Josiah Turner & Kiwi Gardner

Kiwi Gardner and Josiah Turner. Josiah Turner and Kiwi Gardner.

What's with the scorn and the I-told-you-so's? Is such a behavioral reaction providing some degree of warped satisfaction?

Jeez.

Two young men, regardless of basketball-playing capabilities, are stumbling and struggling in life.

It's a situation which calls for empathy, understanding, a willingness to help with a steady and sturdy hand and a reasonable mindset.

Yes, a DUI is a deadly serious matter.

And tossing a basketball in the face of an opponent is a blasphemy on the game but, more so, an outright act of cruelty. 

But wishing for woe or taking some sort of glee from personal difficulties is not exactly getting your mail at a high moral address.

Don't get it wrong -- absolution isn't being offered here.

That would be inappropriate.

First, both young men need to earn their way back into respectability, beginning with their selves.

However, don't forget it's also a number of the adults in the life equations of these individuals who have come up short. You know them -- the card-carrying what's-in-it-for-me crowd who either cannot see beyond the moment or could care less.

Is it really too much for adults who invite themselves into the lives of kids to look out for the long term healthiness of the youngsters in their orbit?

Some are providing aid to the pair at this moment. Call them the actual adults, the ones who can see and act beyond the me-me-me and focus on concern for building the fabric of a life because it, in turn, will also benefit community.

That's really what is at stake here -- not simply basketball-playing futures.

With both consistent and appropriate guidance and a willingness to change their respective mindsets and decision-making processes, Turner and Gardner can turn it around, on and off the court.

That should be what everyone is wishing to see.