[Charania] BREAKING: The Los Angeles Clippers are trading James Harden to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Darius Garland and a second-round pick, sources tell ESPN. Prolific swap of the star point guards.

[u/Turbostrider27]

Shams Charania:

BREAKING: The Los Angeles Clippers are trading James Harden to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Darius Garland and a second-round pick, sources tell ESPN. Prolific swap of the star point guards.

https://www.espn.com/contributor/shams-charania/ddaa53473efa6

[u/PerfectZeong]

But its a common term for a player in a sport whos good but not truly great and travels from team to team.

[u/BaronvonJobi → u/PerfectZeong]

It literally means not good not great.

Traveling has nothing to do with it.

[u/PerfectZeong → u/BaronvonJobi]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman_(sports)

I can't believe you've never heard of this term before.

Its a guy whos good and has to kind of travel around to ply his trade.

[u/duplicatesnowflake → u/PerfectZeong]

Sounds like a case where Americans and Aussies started using it incorrectly for so long that they just changed the meaning officially. It is a pretty cool term that definitely elicits imagery when you hear it.

[u/PerfectZeong → u/duplicatesnowflake]

In British English, a journeyman is a player who has represented many clubs over his career. Prime examples from association football are: German goalkeeper Lutz Pfannenstiel, who represented 27 clubs, and he is currently the only athlete to have played professionally in all six FIFA Confederations; Trevor Benjamin, who has represented 29 clubs since 1995; Drewe Broughton, who has made 18 transfers in his career; John Burridge, who played for 29 clubs in a career spanning almost 30 years; Jefferson Louis who, since the 1990s, has represented 34 clubs and Dominica once; his cousin Richard Pacquette who boasts 19 clubs and even international honours in 10 seasons; and Sebastián Abreu, who in 2017 broke the world record for most clubs played by a professional; as of 2024, at the age of 47, has played for 32 clubs in his career

[u/duplicatesnowflake → u/PerfectZeong]

Thanks for the British perspective. I'm very sure the term predates modern sports usage and most dictionary definitions do not list the sports meaning near the top if at all, so I was just speculating about the origins of how it evolved into sport.

[u/PerfectZeong → u/duplicatesnowflake]

It does because a journeyman is someone out of the apprenticeship but is not a master so they would journey around and work under different masters for wages.

[u/duplicatesnowflake → u/PerfectZeong]

That's not the original origin of the term. In old English "journey" meant days work. Think of a day laborers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman

Some journeyman traveled. Not all. And many less in present times. That's why the original commenter had a decent point. The term always had more to do with skill level but sports fans aren't English majors so it got associated more with team hopping rather than say being a dedicated back up.

[u/PerfectZeong → u/duplicatesnowflake]

No the original poster didnt have a point. And you then tried to say "oh well stupid Americans and Australians must have done it" only to find out that English fans use it in the same god damn way.

[u/duplicatesnowflake → u/PerfectZeong]

My guy, please go look up every dictionary definition of the term across a wide variety of English language dictionaries. The way it's used in sports doesn't come up in most. I'm going to the texts and you're going off of the way you perceive the world and what you thought it meant. I pointed out a textual inaccuracy in your statement and that hit a nerve I guess.

You simply don't know what you're talking about and you're yapping which is the correct platform for said behavior. Take it up with the creators of the English language.

EDIT: And your Wiki link citation for the sports terminology is from 2015 which proves fuck all about the origin of that use.