicks, Oklahoma City Thunder