The Only Way It Works

I liked playing baseball as a kid. It was cool. But it was a little too slow for me. It was almost leisurely out there at times and as I grew older I gravitated more to basketball because I loved the outright speed of the game and the way it required everybody to be involved all of the time. In baseball I might stand in the outfield for four innings and never touch a ball. I might only get up three times a game. But in basketball there was no time off. In basketball you are flying up and down the court and you have lanes to fill, passes to make, shots to take, opponents to box out, plays to run and on and on it goes. It’s a difficult sport. It requires tremendous athletic skill and it requires practice but most importantly  it requires teamwork, chemistry and preparation.

Teamwork is everything in basketball because the game is instantaneous. In the blink of an eye your teammate loses his man and suddenly you have to be alert and help defend. The other team steals the ball and instantly you’re reversing direction and racing to a basket to prevent an easy score. It is a game of  ten constantly moving parts and there is no time for the slow,the lazy or the selfish. To be successful in basketball you need to know where your teammates are, what they are doing and you need to know it now. The great players know what their teammates are going to do even before they do it. The great teams have players who all try to reach that level. When that happens, when every player strives to know their teammates, you have chemistry.

Chemistry is everything in basketball. Chemistry guarantees you’re always playing 5 on 5. Take away chemistry and before you know it you’re playing shorthanded. Because a player who only cares about himself on the court is a player who won’t get into help defense quickly enough, who won’t box out hard enough, who won’t make his cuts hard enough and who won’t set screens efficiently enough. A selfish player always gives the other team an advantage they can exploit. Five unselfish players help prevent that from happening. Coaches play a role in this too. A bad coach fills his better players with a sense of self importance. A good coach fills his better players with a sense of responsibility and leadership. A bad coach makes his lesser players feel like subordinates. A good coach makes his lesser players feel like contributors. In the end, though, the game is about the players and it’s up to the player to make sure he has done every thing he can to succeed.

Basketball has to be a game of skilled, unselfish, prepared athletes. That’s the only way it works. The speed of the game demands it. The physicality of the game demands it. There’s no time to stand around and decide. To be successful at basketball you have to be ready and you get there by preparing. You do that by getting in the best possible physical shape and you do that by deciding you want to be part of a team. You spend the entire offseason getting your body and your mind ready and on the first day of practice you walk in with a single minded purpose. To make your team better. You do that by being early for practice. Every day. By practicing hard in every drill, every play, every scrimmage. You become relentless. You never let up. You become a determined unselfish athlete. You forget the negative, you overcome the pain and you concentrate on what you’re doing. In short, you buy in to the concept of being a team player. The whole package. Because that’s the only way it works.

I’m the Shore Scout and I’ll see you at the games.

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