In the NBA today there is a wide variety of players that have originated from all different childhood backgrounds. This begs the question, which childhood background produces more of the best NBA players? The term “best player” can be looked at in a multitude of ways depending on the bias of the person. They can be seen as the best scorer, the best defender, the best three-point shooter and so on. But to most, “best player” means the best all-around player in the NBA. The “best-player” isn’t just superior in one area but has a superior average overall areas. Some experts believe that coming from a substandard background gives kids an inner drive that gives them an advantage over other basketball players who have grown up with an easier way of life. While on the other side of the spectrum studies have been shown that growing up in a healthier background gives players a greater advantage of performing at a higher level than those that come from less fortunate situations. 

The Most Valuable Player award in the NBA gives the audience the best insight each year on who the best all-around player was. Since the year 2000, the MVP award has been won nine times by a player who has been raised by a single mother or come from a rough neighborhood (LeBron James has won the award four times in this span). Sometimes even both for example, LeBron James, Derrick Rose, Allen Iverson and Kevin Durant all were raised by singles mothers in rough neighborhoods. LeBron James grew up with a single mother raising him as she moved from apartment to apartment in the seedier neighborhoods of Akron Ohio. This is much like Derrick Rose who was raised by a single mother in the Englewood area, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Chicago’s South Side. Since both of these players came from low income families, much of their lives were solely centered around one thing. Basketball.  All of these players are some of the best in the game or were at some point, but a quote by LeBron James tells people that coming from a tough background doesn’t usually produce the best players. In his Finals MVP speech, he said, “I’m LeBron James. From Akron, Ohio. From the inner city. I am not even supposed to be here.” This shows how even LeBron James, arguably the best player to ever play the game, believes that it is abnormal for a kid from a substandard to become one of the best players in the NBA. (Keater)

As for the other four players Stephen Curry, Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitski, and Steve Nash that won MVP titles since 2000, all have come from middle class families or very wealthy families growing up. All four of these player’s parents had previously played some professional sport in their lives and therefore had much to offer for their kids in their childhood. All of these players were put into special programs to help them progress in basketball like summer leagues and special trainers that less privileged kids did not have. This luxury was not something that all players had growing up but there was a clear difference in certain skills that these players possessed. The skills came from coaching and in depth learning of the ins and outs of the game.

Out of the players named who have won the MVP since 2000, three of them have skipped college and gone straight to the NBA, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James. Kevin Garnett came from a middle class family with a mother and step-father that he did not get along with. Kobe Bryant grew up in a wealthy family and his father being a former NBA player. Lastly LeBron James grew up with a single mom and eventually lived with his youth sports coach. This jump from high school to the professional level is not for everyone though. This is why it’s so rare to see players do this in today’s game. They have to be extremely skilled to ever be able to make this transition into the National Basketball Association. Seeing how two of the three most recent players to do this were not from unstable backgrounds shows that while there are great basketball players that come from nothing, it is not the most likely background to produce the greatest players. 

Another tactic to determine which players from different backgrounds are more dominant is by their statistics in the NBA. There are so many to look at but four are extremely important. Points Per Game (PPG), Assists Per Game (APG), Rebounds Per Game (RPG), and Field Goal Percentage. These are averaged for their careers. Three of the players chosen are from rough upbringings and the others all had normal or above normal upbringings. For example, there are players who came from substandard backgrounds and then moved to ones with more privileged ones. First, there’s LeBron James who has averaged 27.1 PPG, 7 APG, 7.2 RPG, and has had a 50% field goal percentage through is first 13 seasons. Next, Kevin Durant has averaged 27.2 PPG, 3.8 APG, 7.1 RPG, and a field goal percentage of 48% in his 10 seasons so far. Finally, James Harden has averaged 22 PPG, 5.6 APG, 4.9 RPG, and a 44% field goal average through his 8 seasons so far. Then there are the players who came from more privileged backgrounds growing up. First, Michael Jordan averaged 30.1 PPG, 5.3 APG, 6.2 RPG, and a career field goal average of 49% through his whole career of 15 seasons. Next, the up and coming star Russel Westbrook has averaged 22.5 PPG, 7.8 APG, 6.1 RPG, and a field goal percentage of 43% through his current 9 seasons. Finally, there’s Kobe Bryant who averaged 25 PPG, 4.7 APG, 5.2 RPG, and a field goal percentage of 45% for his 20 seasons in the NBA. (Fox Sports).  A lot of these statistics are very similar and makes it very hard to distinguish which background creates the most dominant players in today’s game. However, in fact if there were more players than just these six that are shown the statistics would show that there are many more dominant players that have come from standard backgrounds, rather than rougher inner city kid’s or ones with only one parent in their childhood lives. 

LeBron James is undoubtedly one of the best players to ever play in today time and in the times before him. The conventional thought is that his background story is typical for the NBA player. Studies conducted by a Google consumer survey data show, that a majority of Americans think the NBA is comprised of men just like LeBron. This however is very false. A study done by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz researched the NBA, by race in every country in the United States. He used birth data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with data on players from the basketball-reference.com , along with income from the census. His studies have shown that growing up in a wealthier neighborhood is a major advantage of reaching it to the professional level for both black and white males. Some people have tried to say this is just because sons of former NBA players like Kobe Bryant or Steph Curry but if you take all the former players like that out of the picture, the results are still very much the same. (Stephens-Davidowits). This study only tells where the players began their lives. In the 1980s people began to learn more about individual’s backgrounds, because that is when most of the recent NBA players were born. 

