Rise Up – David Crowder
Lyrics
I’m all heart, my mind’s on fire
When I look at the sky, I’m all desire
I will rise
I will rise
There is no love, there is no ill
We keep pushin’ the edge again and again
I will rise
I will rise
This is me makin’ history
Yeah, we will rise up
We will rise up
We will rise, and we never will stop
We’re comin’ up strong, headed straight to the top
We will rise up
We will rise up
We will rise, oh we never will stop
We’re comin’ up strong, headed straight to the top
We will rise
We’re one mind and we’re one heart
We can’t stop, once we start
We just rise
We will rise
This is where we make history
We will rise up
We will rise up
We will rise, and we never will stop
We’re comin’ up strong, headed straight to the top
Oh, we will rise up
We will rise up
We will rise, and we never will stop
We’re comin’ up strong, headed straight to the top
Oh, we will rise
We will rise
We will rise
We will rise
We will rise
10.13.2012
8.27.2012
MANU GINOBILI - CHANGED THE USA
Ten years ago, San Antonio Spurs general manager R.C. Buford walked into a steak house in Indianapolis, leaned into a private dining room, and witnessed Manu Ginobili and the brokenhearted Argentine silver medalists gathered at a long table for dinner. Children bounced on knees, wives and girlfriends chatted, and the fiber of a 2004 Olympic gold medalist strengthened itself in the aftermath of basketball's '02 world championships.
Argentina had delivered the United States its first loss in the post-Dream Team era, sending a Team USA tumbling toward sixth place and a well-deserved moment of global reckoning. USA Basketball had no system, no soul, no vision. The program had collapsed under the weight of its own neglect and hubris, a sense of entitlement that ultimately met its international match with a relentless band of brothers out of Argentina.
Argentina had long been a good team, but Manu Ginobili's emerging greatness promised to make them champions. He was daring and fearless, alive with a fervor and an innate sense of duty and obligation for the greater good of his basketball teams.
"The American guys had limousines lined up at the team hotel to get out of Indy as soon as they could," Buford said by phone from San Antonio this week. "The way the Argentines played, the passion they had for their national program, the way that they cared about each other, was something that was clearly missing with the U.S. program."
A senior USA Basketball official, Sean Ford, happened to be at the restaurant in July 2002, and the scene of the Argentine team stayed with him. As much as any national team on the planet, Argentina's rise to relevance demanded something closer to a revolution than a response stateside. Jerry Colangelo and Mike Krzyzewski were hired, Kobe Bryant and Jason Kidd were recruited, and truer training camps and feeder systems were installed.
Make no mistake: Argentina became a blueprint for the United States on its re-ascension to dominance. Yes, talent mattered, but so did culture, and no one has embodied team the way that Argentina has with Ginobili as the best player and leader. Another Spur, Fabricio Oberto, taught Ginobili on the national team, and he's passed it down, too.
Ten years later, Ginobili, 35, is on the cusp of saying goodbye to international basketball, but his legacy is unparalleled in this Olympic basketball tournament. On his way out, he's still averaging the most points, steals, and holding the highest efficiency ranking of these Games. He's still going to the floor and chasing loose balls, a national hero with the spirit to honor that Argentine uniform and flag.
As a young boy, Ginobili watched Maradona win the World Cup for Argentina in '86, but Ginobili turned out to be his country's Michael Jordan.
"It would be a little arrogant if I say that we are a blueprint of the USA Basketball," Ginobili told Yahoo! Sports. "But I think we did a heck of a job for a decade and am incredibly proud of what we've accomplished. And a lot of teams started to maintain a group of players – a core – that played together." Ginobili was truly one of the children of the NBA's globalization, a young soccer player mesmerized over the flickering images of the Jordan and Magic Johnson highlights broadcast every Sunday night at midnight on Channel 9 in Argentina. Commissioner David Stern sold the rights for $2,000 to an eager basketball and soccer analyst named Adrian Paenza, and those images inspired Ginobili to try it all himself.
"When I was a kid, I didn't even dream of playing in the NBA," Ginobili says. "Nobody ever from Argentina played in the NBA when I was 10. I was watching MJ's tapes and thinking he was from another planet, that he was unreachable, untouchable – the same as Magic and Larry.
"And then I find myself, years later, raising the same trophy as they did."
Three times, Ginobili lifted an NBA championship trophy with the Spurs. He is the only player in history to have won an NBA title, an Olympic gold medal, and a Euroleague championship. That'll probably stand the test of time, too. Across the past decade, the two teams that have most shaped his legacy – the Spurs and Argentina – have been reflections of the culture his presence fosters, a touchstone player and leader that fits into environments and programs with precisely what teams need out of him.
Argentina had a core of toughness and tenacity, a 30-something team now that includes Luis Scola and Andres Nocioni and Carlos Delfino. Behind them had been Oberto and Pepe Sanchez. They all played in the NBA to different degrees of success, but Ginobili has forever been the game changer.
"He is my hero," Scola says.
"He took on a huge responsibility, and elevated everything there," Kobe Bryant says. "I admire him."
For all the discussion about how the NBA's desire to turn the Olympics into an under-23 tournament will affect the Americans, there's been little perspective on how this rule will impact the rest of the world. This has been a magical generation for the Argentines, and there hasn't been great young talent rising behind them in the country. In some ways, moving to under-23 will make the United States even more dominant in the Games, because these kinds of generational core groups aren't so easily replaced in the Argentinas and Spains.
"If I was 24 right now, I'd be crying in that corner over there," Ginobili says. "[Olympic basketball] has been one of the wonderful experiences of my life, and I wish that every athlete could have the opportunity."
