Our One Noble Function

Dear Coach Popovich,

Here’s my theory, which probably isn't original at all: Every single decision a player makes in a basketball game offers him a choice between being selfish and being unselfish. Every play. On D, the selfish choice often requires less effort and leaves a player less vulnerable to ridicule. That’s the appeal: if your teammate’s man is driving the lane, it takes more energy to help him than to stay with your man, plus you run the risk of getting dunked on. I know I’m preaching to the choirmaster here, but let me keep going with this. On offense, the selfish choice isn’t really about effort. Speaking from my pick-up and sub-JV basketball experience, I’d posit that most basketball players only feel tired on defense. Miraculously, at least in my experience, we forget how tired we are as soon as the ball is back in our hands. The motivation for the selfish offensive choice is simple: the attention/ glory/ personal satisfaction of shooting and possibly scoring. That's for all levels of basketball, but for the NBA there’s an added element: money. Any decent behind-the-scenes NBA book makes it clear that most professional basketball players equate points with money. And understandably so. Points are the bedrock measure of a basketball game, and if you want to stay in the league, thereby being able to make money for yourself and your immediate family and your extended family and your hangers-on, then the most obvious way to do that is to score points. I’m gonna get mine is the underlying motto of a great many NBA players, which seems pretty obnoxious from the vantage of fans like myself, until I think about what I’d do if the quality of my family’s lifestyle was directly tied to how many baskets I made. (I’m ignoring the fact that personally I've always jacked up a lot of threes even when my family’s welfare wasn’t on the line.) The unselfish decision requires you to give the attention/glory/money to someone else in order to get your team a higher percentage shot. Except if (and only if) you’re the team’s acknowledged go-to guy, in which case you may be required on occasion, especially in fourth quarters, to make decisions that appear to be selfish—shooting the ball more, taking control—for the benefit of your team. And even this kind of seeming selfishness is unselfish because, as with certain kinds of good defense, it can open you up to ridicule. (Don't know about you, but I'm thinking of LeBron right now, Coach.) So everybody knows that the primary job of an NBA head coach is to get players to consistently make the decisions that will require more effort, cost them more money, give them less glory, and open them up to ridicule. It’s one of the hardest tasks in all of sports, and much more difficult than coaching football or baseball, where roles are more clearly defined. And again, I’m sorry to tell you all this stuff that you already know, but I’m saying all this to set up this one point. Here it is: I watched your team’s first round series over the last week, and I’m truly amazed at how well you continue to pull off this borderline impossible task.