The “drive” or “hungriness” of a basketball player coming from poverty has long been seen as an advantage that they have over their opponents. However, the data suggests that on average any drive or edge in motivational drive is outweighed by the advantage that other kids from higher economic classes. These advantages are what people call non-cognitive skills like persistence, trust, and self-regulation. An example of a player in the NBA today who struggles with these skills is Demarcus Cousins. He has the most technical fouls out of any player since he has entered the league and has been known to get in fights with referees, teammates, and even his coaches. He is still one of the best big men in the league but many people believe his “bully” attitude which he got from growing up on the streets has held him back from being an even better player. Another relevant advantage of a healthier upbringing is height. An economist by the name of Robert W. Fogel displays the impact of early life nutrition on adult height over many years. This means that children coming from poverty are more likely to have their development slowed or held back due to substandard nutrition. This is yet another factor that makes it much harder for kids from poverty to make it to the NBA because in the NBA, every inch matters. 

In today’s world, finances come into every aspect of our lives. About anything and everything we do costs money in some type of way including basketball. Sure, you can play pickup basketball on the streets or in your backyard for free. But for those players trying to make it to the college level and then to the NBA, there is usually some type of money you are going to have to pay to get to where scouts are going to watch you play. For example, most players who go on to play in college or the NBA are involved in some type of AAU team to be able to keep playing competitively when it is not high school basketball season. To play in these leagues you must have money to travel and also pay to be on the team. With this being the case it excludes those players whose families do not have the funds to allow them to play in these leagues where they can be seen and recruited by scouts. This adds to the list of disadvantages that children from poverty have against those with money.

Many people think there is a level playing field in the sports world today, however this is not so. A recent study published by the International Review for the Sociology of Sport along with Joshua Kjeerfulf Dubrow of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Jimi Adams of Arizona State University did a study on NBA players from 1994-2004. The result’s showed that poor white athletes 75 percent less likely to reach the NBA than middle class or wealthier whites. The same was found that African-Americans have a 37 percent less likely chance of making it to the NBA than one born into the middle or upper class. To go into even further statistics, an African-American athlete raised by only one parent is 18 percent less probable to make it to the NBA rather than a black athlete raised by two parents. According to Dubrow and Adams research 34 percent of African-American players in the NBA lived in United States households whose income was at most 22,050 dollars for a household of four people. Family and finances can either drag or boost an athlete trying to get to the NBA.

In retrospect to this argument, some players like Kevin Durant, and James Harden have both announced that they wouldn’t be in the positions they were today without the “drive” that they got from growing up with a single mom. Most famously, Kevin Durant in his MVP acceptance speech gave all the glory to his mom for making him who he was and the reason he made it out. “One my best memories I have is when we moved into our first apartment. No bed, no furniture, we all just sat in the living room and just hugged each other. We thought we made it. ... You wake me up in the middle of the night in the summertime, making me run up a hill, making me do push-ups. Screaming at me from the sidelines of my games at eight or nine years old ... When you didn't eat, you made sure we ate. You went to sleep hungry. You sacrificed for us. You're the real MVP.” This quote shows the drive he had to get not only himself out of poverty, but his mother also, for all the hard times they had been through together. Also James Harden who is now the star player on the Houston Rockets attributes his success to his brothers who kept him out of trouble and his mom that sacrificed everything to be able to get him to school and out of Compton. He even tells a reporter from E60, “It's a place where you aren't supposed to make it out of,” “The odds are against you. A lot of people aren't strong-minded, and they either end up in jail, or aren't here anymore."(Criswell). His passion for the game carried him out of this to where he is now. 

There are multiple players in today’s game that have come from poverty, single parents, moving in and out of homes that have become some of the best in the game. But almost everyone will admit that they never really thought they would be where they are today. It’s not to say that these players weren’t talented, or didn’t think they may have a chance to make it. Its rather that the belief is you aren’t supposed to make it out of poverty like that and become a star or a household name around the world. Just like James Harden said, “It's a place where you aren't supposed to make it out of,” (Jack Bio) talking about his home town Compton, one of the most dangerous cities to live in. This shows how coming up in the middle class or higher does not always create the best player in the world but it does create a lot more of the top tier and best players in the game. Because of all the benefits they gain from having access to more opportunities within the game along with the nutritional and quality of life that they have day in and day out. Compared to the struggles and hardships than many players like LeBron James and Kevin Durant went through. 

There will always be great players that break the normality of the world and come from nothing. There will always be those like Michael Jordan who came from a middle class home with two parents and is still to this day the best player to ever play the game. From the research the economist Roland G. Fryer and Steven D. Levitt did on decades of birth certificates in the US and based on searches done on ancestry.com they concluded that twice as many black children were born to married parents than unmarried parents. So hypothetically, for every LeBron James’s of the world there will be a Michael Jordan and Russel Westbrook born to a middle class family with both parents. This is why being born into a more privileged childhood outside of poverty will always produce more dominant NBA players. Even the “King” aka LeBron James knows he is the exception and not the norm, “I’m LeBron James. From Akron, Ohio. From the inner city. I am not even supposed to be here.”

