SALT LAKE CITY — In one way, Jeff Judkins is just like me and probably you, too.
He hopes the players and owners can quickly end the current lockout so there will be NBA basketball as usual this season.
But in another way, he's not just like me and probably you, too.
He'll understand if there isn't.
Judkins looks at the millionaire players looking for more millions from a different perspective. He was there. He spent five years of his life inside the NBA. He played for four different teams, the Boston Celtics, Utah Jazz, Detroit Pistons and Portland Trailblazers, from 1979 through 1983.
It was a dream come true for a kid who grew up shooting baskets in his Salt Lake City driveway when he was drafted early in the second round by the Celtics and signed a two-year deal worth $85,000 a year, which, adjusted for inflation, translates to about $250,000 a year in 2011.
Who made that kind of money doing something you'd gladly do for free?
That's how felt he going in.
Coming out he felt a bit differently.
Basically, Judkins says he learned two things about the NBA.
One is that it goes fast — both the time you're there and the money you make.
Two is that while it may be a realization of your dream, it's also your chosen profession and once you arrive, you soon realize you need to make sure you get a return on all your hard work.
"It's like a kid who grows up wanting to be doctor," he says. "He's willing to do whatever it takes, he goes to school, he studies hard, but when he finally reaches his dream and becomes a doctor, that's when he recognizes that he wants to get something back for all his sacrifice and preparation and what he's accomplished. If he doesn't, he's not being fair to himself."
Judkins remembers how great it felt making so much money when he was 22 years old and fresh out of the University of Utah. By his fourth year in the league, his salary was right at the league average of $250,000.
"I was financially better off than all my friends I grew up with," he says. "But your life (as a ballplayer) is so short and now I look and see that a lot of those friends are better off than me."
He's not complaining. He's steadily employed — the lifelong coach has won 205 games the last 10 years as the head women's basketball coach at BYU — and he has an NBA pension waiting for him when he chooses to kick that in. He's just saying that making money isn't a sprint, it's a marathon.
The same goes for your body.
"You think you're invincible when you're playing ball, and then you get 50 or 60 and you start paying for it," says Jeff, who is 55. "I've had back surgery and I have cartilage problems with my knee, and I didn't play nearly the minutes some guys do. Larry Bird's had two back surgeries and when I saw him last he could barely stand up and walk."
Finally, everybody who's lucky enough to play in the NBA sooner or later comes to the sobering realization that it's a business and you're a commodity not unlike a stock that's traded on the big board.
Of all the great memories Judkins has of playing in the NBA — and those first two years with the Celtics, where he was drafted by Red Auerbach and became teammates with Bird, who remains a lifelong friend, were the best — his top not-so-great memory is the night before training camp in 1981 when the phone rang at 11:30 p.m. Frank Layden, then the Jazz's head coach, was on the line, informing him the Jazz had traded him to the Pistons and he needed to be on the 6 a.m. flight to Detroit the next morning. "That's when I knew it was a business," he says. "I have no grudges, that's just how it is.
"Basketball has been everything to me. I loved playing ball and I love coaching. I've been lucky, I've never gone to work and hated it," says Judkins, who will be conducting his 35th straight Judkins Basketball Camp for kids aged 6-18 this Aug. 3-4 at Jordan High School (for information call 801-487-1290).
He's not doing his camp because he has to, he's doing it because he wants to. But, still, he's not doing it for free. Just because you love something and you're good at it, doesn't mean you can't make a dollar while you're at it.
Lee Benson's About Utah column runs Monday and Friday.
Email: benson@desnews.com