After all the preseason drama has come and gone – opting out, signing to a different team, recruiting players you want to be teammates with, demanding to be traded, pre-season scrimmages – the sentiment of many (if not all) players remain the same.
Do Better. Win. Become a champion.
Many players appear committed to changing their fortunes. But how many are committed to real change, to pay such a hefty price just to end up in better circumstances?
I don’t question the work ethic. I question the mindset. It is not enough to merely improve. But the improvement should be a result of change. You could be improving, but not changing. It is difficult to imagine, even counterintuitive, but it is real and it could happen; it always happens, and this is why many players remain mired in obscurity, doomed by their own doing. You could be improving your shooting but if you do not change your tendency to take bad shots, if you do not change your level of confidence with your teammates and the system you are running as a team, you will still end up in the same pitiful circumstances filled with failure, frustration, and mediocrity.
The start of the NBA feels like drivers returning to the road to restart this yearly, almost year-long journey in search of a championship, so why not a driving analogy?
Think about driving a car on the road. Improving means driving faster, thinking it will take you to your destination faster before the gas runs out or before it gets dark. But it is useless to move faster and arrive earlier than expected to a place you don’t intend to be.
It is useless to drive faster if you are on the wrong road.
Changing means stopping on the side of the road and checking the map to plot a new course, and taking it. You don’t have to drive faster if no one is racing against you; like I said, the NBA championship is a quest, not a race. You just have to drive smarter, and follow the road that will lead you to a place of better fortune. That is improvement as a result of change.
After watching the NBA preseason games, it is obvious how a lot of players remain set on their ways. The question is how long in the regular season are they going to keep this up before they plan a detour and accept that they are going the wrong way.
That’s the thing with ego and driving. You won’t immediately and readily accept you are wrong. Being wrong feels like a major inconvenience you do not want to deal with. You want to hope that you’ll still end up where you want to go even with the knowledge that you are on the wrong road. There is a level of pride that comes with being on the wheel, a sense of pride that responds to the dominant qualities of the driver, amplifying it; a pride that comes with an air of dismissiveness and recklessness if the driver is impatient, ill-tempered, and arrogant. Such hubris has led many to drive themselves towards oblivion, and despite a pit filled with cars that fell to their tragic end, warnings to such danger remain unheeded. All but a few have forgotten their names. They may have been good drivers, but God knows why they were on that road and why they refused to take a different route.
Listen to George Bernard Shaw’s advice: “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
Calvin Abueva and how (I think) he’s changed is a lesson on improving and changing. Sure, he could’ve chosen to improve his ability to get on opposing players’ nerves by learning how to better tread the fine line between playing mind games and getting slapped with a technical. Instead, he chose to change.
And looking at his player efficiency rating with Magnolia, it appears that he chose to embrace the notion that playing smart defense is the best way to get into your opponent’s head without the ills that come with notoriety. This is how a clown earns the crown of the king.
If his goal is (another) championship and redemption, he could’ve not picked a better road to take. Not too long ago in his career, he faced a fork on the road; continue playing and careen with the attitude he has, or change – change your driving and change the direction you are heading. I am sure many Filipino basketball fans are happy with the decision Abueva made. He may not win the championship against TNT in this upcoming series, but I’m sure he’s already won his redemption.
It’s going to be a long drive, but if the journey feels right, that’s when you know you are improving and changing. You don’t have to be at your journey’s end. You start with finding yourself at the right place.
