Deion Sanders famously played in both the NFL and MLB, but apparently he also came somewhat close to donning an NBA jersey.
Sanders revealed Thursday on SI Now that he almost played for the Atlanta Hawks, as part of a publicity stunt orchestrated by Stan Kasten, who was a top executive for both the Hawks and the Atlanta Braves, whom Sanders was playing for at the time.
Sanders said he had vowed to score 10 points a game, though his breakdown of how he planned to accomplish that feat is a bit unsatisfying.
“I was close, I mean really close — this is a breaking story — to playing for the Atlanta Hawks for one game. When I was with the Braves, I don’t recall the year, Stan Kasten was the general manager of both teams, the Braves as well as the Hawks. He was going to allow me to play NBA games so that I could play three professional sports. I was going to get to 10. I convinced him I could get 10 points. I was going to get two steals, and I could make the lay-up, so that’s four. I was going to get to the free-throw line and I was going to hit one out of two free throws. I know me, I’m not going to hit both of them. I was going to hit a bucket, so now I’ve got seven. Just by being in the right place at the right time I’d have had two. Now I’ve just got to pray for another point and I’d have 10.”
Deion doesn’t seem to realize that steals don’t come with free lay-ups or that it’s easier said than done to just “hit a bucket” or be “in the right place at the right time” in the NBA, but we can let him dream.
Sanders is maybe the most famous two-sport athlete in American history (though Bo Jackson might object to that characterization). He played in the NFL from 1989 t0 2005 and dabbled in baseball at the same time, appearing sporadically in the Majors from 1989 to 2001. He’s far from the only one to have played in two major professional leagues, but he would’ve been the first to appear in three.