Ginobili has almost always played for Argentina in his summers, and the Spurs understand that it's cost them a cumulative toll on his body. He tore ligaments in his ankle in a medal-round game against the United States in the 2008 Olympics, necessitating surgery. Yet Buford and Spurs president and coach Gregg Popovich have always accepted that they've reaped the benefit of all those pressure international games that Ginobili played, reaped all that winning and team building that he brought to the Spurs.
As Buford says, "When we brought him over [in '02], we wanted him to bring that to our program."
Ginobili was wired to care deeply, wired to loyalty, and the continuity of the Spurs' core players and values blended perfectly with the Argentine national's.
"The success of this team is chemistry, compromise," longtime Argentina national coach Julio Lamas says. "They want always after a win, like Athens, is that they want to win again."
Lamas was talking about the national team, but he could've been describing the Spurs, too. This is the reason that Buford and Popovich, Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, will be forever indebted to Ginobili. He was a two-time All-Star, an NBA sixth-man of the year, but most of all, he was the player no one dared take their eyes off, full of flamboyance and ferocity, endless grace and humility.
Yes, Ginobili comes out of Bahia Blanca, Argentina, and Bologna, Italy, of the Euroleague and San Antonio of the NBA. He's won Euroleague championships and Euroleague Final Four MVPs, and elevated Argentina into the global basketball elite. He comes out of the core of a Spurs dynasty that delivered three NBA titles on his watch, and, rest assured, Manu Ginobili deserves to go into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame with one of the great collective NBA and international resumes in history.
"He's the poster child for what's good about being part of a team," Buford says.
Ginobili will likely wear his Argentina colors for the final time in these Olympic Games. And for all that everyone wants to talk about the end of the NBA superstar in London as purely a story about Team USA – about Kobe Bryant and LeBron James – the biggest goodbye of all belongs to the three-time Olympian who changed the way the world looked at Argentina basketball, and maybe, too, the way that USA Basketball looked at itself.
As a boy, the NBA stars taught him the game, but as a man, Ginobili and Argentina passed on a refresher on the lessons and values the U.S. national team needed to incorporate again. USA Basketball responded, revolutionized, and Ginobili is forever owed a debt of gratitude. Ten years later, the Team USA gold medal deserves a nod to one of the great basketball givers of this time, Emanuel David Ginobili.
Argentina had delivered the United States its first loss in the post-Dream Team era, sending a Team USA tumbling toward sixth place and a well-deserved moment of global reckoning. USA Basketball had no system, no soul, no vision. The program had collapsed under the weight of its own neglect and hubris, a sense of entitlement that ultimately met its international match with a relentless band of brothers out of Argentina.
Argentina had long been a good team, but Manu Ginobili's emerging greatness promised to make them champions. He was daring and fearless, alive with a fervor and an innate sense of duty and obligation for the greater good of his basketball teams.
"The American guys had limousines lined up at the team hotel to get out of Indy as soon as they could," Buford said by phone from San Antonio this week. "The way the Argentines played, the passion they had for their national program, the way that they cared about each other, was something that was clearly missing with the U.S. program."
A senior USA Basketball official, Sean Ford, happened to be at the restaurant in July 2002, and the scene of the Argentine team stayed with him. As much as any national team on the planet, Argentina's rise to relevance demanded something closer to a revolution than a response stateside. Jerry Colangelo and Mike Krzyzewski were hired, Kobe Bryant and Jason Kidd were recruited, and truer training camps and feeder systems were installed.
Make no mistake: Argentina became a blueprint for the United States on its re-ascension to dominance. Yes, talent mattered, but so did culture, and no one has embodied team the way that Argentina has with Ginobili as the best player and leader. Another Spur, Fabricio Oberto, taught Ginobili on the national team, and he's passed it down, too.
Ten years later, Ginobili, 35, is on the cusp of saying goodbye to international basketball, but his legacy is unparalleled in this Olympic basketball tournament. On his way out, he's still averaging the most points, steals, and holding the highest efficiency ranking of these Games. He's still going to the floor and chasing loose balls, a national hero with the spirit to honor that Argentine uniform and flag.
As a young boy, Ginobili watched Maradona win the World Cup for Argentina in '86, but Ginobili turned out to be his country's Michael Jordan.
"It would be a little arrogant if I say that we are a blueprint of the USA Basketball," Ginobili told Yahoo! Sports. "But I think we did a heck of a job for a decade and am incredibly proud of what we've accomplished. And a lot of teams started to maintain a group of players – a core – that played together." Ginobili was truly one of the children of the NBA's globalization, a young soccer player mesmerized over the flickering images of the Jordan and Magic Johnson highlights broadcast every Sunday night at midnight on Channel 9 in Argentina. Commissioner David Stern sold the rights for $2,000 to an eager basketball and soccer analyst named Adrian Paenza, and those images inspired Ginobili to try it all himself.
"When I was a kid, I didn't even dream of playing in the NBA," Ginobili says. "Nobody ever from Argentina played in the NBA when I was 10. I was watching MJ's tapes and thinking he was from another planet, that he was unreachable, untouchable – the same as Magic and Larry.
"And then I find myself, years later, raising the same trophy as they did."
Three times, Ginobili lifted an NBA championship trophy with the Spurs. He is the only player in history to have won an NBA title, an Olympic gold medal, and a Euroleague championship. That'll probably stand the test of time, too. Across the past decade, the two teams that have most shaped his legacy – the Spurs and Argentina – have been reflections of the culture his presence fosters, a touchstone player and leader that fits into environments and programs with precisely what teams need out of him.
Argentina had a core of toughness and tenacity, a 30-something team now that includes Luis Scola and Andres Nocioni and Carlos Delfino. Behind them had been Oberto and Pepe Sanchez. They all played in the NBA to different degrees of success, but Ginobili has forever been the game changer.
