Bold Statement: Nate Robinson Should Switch to Soccer (Or, Well, Not)

Superb speed with the ball? Check. A textbook move to the far post? Check. A strong finish to the keeper’s low side? Check. An acrobatic celebration that would make Carl Edwards jealous? Check.

Maybe, in the flurry of “Which American stud athletes can play that sport that requires an much different skill set and automatically make the U.S. awesome?” articles, we all missed Nate Robinson, potential soccer superstar. We know he’s a little petulant, like all the best playmakers. We know he can jump, which would help in the box. And in the above video, from Steve Nash’s Showdown in Chinatown and lensed by SLAM’s Lang Whitaker, we see he’s still got the speed and elusiveness in the open field that probably served him well as a U-Dub wideout.

So why not do it, Nate? Your country needs you. Certainly, it needs you more than the Celtics do.

(Okay, fine: Nate would just irritate the USMNT by constantly comparing Tim Howard’s Shrek qualities to Big Baby’s, and Bob Bradley would find a way to sit him behind Brian Ching in a friendly, leading to Nate immediately getting a red card when inserted in an important game. But the goal and backflip are still cool.)

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