MovieChat Forums > Hoop Dreams (1994) Discussion > William Had Alot Of Talent....

William Had Alot Of Talent....

posted 13 years ago by mdidesidero
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....but knee injuries wreck many athletes. It's the nature of the beast. Very doubtful he'd have ever made the NBA even with 2 good knees but he would've been a top shelf player at a good school like Marquette and probably made good money playing overseas. Once the knee went, show was over. Unfortunate.

As for Arthur Agee, he was never quite the talent that Gates was, nothing can be done to change that, just a shame he had such a deadbeat for a dad, but of course there's nothing new about that story either.

Knee injuries and deadbeat dads go way, way beyond this documentary. The only difference between these kids and THOUSANDS of others was they had cameras following them around.

[–] Davejohnson316 11 years ago

The real tragedy of the knee injury to me is it's effect on William's school work. He had a lot of momentum from basketball that transferred to academics that came to a screeching halt with the injury and he never got that focus back. Him pre and post it, he's like a different kid. I think St. Joseph's coach probably did take the fun out but if he went to Marquette or another school, he likely wouldn't be as focused to the NBA but finished school.

Arthur just never had the discipline on or off the court. Not that he was a bad kid but he focused on the dream rather than dealing with reality. You see that a lot where people try to give him hard truths but he just shrugs it off. Like when the counselor tells him he's barely scraping by and he just laughs and says don't tell him that. It really only hit home when at the end his options were limited and he saw where laziness got Shannon.