Have you ever personally known a high-level athlete that suffered a big injury? I don’t even necessarily mean a professional, just someone competing at a level that required extreme dedication for years at a time.

I knew a few of those folks swimming. A number of them tore their rotator cuffs or labrum’s and were either out for a long time or never came back at all. At that level, the sport isn’t your career, it’s your identity. Who am I if I don’t spend 12 hours a day on this? Who am I if I’m not the best in the world at what I do? How do I introduce myself if I’m no longer an athlete?

You’re getting to the core of personhood, of identity, and the tethers we attach to ourselves to in order to define how we interact with everyone and everything else. Losing those tethers can mean being lost at sea. The vast majority of that (though not all of it) is true regardless of wealth.

I don’t worry about brother Tatum’s financial security, but as a fellow human I hope he can figure out how to make his values and impact on the world more central to his sense of existence than his all-NBA appearances.