"He is my hero," Scola says.
"He took on a huge responsibility, and elevated everything there," Kobe Bryant says. "I admire him."
For all the discussion about how the NBA's desire to turn the Olympics into an under-23 tournament will affect the Americans, there's been little perspective on how this rule will impact the rest of the world. This has been a magical generation for the Argentines, and there hasn't been great young talent rising behind them in the country. In some ways, moving to under-23 will make the United States even more dominant in the Games, because these kinds of generational core groups aren't so easily replaced in the Argentinas and Spains.
"If I was 24 right now, I'd be crying in that corner over there," Ginobili says. "[Olympic basketball] has been one of the wonderful experiences of my life, and I wish that every athlete could have the opportunity."
Ginobili has almost always played for Argentina in his summers, and the Spurs understand that it's cost them a cumulative toll on his body. He tore ligaments in his ankle in a medal-round game against the United States in the 2008 Olympics, necessitating surgery. Yet Buford and Spurs president and coach Gregg Popovich have always accepted that they've reaped the benefit of all those pressure international games that Ginobili played, reaped all that winning and team building that he brought to the Spurs.
As Buford says, "When we brought him over [in '02], we wanted him to bring that to our program."
Ginobili was wired to care deeply, wired to loyalty, and the continuity of the Spurs' core players and values blended perfectly with the Argentine national's.
"The success of this team is chemistry, compromise," longtime Argentina national coach Julio Lamas says. "They want always after a win, like Athens, is that they want to win again."
Lamas was talking about the national team, but he could've been describing the Spurs, too. This is the reason that Buford and Popovich, Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, will be forever indebted to Ginobili. He was a two-time All-Star, an NBA sixth-man of the year, but most of all, he was the player no one dared take their eyes off, full of flamboyance and ferocity, endless grace and humility.
Yes, Ginobili comes out of Bahia Blanca, Argentina, and Bologna, Italy, of the Euroleague and San Antonio of the NBA. He's won Euroleague championships and Euroleague Final Four MVPs, and elevated Argentina into the global basketball elite. He comes out of the core of a Spurs dynasty that delivered three NBA titles on his watch, and, rest assured, Manu Ginobili deserves to go into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame with one of the great collective NBA and international resumes in history.
"He's the poster child for what's good about being part of a team," Buford says.
Ginobili will likely wear his Argentina colors for the final time in these Olympic Games. And for all that everyone wants to talk about the end of the NBA superstar in London as purely a story about Team USA – about Kobe Bryant and LeBron James – the biggest goodbye of all belongs to the three-time Olympian who changed the way the world looked at Argentina basketball, and maybe, too, the way that USA Basketball looked at itself.
As a boy, the NBA stars taught him the game, but as a man, Ginobili and Argentina passed on a refresher on the lessons and values the U.S. national team needed to incorporate again. USA Basketball responded, revolutionized, and Ginobili is forever owed a debt of gratitude. Ten years later, the Team USA gold medal deserves a nod to one of the great basketball givers of this time, Emanuel David Ginobili.
JIM HARBAUGH - POSITIVE COACHING
In the spring of 2004, Eric Bakhtiari was a skinny redshirt freshman who figured he was a pretty good player that would blend into the mix that year on the University of San Diego defense.
That is, until incoming coach Jim Harbaugh pulled him aside one day.
"He told me I wasn't a good player, I was a great player," Bakhtiari said. "I thought someone else was in the room. I didn't think he was talking to me."
The exchange was a seminal moment in Bakhtiari's football career. He completed his four seasons with the Toreros with 34 1/2 sacks and 66 1/2 tackles behind the line of scrimmage. Six years later, he's reunited with Harbaugh and appears close to landing a spot on the 49ers' 53-man roster.
Bakhtiari is not the only player to be dazzled by a Harbaugh compliment – often a conspicuous public compliment. Last year, Alex Smith received a barrage of praise from Harbaugh, who called him "elite" and said he deserved a spot in the Pro Bowl.
This year, Harbaugh said Michael Crabtree had the best hands he'd ever seen and insisted that beleaguered rookie A.J. Jenkins would be an outstanding wide receiver.
To sports psychologists, Harbaugh's style is known as positive coaching, and they see it as part of a movement away from the traditional, profane, in-your-face style symbolized by coaches such as Bill Parcells, Jon Gruden and Bill Cowher.
To players, Harbaugh's rosy, public appraisals build loyalty in their coach and faith in themselves.
"It's positive, and it builds up people's confidence," said offensive lineman Derek Hall, who played for Harbaugh at Stanford. "And it makes you feel tighter with the coaches. He's always preaching that you want to build up your teammates when you're talking with the media – a rising tide lifts all ships."
Smith's experiences with his first two NFL head coaches were very different.
His first, Mike Nolan, publicly questioned Smith's toughness after the quarterback tried to play despite a badly separated shoulder. The second, Mike Singletary, famously and furiously challenged Smith on the sideline during a nationally televised game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
"I don't want to speak for the other guys, but it's nice to have a coach who isn't going to publicly throw you under the bus," Smith said. "There are a lot of things that happen on the practice field and in games that people don't always see or get credit for. And I love the fact that he let's that be known."
Larry Lauer, a sports psychologist at Michigan State, said that when Pete Carroll became coach of the New York Jets in 1994, he was criticized for his rah-rah style, which observers doubted would be effective in an NFL locker room. That style has become more prevalent.
Lauer said it may be that young people today are more interested in positive feedback than previous generations.
"And they're more attuned to that," said Lauer, who works with high school wrestling coaches. "We like the Harbaugh method at our level."
