Article:Trizz vs. The Retired Number



Everyone wants to be remembered, whether its by having children or getting a bronze statue. In sports there is three ways to be remembered for doing something wrong, becoming a hall of famer or having your number copyrighted retired. So anyway I was watching the Celtics game and the commentators were talking about KG who was prohibited to wear his 21 and instead had to settle for 5, one of the few numbers left. The Celtics have 22 retired numbers, thats almost 25% of numbers allowed to be worn. At what point does this honorable deed become excessive.

For some players, they choose their numbers because of sentimental reasons or to idolize their favorite player. Yet if they were to end up on the same team as their idol they would have to change it. While I think its a great deed to preserve the memories of players at the same time its not like your are making sure everyone knows Dennis Johnson, you are just saying there will never be another # 3. Growing up I had no idea who half of the retired numbers were so it seems a little unnecessary to me.

Fact of the matter is that if the Celtics had got Kevin Durant, that wouldn't make people forget about Reggie Lewis, its just a number. And while you can say your right its just a number so why don't current players just pick unretired numbers, the NBA is still a business. Jersey sales is a key part of their revenue and I dont see myself buying a #69 jersey, no matter how good the player is. If you look at the picture provided the numbers 1,2,3,6,10,14,15,16,17,18,19,21,22,23,24,25,31,32,33,35,00 and if you count Dee Brown, Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce all likely retirees, thats 7,8, and 34 off limits. Now look at how many players wear those numbers. Point I'm getting at is that there must be another way to remember these guys than copyrighting numbers. What do you think my fellow Armchairicans