Milestones Within Reach

How does a player approach questions about milestones? That is a great question within itself. It certainly does depend on the player, but for me, I certainly do not play the game for these acheivements.

It was brought to my attention that this week's game against Adelaide could bring up many milestones, according to someone. What is a measurable milestone?

In my opinion a milestone is something that does not happen every day or season. It is a special achievement that is reached by few and is something that others strive for. Barring a practice injury I will set a record for most consecutive games played in NBL history. I will pass Mike Kelly and the record will become 343 games in a row. That is a milestone just for the sheer fact no one else in the history of the NBL has done that. The trouble with this achievement is we are 1-5 and the focus needs to be on us as a team and getting our second win, not the fact I have not missed a day in the office for a while. (Some people may argue the fact I did indeed not show up to work on some of those days!)

If I score 18 points or more I will pass 7000 points for my career. Now I need Mark Slocombe (stats guru) to help me out here. I'm not sure how many players have passed this mark, but this is something you are more likely to reflect on when your playing days are over. All this shows right now is I have done my job reasonably well. As I told one of the assistant coaches the other day, "teams do not bring me in for my good looks, so when I'm open get me the ball. They pay me to shoot!"

As for other milestones I'm very vague on these but it is something like 3 assists to 500 for the Crocs, 8 points to 1700 for the Crocs and a low number of rebounds for something else. No disrespect to these figures, but I feel this just shows that I have performed at a solid level while with the Crocs. Players do not need to be notified every time they reach a number that ends in a zero. That is what I like about the footy codes. They have very distinct milestones, but when they are achieved they are celebrated in the right way. It seems within the NBL, we are always handing out a plaque for something. Milestones are suppose to be special.

I'm sure when I'm done and I need to try and impress someone these figure will roll of my tongue effortlessly, but for now I need to perform well so we can get win number two and start to get on a roll.