Rick McGuire, the head of the University of Missouri's sports psychology program, said the positive coaching method is more meaningful than the alternative and ends up having a more enduring effect on athletes. And he said he was glad to see coaches like Harbaugh, Carroll and former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy be successful in the NFL.
"It makes no sense to try to build someone up by cutting them down first," McGuire said. "You can be demanding without being demeaning."
Lauer said he's often asked whether the style ultimately will have an adverse effect, and he said he fields concerns about the "wussification" of the American athlete.
He said the style wouldn't be successful if it weren't backed up with good, old-fashioned coaching as well as behind-the-scenes criticism when it's needed.
And Harbaugh certainly isn't a softy.
He ejected two receivers – Brian Tyms and Kyle Williams – for practice scuffles this month and angrily pulled another, Jenkins, from a formation after the rookie drew a false-start penalty.
Smith also discovered that Harbaugh's high praise doesn't always translate to the business side of the game. Smith took a long time to sign a new contract with the 49ers in March, and before signing it he watched the 49ers court Peyton Manning, his counterpart in Sunday's game against Denver.
Still, he insists there are no hard feelings between him and his coach.
"Anyone that's been around coach Harbaugh for a while realizes – and I think it's a great thing about him – he's going to tell you what he thinks," Smith said. "Good or bad, he is going to give you his honest opinion. As someone who's been around for a long time and been with a lot of coaches, you appreciate a guy telling you the truth and being honest with you even if it's not always what you want to hear."
That is, until incoming coach Jim Harbaugh pulled him aside one day.
"He told me I wasn't a good player, I was a great player," Bakhtiari said. "I thought someone else was in the room. I didn't think he was talking to me."
The exchange was a seminal moment in Bakhtiari's football career. He completed his four seasons with the Toreros with 34 1/2 sacks and 66 1/2 tackles behind the line of scrimmage. Six years later, he's reunited with Harbaugh and appears close to landing a spot on the 49ers' 53-man roster.
Bakhtiari is not the only player to be dazzled by a Harbaugh compliment – often a conspicuous public compliment. Last year, Alex Smith received a barrage of praise from Harbaugh, who called him "elite" and said he deserved a spot in the Pro Bowl.
This year, Harbaugh said Michael Crabtree had the best hands he'd ever seen and insisted that beleaguered rookie A.J. Jenkins would be an outstanding wide receiver.
To sports psychologists, Harbaugh's style is known as positive coaching, and they see it as part of a movement away from the traditional, profane, in-your-face style symbolized by coaches such as Bill Parcells, Jon Gruden and Bill Cowher.
To players, Harbaugh's rosy, public appraisals build loyalty in their coach and faith in themselves.
"It's positive, and it builds up people's confidence," said offensive lineman Derek Hall, who played for Harbaugh at Stanford. "And it makes you feel tighter with the coaches. He's always preaching that you want to build up your teammates when you're talking with the media – a rising tide lifts all ships."
Smith's experiences with his first two NFL head coaches were very different.
His first, Mike Nolan, publicly questioned Smith's toughness after the quarterback tried to play despite a badly separated shoulder. The second, Mike Singletary, famously and furiously challenged Smith on the sideline during a nationally televised game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
"I don't want to speak for the other guys, but it's nice to have a coach who isn't going to publicly throw you under the bus," Smith said. "There are a lot of things that happen on the practice field and in games that people don't always see or get credit for. And I love the fact that he let's that be known."
Larry Lauer, a sports psychologist at Michigan State, said that when Pete Carroll became coach of the New York Jets in 1994, he was criticized for his rah-rah style, which observers doubted would be effective in an NFL locker room. That style has become more prevalent.
Lauer said it may be that young people today are more interested in positive feedback than previous generations.
"And they're more attuned to that," said Lauer, who works with high school wrestling coaches. "We like the Harbaugh method at our level."
Rick McGuire, the head of the University of Missouri's sports psychology program, said the positive coaching method is more meaningful than the alternative and ends up having a more enduring effect on athletes. And he said he was glad to see coaches like Harbaugh, Carroll and former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy be successful in the NFL.
"It makes no sense to try to build someone up by cutting them down first," McGuire said. "You can be demanding without being demeaning."
Lauer said he's often asked whether the style ultimately will have an adverse effect, and he said he fields concerns about the "wussification" of the American athlete.
He said the style wouldn't be successful if it weren't backed up with good, old-fashioned coaching as well as behind-the-scenes criticism when it's needed.
And Harbaugh certainly isn't a softy.
He ejected two receivers – Brian Tyms and Kyle Williams – for practice scuffles this month and angrily pulled another, Jenkins, from a formation after the rookie drew a false-start penalty.
Smith also discovered that Harbaugh's high praise doesn't always translate to the business side of the game. Smith took a long time to sign a new contract with the 49ers in March, and before signing it he watched the 49ers court Peyton Manning, his counterpart in Sunday's game against Denver.
Still, he insists there are no hard feelings between him and his coach.
"Anyone that's been around coach Harbaugh for a while realizes – and I think it's a great thing about him – he's going to tell you what he thinks," Smith said. "Good or bad, he is going to give you his honest opinion. As someone who's been around for a long time and been with a lot of coaches, you appreciate a guy telling you the truth and being honest with you even if it's not always what you want to hear."
6.22.2012
DUNLAP - CHARLOTTE BOBCATS
Know your craft - player development / X & O's
Be able to establish relationships
Have a great work ethic
Be able to establish relationships
Have a great work ethic
LEBRON - CHAMPION
Fate did LeBron James the most magnificent favor, forcing failure upon him a season ago, leaving him humiliated, hurting and hurtling into despair. That championship would've been met with shrugs and so-whats, a resentment rising out of the way these Miami Heat were assembled, the clustering of stars on a smoke-filled stage promising an unprecedented dominance. Too fast. Too easy. Failure was the greatest thing to happen to his career because it changed the prism with which the world viewed James, and most of all, the way LeBron James viewed himself.
