1) You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take… Apply liberally to all risky situations and GO FOR IT.
2) Your butt hurts when you take the charge… Goes back to the idea that nothing worth having (the ball) comes without sacrifice (your butt).
3) Your butt never hurts as bad when you win the game because you took the charge in the last ten seconds of the game up one … Take giant risks for giant potential gains. That’s the definition of entrepreneurship.
4) Without the pick, there is no roll… The best results in life happen for you when you team up with at least one more person on the same page.
5) You have to believe blindly until you have the evidence to believe confidently…Unless you have faith in others to do their jobs out of your immediate peripheral vision, you’ll never be able to totally commit to doing your job …applies to defense, friendships and marriage.
6) You are always at least a 50% shooter… You’ll either make it, or you’ll miss it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Improving your percentages depends on your work ethic, repetition and preparation. Applies to everything in life.
7) If you don’t have the ball, you can’t score… Success in just about anything depends on initiative. If you don’t have what you need to be successful in life, go get the ball.
8) Turnovers are more often than not a result of the receiver rather than the passer… Opportunity sometimes comes at you at the speed of light. You have to have your hands ready to GRAB IT. If you’re looking the other way, you’ll have “gnidlapS” tattooed on your forehead.
9) Coaches who try to win games from the bench in the last minute will lose 4 out of every five games… Proven time and again. Bottom line… when the heat is on in the game or in life, always go with your best pitch and keep it simple.
10) Losing isn’t always a bad thing… You can say whatever you want. Until Jesus deigns to touch each of us with the gift of perfection, our best efforts on the job, in our relationships, the games we play, and the challenges we face will sometimes fall short. Don’t pout about it, don’t hang your head, don’t let your pride get wounded. Get back up, rethink, relearn, and re-up. Go fix what you can fix, change what you can change, control what you can, and quit worrying about the stuff you can’t. Losing can motivate, or it can debilitate. Like all other things, you choose.
11) Winning isn’t always a good thing… If it’s done by cheating, poor ethics, or at the expense of someone’s dignity, it’s not good. If winning is purely and simply about testosterone, it’s a lost lesson. Learn that win-lose thinking in your dealings with others isn’t productive because at the point you win, the relationship is over. Within competitive nature (human nature and survival instinct, actually), is a very “outside-the-box” concept… Win-win thinking. Use your desire to compete and win to make you strive for excellence, but realize that you’re always better when you make someone else better in the process. Winning is a reward, but winning cooperatively is better than winning individually.
12) You can’t talk yourself out of the things you behave yourself into… Best learned by losing your composure, going off on a teammate, a coach or an official. Applies to working relationships, marriages, relationships with your kids some day. If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs, the time will come when people come to see you as the answer to their problems, a problem-solver, a solution to the needs of the moment. That’s the definition of a go-to¬ guy.
13) Never lose track of the big picture… If you run a full court press on someone, you can get the ball back on a steal, or a quick shot. Teams get nervous when they get their traps split or the ball sails over the top of their heads, and they become anxious and feel like they need to desert the big picture goal for the short term problem in front of them. Stick with the game plan… If you work hard, execute, rotate and perform, you’ll crack the problem eventually. In a close game, all it takes is one or two back to back bad decisions by an opponent to blow a game wide open. Same applies to life.
14) You’re never out anything when you take the time to make a contribution to someone else’s success… You are not an island. Take time to acknowledge the people who support you, the young people who look up to you, and the people who comment about how much they enjoyed watching you. Learn to give back, and you’ll receive ten-fold in return.
15) Always set out to “win” the dead-ball situation… Out of bounds, time-out, quarter break. These are the moments of innovation and awareness on the court that break games open. Some of the world’s worst problems can be solved with the clarity of a ten-minute potty break and a can of Diet Pepsi. Disengage, get your feet under you, and seize the moment.
16) Develop a network of mentors who you can draw from until you build a network you can give to… Listen to and surround yourself with great people. Whether they’re coaches, older players, trusted adults, role models…be a sponge when you’re around them. There are basic, universal truths of the universe that will be proven again and again by the great people you meet. Listen, ask questions, learn, and integrate. Share with others what you have learned, and try to do for others what your mentors did for you. When you’re about thirty, you’ll notice that you begin giving more than you take. That’s the point that you have achieved wisdom, the point that others start coming to you for advice and answers.
17) Never forget to stay playful and childlike, even when you need to be serious and adult… There’s a time for everything… A time to laugh, and a time to bear down, a time to learn, and a time to teach. A time to work, and a time to play. The game teaches you all of the above. Stay balanced.
18) When the team is coming to an end or preparing to move on, don’t leave the important stuff unsaid… Be open and intent on letting the people that you care about know that you care about them. Say the things up front and at the moment they occur to you, so that you don’t regret not saying them sometime later. When a great team is coming to an end, that’s the time to let people know what they mean to you.
19) At times, the fifty foot game winner that’s clearly in gets waved off… Life is not always fair… the clock sometimes runs out on you…You won’t always get what you deserve… Get over it and move on.
20) When you have the opening, always take it hard to the basket… It may be hard work getting there, and you may get knocked on your butt a time or two, but in life, you’ve got the drive to the hoop or the contested three … The one is easier and takes less work, but the other is higher percentage and may pay greater rewards than you think.
Basketball’s greatest lesson … The game played well is like ballet. The team that functions seamlessly plays the game like an orchestra plays a symphony. Perfect pitch, perfect harmony.
The best things in life are the things that you achieve with others … Success, advancement, achievement, friendship, caring, and love.
We were created to work with and commune with others. The game of basketball is a vivid mirror of the game of life.
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