We’re a bit short-staffed around here this week due to the holiday and so I am quite busy, but I promise to weigh in on the Bob Klapisch column that’s blowing up the Internet a bit later.

Until then, check out this awesome piece by Chris Tomasson at Fanhouse detailing the story of Marvin “Bad News” Barnes, former basketball star, drug addict and marijuana dealer.

The story is a fascinating one, but it’s loaded up with the type of “if only” quotes you always see peppering the tales of great athletes gone astray. If only he had _____, he would have been _____.

I always wonder about that. Obviously there’s something to be said for positive influences and role models that can keep a player out of trouble, but I wonder to what extent people can be hard-wired for destructive behavior.

Could Marvin Barnes have stayed away from drugs? Maybe. But maybe his proneness to drug abuse was part of who he was, and if he was different, he would have been a whole different person who also wasn’t a remarkably talented basketball player.

That might not make sense, so I’ll try to put it in simpler and far less tragic terms: How many times did you, in school or life or wherever, encounter someone truly brilliant who just could not seem to ever motivate himself? It happens all the time, it seems, and we say, oh, if that guy could only get his s@#! together he’d be the valedictorian or the CEO or the Pulitzer Prize winner.

But what if that guy’s inability to motivate himself is as much a part of his makeup as the qualities that make him seem so smart? What if some high achiever with less capacity for creative and abstract thought has more capacity for dedication and drive?

I’ve got no answers. I suppose the truth lies somewhere in the middle; people are born with certain tendencies, but their behavior comes from a combination of their makeup and their experience.