"The best thing that happened to me was us losing in the Finals [in 2011], and me playing the way I played," James said late Thursday night inside the AmericanAirlines Arena, sitting between the two most remarkable bookends of his basketball life: The Larry O'Brien NBA championship trophy and the Russell MVP award.
"It was the best thing to ever happen to me in my career because basically I got back to the basics," he said. "It humbled me. I knew I was going to have to change as a basketball player, and I was going to have to change as a person to get what I wanted."
Failure didn't humanize James; his response to it humanized him.
James provided a virtuoso Game 5 performance of 26 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds. In turn, his psyche changed, his game grew, his ability to cope with the pressures and expectations were fully realized.
LeBron James has won his championship at 27 years old on Thursday night, just as Michael Jordan had won his first championship at 27. James didn't have three years at North Carolina under Dean Smith, nor did he have a childhood as traditional – perhaps even functional – as Jordan's. When James had a chance to frame his championship chase into the context of those before him, including M.J., James resisted.
"It was a journey for myself," he said. "I don't want to compare it to any other player. Everything that went with me being a high school prodigy when I was 16 and on the cover of Sports Illustrated to being drafted and having to be the face of a franchise; everything that came with it. I had to deal with it, and I had to learn through it.
"No one had [gone] through that journey, so I had to learn on my own. Everything that came with it, I had to basically figure it out on my own."
And then, James would say: "I'm a champion, and I did it the right way. I didn't shortcut anything."
The dam bursts now, the walls come crashing down and James is the water tumbling down a mountainside, gathering speed and power, leaving everyone to wonder: What in the world can stop it now? Winning changes everything, and champions can behave unchecked in ways that those without titles never are allowed. That's this sporting culture, and that's the double standard that forever will exist.
Talent had taken him so far, so fast, but the rapidness with which it all came cost James for so much of his life. His flaws met the digital age, and the ensuing explosion caused a supernova. All around him, there were people profiting over his inability to manage himself, his emotions, his talents, and they stunted his growth.
"It took me to go all the way to the top and then hit rock bottom to realize what I needed to do as a professional athlete and a person," James said.
"I just kind of made my own path."
"The best thing that happened to me was us losing in the Finals [in 2011], and me playing the way I played," James said late Thursday night inside the AmericanAirlines Arena, sitting between the two most remarkable bookends of his basketball life: The Larry O'Brien NBA championship trophy and the Russell MVP award.
"It was the best thing to ever happen to me in my career because basically I got back to the basics," he said. "It humbled me. I knew I was going to have to change as a basketball player, and I was going to have to change as a person to get what I wanted."
Failure didn't humanize James; his response to it humanized him.
James provided a virtuoso Game 5 performance of 26 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds. In turn, his psyche changed, his game grew, his ability to cope with the pressures and expectations were fully realized.
LeBron James has won his championship at 27 years old on Thursday night, just as Michael Jordan had won his first championship at 27. James didn't have three years at North Carolina under Dean Smith, nor did he have a childhood as traditional – perhaps even functional – as Jordan's. When James had a chance to frame his championship chase into the context of those before him, including M.J., James resisted.
"It was a journey for myself," he said. "I don't want to compare it to any other player. Everything that went with me being a high school prodigy when I was 16 and on the cover of Sports Illustrated to being drafted and having to be the face of a franchise; everything that came with it. I had to deal with it, and I had to learn through it.
"No one had [gone] through that journey, so I had to learn on my own. Everything that came with it, I had to basically figure it out on my own."
And then, James would say: "I'm a champion, and I did it the right way. I didn't shortcut anything."
The dam bursts now, the walls come crashing down and James is the water tumbling down a mountainside, gathering speed and power, leaving everyone to wonder: What in the world can stop it now? Winning changes everything, and champions can behave unchecked in ways that those without titles never are allowed. That's this sporting culture, and that's the double standard that forever will exist.
Talent had taken him so far, so fast, but the rapidness with which it all came cost James for so much of his life. His flaws met the digital age, and the ensuing explosion caused a supernova. All around him, there were people profiting over his inability to manage himself, his emotions, his talents, and they stunted his growth.
"It took me to go all the way to the top and then hit rock bottom to realize what I needed to do as a professional athlete and a person," James said.
"I just kind of made my own path."
6.08.2012
VCU - HEAD COACHING NON-NEGOTIABLES
TIRELESS RECRUITER
INTEGRITY
PASSIONATE
PROVEN WINNER
TEACHER
LEADER
WORK ETHIC
COMMUNICATOR
ORGANIZED
INNOVATOR ON THE COURT
TIRELESS RECRUITER
INTEGRITY
PASSIONATE
PROVEN WINNER
TEACHER
LEADER
WORK ETHIC
COMMUNICATOR
ORGANIZED
INNOVATOR ON THE COURT
TIRELESS RECRUITER
5.30.2012
SPURS - SUCCESS STARTED WITH DAVID ROBINSON
If the Moneyball Oakland A's were about wise investment strategies and the New England Patriots are regarded as a sound business model, we should think of the San Antonio Spurs as an effective government.
The greatest testament to a successful political system is the peaceful transfer of power: regime change without strife or bloodshed. That's the way it has been for the Spurs, from David Robinson to Tim Duncan, from Duncan to Manu Ginobili and now Tony Parker. If you want plotting, double-crossing and high-carnage battles, catch "Game of Thrones" on Sundays. San Antonio is a long way from Westeros. With the Spurs, regimes change with neither a fight nor instructions from above.
