Pass the Ball

You can learn a lot from leadership and watching sports. I was reading up on the adjustment for one of the highest draft picks from 2 years ago and realized, although a star at one time, his game slipped because he couldn't adjust. Growing up, NBA players have the ball in their hand 75% of a game. In junior high, high school, and even as they get into college, depending on where they go to school and who is on their team, they may dominate the ball handling. What caught me off guard was not the low scoring output for this high draft pick, but rather the following quote:

"I understood why I was struggling on the court, sort of. I was a player who was so used to having the ball in my hands the majority of the time that it was difficult to make the adjustment to playing without the ball, trying to learn how to play without the basketball. When you add in all the normal struggles that a rookie has - travel, length of schedule, and all that stuff - it was a very difficult year."

This is a leadership issue right here. This guy didn't get the ball in the hands of others very often and let teammates help lead the charge. The NBA is the highest level of play in the world-hands down. In all those years of dreaming, playing tournaments, getting a scholarship to a major university, playing ball, he never adjusted or learned the game without the basketball. Is this a failure of coaching? His own doing? Wasted talent? Reality of the pressures of the NBA game?

The fact is as a leader and a major contributor, no matter what you do, has got to get the ball in other's hands. One must study and have to learn how to play, help, lead, speak up, contribute, without being the main threat, main person, main fill-in-the-blank here.

Some lessons are learned the hard way. The take away here from this quote is this: You have got to build a team around you, you can trust, learn from, let lead at times, fail with, and dream with. I'm thankful I serve on a team like that and this above quote helped put in perspective the reality of playing team sports. You have to pass the ball to advance it down the field, score, and be ready when called upon.