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Thursday, August 13, 2026

Basketball - Getting What You Want

We don't always get what we want; we often get what we deserve. In his MasterClass, David Mamet reveals that he advised his children to do one thing every day for craft and one for business.

Quality metrics don't always reveal themselves from 'sales'. Van Gogh sold one painting during his lifetime of the nine hundred or so he painted. The others became collectors items. 

Craft reveals itself through studying achievement. 

How does someone become excellent?

How does a leader make decisions?

How do organizations succeed or fail?

How does character emerge under pressure?

Fall sports tryouts are coming up in the next couple of weeks. Let's address these question. 

Excellence

"Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." - attributed to Aristotle

Elite habits help fashion elite performers. They're more than 'practice' or 'study'. They include thinking, self-examination, focus, nutrition, sleep, and more. 

An Admiral once told me that it's rare for officers to achieve "flag rank" if they're jerks, because they interact with and lead both up and down "the Chain." 

Excellence is "performance-focused" and "feedback-rich" to create sustainable competitive advantage. 

It's unlikely that student-athletes with low character or low competence will "show out" at tryouts. "The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior." 

Decision-Making

"Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment."

Whether you're an acolyte of Malcolm Gladwell ("10,000 Hours") or not, you find that in most professions, admired decision-makers have lengthy runways to success. "Overnight success stories" usually evolve over a decade or more.

Consider Nick Saban, a coach's son and a product of a demanding upbringing. When he washed cars at his father's service station, if he missed a spot, his father made him rewash the whole car. "If you don't have time to do it right now, when will you have the time?"

Abraham Lincoln formed his cabinet with a "Team of Rivals." He got input from multiple leaders - Chase, Seward, Bates.

Bill Belichick had "Belichick's Belichick," Ernie Adams, a long-time confidant, perhaps with a photographic memory. Adams kept a sign on his desk, "Stamp out bad football."

Gregg Popovich spawned a huge coaching tree of 23 NBA head coaches. 

Four head coaches from Gregg Popovich's tree have won NBA championships as head coaches:

  • Steve Kerr - Warriors, 4 titles (2015, 2017, 2018, 2022)
  • Mike Budenholzer - Bucks, 1 title (2021)
  • Doc Rivers - Celtics, 1 title (2008)
  • Mike Brown - Knicks, 1 title (2026)

Organizational Results

"An army of asses led by a lion can defeat an army of lions led by an ass." 

Success depends on people, strategy, and operations. Leaders coordinate all three. 

Integration among management, head coaches, assistants, and players all matter. There's no "Just One Thing" that defines results.


Some of the worst decisions ever arose from consensus. For GM CEO Alfred P. Sloan recognized this. 

Character Under Pressure

We don't know how a person will respond under pressure. Ordinary people fashion extraordinary results, like the 1965 "Havlicek stole the ball" moment. 

There are stories of remarkable refusal to yield, like King Leonidas at Thermopylae or Admiral Stockdale in Vietnam. 

A more mundane example comes from Coach Doc Rivers during the Donald Sterling fiasco. Rivers taught what his parents shared, "Never allow yourself to be a victim." This amplified a quote from author Neil Gaiman, Author Neil Gaiman teaches us in Coraline, "Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."

Summary

Navigate your journey learning across domains. Apply lessons from other organization, stories of great character, and the travails of elite decision-makers. 

Lagniappe. How do you find a decision-maker? 
Lagniappe 2. Coach DeMarco shares a "shooting calendar." 




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