"I'm very fortunate in that I didn't have to deal with a star's ego," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "I dealt with grown-ups, who had character and prioritization already set in their lives and their values, that sort of thing.
"Timmy came along, David understood his talent and made it very easy for Tim to become the go-to guy. As Tim got older, he understood the value of Manu and Tony and was able to share that spotlight with them. I never had a talk, I never had a discussion, a meeting or anything with any of those guys about that. We just did it. The process kind of morphed along. It's because of their character we were able to do it."
Robinson doesn't get enough credit for establishing the template. He's the founding father of the team's locker-room constitution. (If someone with better Photoshop skills than mine swapped a George Washington-style white wig for Robinson's old flattop, I bet it would work.) Robinson already had a Most Valuable Player trophy on the shelf, with seven trips to the All-Star Game and two Olympic gold medals. He'd led the league in scoring and blocked shots and was the defensive player of the year by the time Duncan arrived via lottery luck in 1997. But by Duncan's second season, he was the team's top scorer and the MVP of the NBA Finals the Spurs won in 1999.
Robinson was a willing accomplice in Duncan's takeover.
"If we can win games, everybody's going to be happy," Robinson said. "For me, when Tim came, the very first thing I told him was, 'I'm going to put you in position where you can succeed. Period. That's it. If you're a better scorer than me, I'll put you down on the block, you score. I don't care. I can do other things.'
"I think [the attitude] permeates a whole franchise. It wasn't me necessarily bringing it in. Popovich is always talking about team. He leads it by saying, 'I don't want any attention, I'm not going to act like I want attention.'"
That doesn't mean the players don't have pride or don't value individual accomplishment. You don't lead the league in scoring without believing that you can put the ball through the hoop more than anyone else in the NBA.
"When you get on the floor, you've got to think you're the best player," Robinson said. "Everybody does that.
"I didn't necessarily think I wasn't the best player on the team. I still felt like I had my role to play. It's sort of like being a husband and a wife: Who's more important? Nobody's more important. You've both got your roles, you play your roles. And everything goes great as long as you play your roles. As soon as one of you guys acts like you run the show, and you're more important than the other one, everything goes haywire.
"I felt like my role was critical for this team. Even as I got older I felt like, how I come into this locker room, how I keep these guys together, keep them focused, keep the pressure off Tim until Tim's ready to become a leader … all those things I thought were real important. All the pieces, that's the only way they can come together."
Perhaps Duncan's nature would have led him to be just as selfless on his own. Or maybe the early years of a player's career are like the formative years of a child's psyche. I read a study that showed that a tumultuous household can be seared into a young person's mind to the point that it becomes the norm, and the brain will constantly seek a return to that state, disrupting healthy relationships if necessary to achieve the imbalance to which it's accustomed.
Duncan had no coaching changes, no power struggles, no core breakups to endure when he entered the league. That's all foreign to him. I remember running into Duncan during the 2004 All-Star Weekend and telling him how the Kobe-Shaq relationship was reaching its terminal stages. Duncan wasn't sympathetic to their plight. He couldn't relate. Instead, his face lit up as he considered the prospect of facing a Lakers team that was weakened within. Honestly, I'd never seen Duncan look that giddy.
The Lakers wound up beating the Spurs in the playoffs that year, when the series turned on Derek Fisher's 0.4-second shot. But the breakup of Shaq and Kobe that summer cleared the path for the Spurs to reach the NBA Finals in two of the next three seasons. And it all occurred while the Spurs were in the process of a reform.
In Duncan's MVP seasons of 2002 and 2003, he had usage rates of 29 and 28 percent, often 5 percent above the next-most featured player in the Spurs' offense. San Antonio's staple play was "four down," the call for Duncan to get the ball on the left block.
By 2005-06, Parker was the team's leading scorer, if only by a few tenths of a point, and by 2007-08, Ginobili was the team's leader in scoring and usage rate. This season, Parker averages a team-high 18 points and takes two more shots per game than Duncan, who averages 15 points. Ginobili, who missed a third of the season with injuries, averaged 13 points.
Duncan has maintained he's fine with however the shot distribution flows as long as the team is winning -- which the Spurs have been, more than any other team in the Western Conference the past two regular seasons. Their offense is more democratic than ever, and you can trace it all back to principles of locker-room governance established by Robinson.
The greatest testament to a successful political system is the peaceful transfer of power: regime change without strife or bloodshed. That's the way it has been for the Spurs, from David Robinson to Tim Duncan, from Duncan to Manu Ginobili and now Tony Parker. If you want plotting, double-crossing and high-carnage battles, catch "Game of Thrones" on Sundays. San Antonio is a long way from Westeros. With the Spurs, regimes change with neither a fight nor instructions from above.
"I'm very fortunate in that I didn't have to deal with a star's ego," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "I dealt with grown-ups, who had character and prioritization already set in their lives and their values, that sort of thing.
"Timmy came along, David understood his talent and made it very easy for Tim to become the go-to guy. As Tim got older, he understood the value of Manu and Tony and was able to share that spotlight with them. I never had a talk, I never had a discussion, a meeting or anything with any of those guys about that. We just did it. The process kind of morphed along. It's because of their character we were able to do it."
Robinson doesn't get enough credit for establishing the template. He's the founding father of the team's locker-room constitution. (If someone with better Photoshop skills than mine swapped a George Washington-style white wig for Robinson's old flattop, I bet it would work.) Robinson already had a Most Valuable Player trophy on the shelf, with seven trips to the All-Star Game and two Olympic gold medals. He'd led the league in scoring and blocked shots and was the defensive player of the year by the time Duncan arrived via lottery luck in 1997. But by Duncan's second season, he was the team's top scorer and the MVP of the NBA Finals the Spurs won in 1999.
Robinson was a willing accomplice in Duncan's takeover.
