We Are Mercenaries. Stop Pretending Otherwise.

By Kevin Owens | OverseasX

Someone put up a post about how players need to have morals. How we should not play in certain countries because they, from their couch in America, have decided those places are evil and, apparently, so is everyone in them. Got a lot of agreement. A lot of sharing. A lot of people who have never chased a contract to the other side of the world telling professional athletes to stand on principle.

I am going to say what most overseas players already know and almost nobody will say out loud.

We are mercenaries. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Look, I have opinions. Everybody does..but my opinions are mine and your opinions are yours. I am terrified of sharks. Genuinely, like I think about them while on land…which is fucking crazy. But I am not standing on the beach telling everyone else to stay out of the water because of how I feel. That is my fear and my problem. The moment you start expecting other people to live by what you believe, you have crossed a line. You want to sit out a country because of how you feel about it? Fine. That is yours...keep it there. Don’t attack another player’s decision.

Every player I talk to before they go overseas, I tell them the same thing. You are a guest. You are not going to France, Greece, Australia, or anywhere else to hold the country to your personal standard. You are not going over there to demand that millions of people reorganize their culture around your comfort. You are going to play basketball and get paid. That is the job.

I played in roughly 16 countries over about a decade. I sat in locker rooms with guys from everywhere. From different religions, different politics, different everything. What we had in common was the game. That is the job. The moment you walk off the plane expecting the country to meet you where you are, you have already failed. Not just yourself, but every player who comes after you, because overseas basketball runs on reputation.

And that reputation is what GOT you here.

You were in the gym before anyone else. You gave up summers and parties. You gave up normal. While other kids were doing whatever the fuck they felt like, you were working. Because you wanted something badly enough to sacrifice for it. Every single year, for over a decade.

You went undrafted or got cut or got told you were not good enough, and instead of going home and getting a regular job, you packed your bags and found another door. You got on a plane to a country where you did not know a soul, and had to figure the whole thing out by yourself. You did all of that, quietly, without anyone writing posts celebrating it.

And now, when the contract is on the table and the check is finally in reach, someone wants you to walk away from it because they have decided that every single person in an entire country is evil.

Not the owner specifically. Not a coach or a teammate. The whole country…apparently. The fan who loses his mind when you hit a big shot, or the kid who waits after the game hoping you will give him your jersey. All of them condemned, by someone sitting at home who will not be affected by your decision in any way. That is so fucking ignorant.

You do not owe anyone your sacrifice. You worked too long and too hard to let someone else's broad generalization cost you what you spent your entire life building toward.

Here is the math. You have roughly a decade, give or take, to make your money as a professional overseas basketball player. Maybe a little more if you stay healthy and smart. Maybe less if you don’t. After that, the leagues get younger, the contracts get smaller, and the phone stops ringing the way it used to.

So you want to sit out a year because somebody said a country does not share your values? Great, that is your right. But understand exactly what you are doing. You are leaving money on the table that somebody else is going to pick up the second you put it down. You are not changing the world. You are not changing the country. You are not changing anything except your bank account.

This is not the NBA. There is no players union negotiating on your behalf. There is no collective bargaining agreement with a conscience clause. There is a contract, a roster spot, and another player on the next flight if you decide to make a statement. And that player will cash that check without a second thought.

This is the part that bothers me the most.

When someone tells you not to play somewhere because of the politics or the government, they are also making a statement about your teammates and everyone else. They are taking millions of people and collapsing them into a single judgment. That is the most lazy, divisive way to think about another human being.

I have had teammates from all over the world. And on most nights, all we had was each other. Your teammate does not represent his government any more than you represent yours. He is just a guy trying to make it the same way you are. When you write off a country or a region, you write off everyone in it…including the guy passing you the ball.

Moral High Ground Is a Luxury Most of Us Cannot Afford. LeBron James can afford to have a position on where he plays. He has the kind of money where one contract does not change shit. He has endorsements, production companies, a legacy that gives him options most players will never see in their lives.

You are playing in a league with a four-figure monthly salary, trying to send something home and build something before your body decides it is done. You do not have the same set of choices. It’s honestly not criticism, but reality.

The people writing posts about overseas players needing morals are rarely the ones who needed a contract to survive. They are not the ones who missed the draft by one round. They are not the ones whose NBA invite never came. It is very easy to talk about principle when the check is not yours to lose.

None of this means you leave yourself at the door. None of this means you stop being who you are. What it means is you understand the difference.

You owe professionalism. You owe the culture you land in basic human respect. You do your homework before you sign. You know what the environment is. You make a clear-eyed decision about whether that contract is right for you. And you show up and compete every single night like you earned it. Because you did.

But do not let somebody else's social media post cost you income that they will never personally lose. Do not let a broad generalization about an entire place talk you out of a contract that you worked your whole life to earn.

I spent a long time doing this in every region of this planet. Some were complicated and had shit I did not agree with. Some had cultural differences that took adjustment. But I would do all of it again in a fucking heartbeat, because that career gave me everything I have built since.

You are a professional basketball player. You have a skill. There is a market for that skill. You go where the market is, you respect where you land, and you compete.

Nobody is going to remember which countries you turned down. But you are going to remember every dollar you left on the table.

Go get your money.

Kevin Owens is the founder of OverseasX, a membership community for professional basketball players who play overseas, and the author of Overseas Famous: The Travels and Tribulations of a Basketball Globetrotter.