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Friday, November 7, 2025

Basketball - "The Map Is not the Territory"

Mental models add clarity to our thinking. They help us see patterns, avoid blind spots, and make better decisions. The simplest are almost self-evident.

  • Sample Size: “A swallow does not make a summer.” It’s easy to crown someone the “next big thing” too soon.

  • Inversion: “What if we do the opposite?” Think Hoosiers - do you run the picket fence or isolate Jimmy?

  • Circle of Competence: “Stay in your lane.” Knowing what you don’t know prevents high-consequence errors.

A less obvious model is “The map is not the territory.”

AI might define it this way:

“Any representation of reality, whether a map, a financial statement, or a theory is a simplification and can never fully capture the complexity of the actual reality it describes.”

Basketball, like life, lives in that gap between plan and reality.

Coaching: Rules vs. Reality

Every coach has rules. “Max effort.” “No walking.” “Talk on defense.”
Those are the map. But the territory is more complicated.

Players are human. Some days they bring fire; other days they don't. Emotions, chemistry, and life all distort the map.

John Wooden adjusted his practice tempo daily based on how his players looked. Brad Stevens often swapped film for walk-throughs when focus waned. The best coaches redraw their maps to match the landscape they see.

Leadership: Ideal vs. Real

The leadership map says the best players should be the best leaders - communicators, role models, and standard-setters. But the territory rarely cooperates.

Michael Jordan led through intensity, not warmth. Kawhi Leonard leads through example not fiery tone. Meanwhile, role players like Udonis Haslem or Derek Fisher often became a team’s emotional compass.

Leadership, like geography, changes with terrain. Great leaders read the landscape and navigate accordingly.

Officiating: The Game Within the Game

The rulebook is the map. The game itself is the territory.

Officials aim for consistency, but perfect uniformity is impossible.
A hand-check in a high school game might be a foul; in the NBA Finals, the same contact is play-on. Two referees can see the same play from different angles and reach opposite conclusions - and both can be right in context.

Officiating lives in nuance. The best read the conditions moment by moment.

Execution: When the Map Meets Chaos

Basketball is more jazz than symphony. The playbook is the sheet music, but the players improvise.

Opponents switch coverages, players slip screens, fatigue blurs reactions.
Helmuth von Moltke said, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”
Mike Tyson translated: “Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth.”

The Warriors’ motion offense looks spontaneous because it is - organized improvisation around shared principles. Maps give approximation and the best execution reveals precision. 

The Big Picture

“The map is not the territory” reminds us to stay humble.

  • Analytics, scouting, and film are tools but imperfect.

  • Metrics reveal patterns, not people.

  • Culture isn’t a diagram; it’s behavior under stress.

Great coaches, investors, and leaders all learn to update their maps as new terrain appears. They invite feedback, question assumptions, and resist false certainty.

The map helps us plan. The territory demands that we adapt. And in that space between theory and practice, control and chaos, lies the art of coaching.

Lagniappe. The unauthorized Saban biography, "Saban," reveals far more about the complexity of the man. His wife said that her husband wasn't the greatest coach, but he was the greatest recruiter. He earned a fortune at Alabama, and alumni donations poured in many fold. One person will describe him as a great guy and another an ass, and both can be right. 

We don't have to erect a shrine to learn about coaching from him. 



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