"If we can win games, everybody's going to be happy," Robinson said. "For me, when Tim came, the very first thing I told him was, 'I'm going to put you in position where you can succeed. Period. That's it. If you're a better scorer than me, I'll put you down on the block, you score. I don't care. I can do other things.'
"I think [the attitude] permeates a whole franchise. It wasn't me necessarily bringing it in. Popovich is always talking about team. He leads it by saying, 'I don't want any attention, I'm not going to act like I want attention.'"
That doesn't mean the players don't have pride or don't value individual accomplishment. You don't lead the league in scoring without believing that you can put the ball through the hoop more than anyone else in the NBA.
"When you get on the floor, you've got to think you're the best player," Robinson said. "Everybody does that.
"I didn't necessarily think I wasn't the best player on the team. I still felt like I had my role to play. It's sort of like being a husband and a wife: Who's more important? Nobody's more important. You've both got your roles, you play your roles. And everything goes great as long as you play your roles. As soon as one of you guys acts like you run the show, and you're more important than the other one, everything goes haywire.
"I felt like my role was critical for this team. Even as I got older I felt like, how I come into this locker room, how I keep these guys together, keep them focused, keep the pressure off Tim until Tim's ready to become a leader … all those things I thought were real important. All the pieces, that's the only way they can come together."
Perhaps Duncan's nature would have led him to be just as selfless on his own. Or maybe the early years of a player's career are like the formative years of a child's psyche. I read a study that showed that a tumultuous household can be seared into a young person's mind to the point that it becomes the norm, and the brain will constantly seek a return to that state, disrupting healthy relationships if necessary to achieve the imbalance to which it's accustomed.
Duncan had no coaching changes, no power struggles, no core breakups to endure when he entered the league. That's all foreign to him. I remember running into Duncan during the 2004 All-Star Weekend and telling him how the Kobe-Shaq relationship was reaching its terminal stages. Duncan wasn't sympathetic to their plight. He couldn't relate. Instead, his face lit up as he considered the prospect of facing a Lakers team that was weakened within. Honestly, I'd never seen Duncan look that giddy.
The Lakers wound up beating the Spurs in the playoffs that year, when the series turned on Derek Fisher's 0.4-second shot. But the breakup of Shaq and Kobe that summer cleared the path for the Spurs to reach the NBA Finals in two of the next three seasons. And it all occurred while the Spurs were in the process of a reform.
In Duncan's MVP seasons of 2002 and 2003, he had usage rates of 29 and 28 percent, often 5 percent above the next-most featured player in the Spurs' offense. San Antonio's staple play was "four down," the call for Duncan to get the ball on the left block.
By 2005-06, Parker was the team's leading scorer, if only by a few tenths of a point, and by 2007-08, Ginobili was the team's leader in scoring and usage rate. This season, Parker averages a team-high 18 points and takes two more shots per game than Duncan, who averages 15 points. Ginobili, who missed a third of the season with injuries, averaged 13 points.
Duncan has maintained he's fine with however the shot distribution flows as long as the team is winning -- which the Spurs have been, more than any other team in the Western Conference the past two regular seasons. Their offense is more democratic than ever, and you can trace it all back to principles of locker-room governance established by Robinson.
SPURS ARE WINNERS...NOT BORING
The biggest lie in sports is that the San Antonio Spurs are boring. Winning is never boring.
Golf is boring. But when Tiger Woods was winning every third tournament he played and making a bid to obliterate all of Jack Nicklaus’ records, golf was more spellbinding than porn.
Women’s basketball is boring. But when the media pretended Connecticut women’s basketball was going to surpass John Wooden’s UCLA winning streak, women’s hoops flirted with relevancy.
Horse racing is boring. But we’re suckered into the sport every time a 3-year-old puts together a two-race win streak that includes the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes.
Winning is the ultimate aphrodisiac. It always creates excitement, draws interest.
The Spurs are far from boring. Sunday evening, in the opener of the Western Conference finals, the Spurs stretched their playoff winning streak to nine games, their overall winning streak to 19, with an impressive 101-98, come-from-behind victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder in San Antonio.
Boring? Hardly. Manu Ginobili came off the Spurs bench and unleashed a dizzying array of twisting runners at the rim, fallaway jumpers from beyond the arc and midrange floaters that eventually overwhelmed the Thunder.
Boring? Hell no. The Spurs trailed by nine after three quarters. Fellow reserves Tiago Splitter and Gary Neal got the Spurs back into the game early in the fourth, sparking a 9-2 run to open the quarter.
The Spurs aren’t remotely boring. They’re poorly marketed by a commissioner and a league that overdosed on Michael Jordan and the celebration of individual over team. They’re poorly defined by media that are gutless, politically correct and lazy.
The popular theory is that a Miami-OKC, LeBron James-Kevin Durant NBA Finals is what is best for the league. The popular theory is wrong.
San Antonio-Miami is the culture-war showdown that could build on the momentum of last year’s terrific NBA Finals. San Antonio-Miami would represent team vs. stars, diligence and patience vs. instant gratification, humility vs. hype, international basketball culture vs. American basketball culture.
Tim Duncan (Virgin Islands), Tony Parker (France) and Manu Ginobili (Argentina), the San Antonio-drafted foundation of the Spurs team, did not grow up a part of traditional American basketball culture. Duncan grew up dreaming of being an Olympic swimmer. He stayed all four years at Wake Forest. Parker and Ginobili grew up playing international basketball.
San Antonio’s “Big Three” is quite a contrast to Miami’s. James, an Akron, Ohio, native, never attended college and orchestrated his move to Miami after seven seasons with the Cavaliers. Bosh, a Dallas native, left Georgia Tech after one season and bolted to Miami after seven seasons in Toronto. Dwyane Wade, a Chicago native, played two seasons at Marquette and was drafted by the Heat.
