Deandre Ayton Considers Success In The NBA As "Getting To That Second Contract"

I know some people are going to freak out about this quote. Namely the Phoenix Suns front office that is a day away from making Ayton the Number 1 pick, the roughly 10 Suns fans that survived the last half decade or so of bad basketball, and people that were outraged about Phil Mickelson double tapping that putt at the US Open. But I love it because it’s refreshingly honest. I wouldn’t expect anything less from a guy that signed a shoe deal with fucking Puma and then said this.

Obviously Deandre Ayton would rather win 100 games and a championship every single year. But banners don’t pay the bills. Playing yourself out of the restrictions of the rookie pay scale and getting to an open market full of bad GMs with huge budgets is why you shoot all those shots and lift all them weights. Sure Ayton could have gone with a boring ass cliche about winning that we have heard a million times. But being good enough at your job and sticking around long enough to cash in on a big payday is definitely one definition of success. Again, rings are nice and another definition of success. But getting paid tens of millions of dollars guaranteed sure as shit isn’t being unsuccessful. You think Chandler Parsons looks in his diamond-crusted mirror and thinks he’s a failure? Fuck no. The only failures are the teams that pay big money to the players wayyyy more interested in getting paid than getting rings. Trust me, I root for one.