Caron Butler: Tony Romo ‘easily’ could have played basketball professionally

Tony Romo actually had options when it came to his professional career, and someone who knows a thing or two about playing in the NBA thinks Romo could have succeeded there.

Caron Butler, who spent 14 seasons in the NBA and played high school basketball in Wisconsin at the same time as Romo, thinks the quarterback definitely had the skills to play professionally.

“Believe it or not, man, when we were in the prime of our careers, I used to always talk about it: [Romo] could have easily been a professional basketball player,” Butler told ESPN’s Todd Archer and Marc Stein. “And a lot of people were like, ‘Man, you’re crazy for saying that,’ but Tony could shoot. He could handle the ball. He had a knack for scoring, man, he really did.

“He was a really good football player, obviously, being a quarterback. He was great at golf. And he was really good at basketball. Obviously it worked out for him with the football, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if he would have made it playing basketball. He had a great feel for the game, man. And it’s not surprising. Golf is a cerebral game; you gotta have that mental component to conquer the course. And then football’s the same thing; you gotta be able to think on the fly and do all these things. And then basketball, I thought, all those components worked together.”

Romo will get to be an NBA player — sort of — for at least a brief time. Ask Romo’s fellow athletes, though, and they seem to have some serious praise for his skills as an athlete.