TJ McConnell built his career with a body that was undersized even when he was 20 and nipping at the feet of the players he had to defend. He didn't have the elite athleticism to make up for it the way someone like Nate Robinson or Muggsy Bogues did, nor did he have the shooting touch to survive from outside the arc. No, all he had was heart and the sheer intensity of a man possessed with their own self-belief.
McConnell is unfortunately not 20 years old anymore, and his career is slowly coming to a close. Now 34 it seems like he has at most two to three more years left before he rides off into the sunset.
The Indiana Pacers are hoping that 34-year-old McConnell will do the same thing that 32-year-old McConnell did as a key bench piece for a team that made the NBA Finals. However, TJ is set to miss the first game of the season with a hamstring strain, which is certainly not a good starting point for a player who will need to stay on the court, as the Pacers do not have a replacement for him.
All in all, the situation is heading for a completely expected but no less devastating ending. At this point, one can only hope that McConnell's hamstring will heal fast enough for him to return and to be the difference maker that this team needs off the bench, handling the team's biggest weakness without needing to invest extra resources.
TJ and LBJ
McConnell surviving to his age-34 season as a six-foot-flat point guard is arguably as impressive – if not more impressive – than LeBron James reaching his record-setting 24th season in the NBA.
James is a six-foot-nine demigod who was put on Earth to play basketball at a greatest-of-all-time level in sheer defiance of the existence of a father time. His longevity is one of the most impressive single skills any all-time great has ever had, and it doesn't even manifest in a game-to-game change.
At the same time, we must acknowledge that James is 6'9, 280 pounds, with a 40-inch vertical. Even as the athleticism faded, he was still always going to have the frame to be an elite player. McConnell, on the other hand, is a complete anomaly from the perspective of modern small guards.
In the time McConnell has been a Pacer, fellow small point guard Trae Young has been drafted, had his prime as an Atlanta Hawk, and has now been traded to the Washington Wizards, as his time as an elite star has already closed.
If this is truly it for McConnell, there is almost no way to oversell just how unprecedented his career has been.
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