The Spurs share the ball and the scoring load, rely on a 10-man playing rotation and run an exquisitely precise offense. James and Wade, with the exception of the last three games against the Pacers, mostly go one-on-one for their points. Duncan, Parker and Ginobili rarely dunk. James and Wade are featured on "SportsCenter" nightly.
San Antonio-Miami could be a dream matchup. The NBA hasn’t had anything like this since Magic Johnson and Larry Bird clashed. There were racial undertones to those battles and the media were not afraid to explore those undertones. We were less politically correct in the 1980s.
The Spurs and their multiple championships on the backs of Duncan, Parker, Ginobili and coach Gregg Popovich are a repudiation of American, AAU basketball culture. James, Wade and Bosh are the ultimate manifestation of American, AAU basketball culture. They learned the game while being seduced by the shoe companies that finance summer basketball. The teenage summer circuit is what has made the modern American player value friendship more than competition. The best players now dream of teaming together rather than out-dueling each other.
They want to be like Nike . . . I mean Mike.
Who can blame them?
David Stern and his television partners have convinced the world that Michael Jordan invented basketball, that the individual player is far more valuable than a team.
The Spurs should be the NBA’s version of the Green Bay Packers. Yes, the Cowboys are more glamorous and the Steelers and the 49ers have won more Super Bowls. But little old Green Bay is “Titletown.” The Packers are a huge national television draw. No one would call the Packers boring.
The Spurs are not boring. Greatness is never boring. And if these Spurs go on to win the title, there will be no denying they’re one of the greatest teams in NBA history.
Golf is boring. But when Tiger Woods was winning every third tournament he played and making a bid to obliterate all of Jack Nicklaus’ records, golf was more spellbinding than porn.
Women’s basketball is boring. But when the media pretended Connecticut women’s basketball was going to surpass John Wooden’s UCLA winning streak, women’s hoops flirted with relevancy.
Horse racing is boring. But we’re suckered into the sport every time a 3-year-old puts together a two-race win streak that includes the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes.
Winning is the ultimate aphrodisiac. It always creates excitement, draws interest.
The Spurs are far from boring. Sunday evening, in the opener of the Western Conference finals, the Spurs stretched their playoff winning streak to nine games, their overall winning streak to 19, with an impressive 101-98, come-from-behind victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder in San Antonio.
Boring? Hardly. Manu Ginobili came off the Spurs bench and unleashed a dizzying array of twisting runners at the rim, fallaway jumpers from beyond the arc and midrange floaters that eventually overwhelmed the Thunder.
Boring? Hell no. The Spurs trailed by nine after three quarters. Fellow reserves Tiago Splitter and Gary Neal got the Spurs back into the game early in the fourth, sparking a 9-2 run to open the quarter.
The Spurs aren’t remotely boring. They’re poorly marketed by a commissioner and a league that overdosed on Michael Jordan and the celebration of individual over team. They’re poorly defined by media that are gutless, politically correct and lazy.
The popular theory is that a Miami-OKC, LeBron James-Kevin Durant NBA Finals is what is best for the league. The popular theory is wrong.
San Antonio-Miami is the culture-war showdown that could build on the momentum of last year’s terrific NBA Finals. San Antonio-Miami would represent team vs. stars, diligence and patience vs. instant gratification, humility vs. hype, international basketball culture vs. American basketball culture.
Tim Duncan (Virgin Islands), Tony Parker (France) and Manu Ginobili (Argentina), the San Antonio-drafted foundation of the Spurs team, did not grow up a part of traditional American basketball culture. Duncan grew up dreaming of being an Olympic swimmer. He stayed all four years at Wake Forest. Parker and Ginobili grew up playing international basketball.
San Antonio’s “Big Three” is quite a contrast to Miami’s. James, an Akron, Ohio, native, never attended college and orchestrated his move to Miami after seven seasons with the Cavaliers. Bosh, a Dallas native, left Georgia Tech after one season and bolted to Miami after seven seasons in Toronto. Dwyane Wade, a Chicago native, played two seasons at Marquette and was drafted by the Heat.
The Spurs share the ball and the scoring load, rely on a 10-man playing rotation and run an exquisitely precise offense. James and Wade, with the exception of the last three games against the Pacers, mostly go one-on-one for their points. Duncan, Parker and Ginobili rarely dunk. James and Wade are featured on "SportsCenter" nightly.
San Antonio-Miami could be a dream matchup. The NBA hasn’t had anything like this since Magic Johnson and Larry Bird clashed. There were racial undertones to those battles and the media were not afraid to explore those undertones. We were less politically correct in the 1980s.
The Spurs and their multiple championships on the backs of Duncan, Parker, Ginobili and coach Gregg Popovich are a repudiation of American, AAU basketball culture. James, Wade and Bosh are the ultimate manifestation of American, AAU basketball culture. They learned the game while being seduced by the shoe companies that finance summer basketball. The teenage summer circuit is what has made the modern American player value friendship more than competition. The best players now dream of teaming together rather than out-dueling each other.
They want to be like Nike . . . I mean Mike.
Who can blame them?
David Stern and his television partners have convinced the world that Michael Jordan invented basketball, that the individual player is far more valuable than a team.
The Spurs should be the NBA’s version of the Green Bay Packers. Yes, the Cowboys are more glamorous and the Steelers and the 49ers have won more Super Bowls. But little old Green Bay is “Titletown.” The Packers are a huge national television draw. No one would call the Packers boring.
The Spurs are not boring. Greatness is never boring. And if these Spurs go on to win the title, there will be no denying they’re one of the greatest teams in NBA history.
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