Great players

I was thinking a couple of days ago about what makes an NBA player better than the rest.  Remember that only about one-tenth of one percent of the population is good enough to become an NBA player.  The sixth-grader or the ninth grader or the twelfth grader who you think is great most of the time turns out to be an average player at best in college and never makes it to the pros.  Most of us don't know anyone who ever made it to the pros.  So, out of the 400 or so people who are good enough to become NBA players, why is one of them so much better than anyone else?

It isn't because the player is a better athlete than anyone else.  Most NBA players are amazing athletes, and there isn't much that separates Kobe from Caron Butler from Sasha Vujacic from that great shooter you knew in high school.  

The difference, I think, is something inside the best players, something you and me will never be able to understand.  About six months ago I read a book about Kobe that gets at this difference.  In 1997, Kobe was only a 19 year old second year player.  The Lakers were locked in a battle with the Utah Jazz for the Western Conference semifinals.  After four games, the Lakers were down 3-1.  

In game 5, when the Lakers were facing elimination, Del Harris needed one player to take the last shot.  You wouldn't have thought that we would turn to Kobe.  After all, that team had Shaq, Nick Van Exel, Eddie Jones, and Robert "Big Shot Bob" Horry.  But when everyone else looked away from Harris in the final huddle, only one player returned his stare.  Only one player wanted to take the last shot.  And that player was a second year player from Lower Merion High School who had no reason to regard himself as the number one option on the last play of the series.

But that was when Kobe stepped forward and essentially asked to take the last shot.  He had the courage and mental toughness to take 6 shots in OT and to take the last shot of the game.  Yes, the Lakers lost the game and, yes, Kobe air-balled every one of his last 6 shots, but the fact that he wanted to take the last shot after whiffing on the prior five showed that Kobe had a competitiveness within him that no one else had.  And after Kobe missed the last shot, he spent the next day making 1,000 shots from each of the spots on the court from which he air-balled a shot in overtime.  

Just think about it, he was only in his 2nd year and he stepped up and took those shots that veterans won't even think about doing! Also, when other people were on vacation or sleeping, Kobe was in the gym working out on his game. 

The average players will practice when they are told to but the great players will work out when they don't have to.  That's what makes the great players great--they work harder than everyone else and believe in themselves more than anyone else does.