In regards to how much longer Joe wants to play, sometimes I think it depends what day you ask him!  There are days when he feels like he could go until he is 40 years old, and other days when he is ready to throw his basketball shoes in the garbage immediately.  When talked about in a reasonable frame of mind though, it looks like he would like to play until he is about 34 or 35 years old.  This would take us to the end of the 2014 or 2015 season.

Obviously there is much that he cannot control about how much longer he plays.  There are career-ending injuries that can take place.  There are also the possibilities of a team not picking him up for a season.  These situations would obviously force him into retirement, but his desire is to play until he is ready to call it quits.

He is also open to the option of playing shorter seasons towards the end of his career.  Many basketball players as they get older and their bodies begin to breakdown opt to wait until after Christmas for their agents to look for jobs.  At this point many teams are looking to make changes and bring different players in.  Obviously there is a pay cut when you do this, but it can prolong a career and still be a substantial income.

We have also been asked if we have a line in the sand that would determine whether we would move back to the States permanently and do something else. Again, this can be hard to answer when you don’t know all that could happen. There are a few things that we could see would cause us to move back permanently to the U.S.:

1. A health issue. If there were to be a serious health issue with me or one of the kids, we both agree that we would feel more comfortable with having treatment for that issue in the United States. In that case, if the treatment were something that needed to be done on a continual basis, we would move back to the U.S. and Joe would do something else.

2. A financial issue. If it would get to the point where Joe was no longer making enough money playing basketball to support us on one salary, then it would be time for him to be done. He would have to take a significant salary cut for that to happen though. As of right now there are large amounts of luxuries in our lives that we could easily cut out to live on much less than what he makes now. We have lived through Joe only playing half a season twice with adjustments in our budget and spending. We also have money put away in an emergency fund and other places to deal with times of financial hardship. A book that has served us well in living relatively simply, paying off debt, following a budget and saving with the future in mind (for example having money set away for the transition time between the end of Joe’s career and beginning a new career) is Dave Ramsey’s “The Total Money Makeover“.

3. An involvement issue. Obviously as the kids get older, it will be harder and harder to have them overseas and away from community, friends and activities.  One of the hardest things for us as a family is being away from our wonderful network at home.  If it would ever come to the point where we feel we are not thriving as a family anymore being out on our own, it would be time to stop.  We also consider the activities the kids want to be involved with.  So far, we have been able to supplement them with things overseas and may consider some extra time at home to do so.  Although we used to spend the entire season overseas with Joe, recently we decided to come a few weeks after Joe, spend about a month home at Christmas and possibly leave a few weeks before Joe at the end of the season.  This allows our connections at home to stay stronger and for the kids to be involved with activities at home (for example, maybe being a little late for spring activities like t-ball but still being able to participate), while still having us away from one another as a family for no longer than a month or two.  If it comes to the point where we feel like that time at home would need to be longer in order for us to be a part of the community and the kids to be involved in things we think should be priorities, we would need to be done with overseas basketball.  Once again, the option of Joe playing shorter seasons could be something that could be done in a few years to alleviate this problem while not totally quitting basketball.

Again, we have no idea what the future may hold, but those are situations we have discussed that may lead to Joe being done with basketball.  For right now, the plan is to continue on this path until the two of us are in agreement that God has called us elsewhere.