Kevin Garnett Explodes the “If Only All American Athletes Played Soccer” Myth

By: Daryl | February 26th, 2009

Above is a new three stripes commercial, featuring Galaxy/Milan (delete as applicable) midfield man David Beckham and Boston/Celtics (what? oh, that’s one team) power forward Kevin Garnett.

Here’s what I deduce from this video: Kevin Garnett isn’t great at soccer. He looks… clumsy. That’s no knock on Garnett, as he’s probably got a better first touch than myself.

But watching a 6′11″ man with shoes of whoknowswhat size kick a football is – for me at least – the final nail in the “if only [insert five NBA star's names here] played soccer, USA would win the World Cup” myth.

I can understand the argument that if all young American athletes concentrated on soccer then the national team and MLS (especially MLS) would be exponentially better. Of course it would. But I’m not buying the old argument that much of that talent is lost to basketball.

The argument goes that big fellas like Garnett and LeBron James and Kobe Bryant are natural athletes and could therefore take up any sport and dominate it. That argument is plain wrong.

Of course there are exceptions. But for the most part, b-ballers are just too… damn… BIG to be successful footballers. There’s a reason people say Peter Crouch has a “good touch for a big-man” (and other variations), and it’s because big men typically don’t have good touch.

If the opposite were true, then the beautiful game would look a lot like basketball, with big men dominating the field. But instead it’s munchkins like Leo Messi – who needed growth hormones just to reach his official/Wikipedia height of 5′ 6 (and a half)” – who pose the biggest threat.

Sidenote: As Off the Post and The Spoiler (who both posted this vid before us) already noted, this ad was most definitely filmed before Beckham turned his back on the ML of S and US of A. Will be interesting to see how his defection/attempted defection affects his marketability in America.