denisdman wrote:
veganfan21 wrote:
denisdman wrote:
I had a co-worker that hated Eddie, while I was banking on those Bulls teams to bring back the glory. And he just kept saying, “he lost to Schaumburg High School”. The guy thought Eddie sucked just because of that.
He was on to something. While he was here one constant critique was that he just wasn't motivated to work on his game, to be great, etc. This is all pre-tragedy. In the age of the declining center, this 6-11 250+ dude averaged 5 rebounds per game. Scott Skiles famously said the key to Eddy becoming better at rebounding was to simply jump.
So many of these guys have near equivalent levels of talent, and it seems like the differentiator is competitiveness. Michael and Kobe seemed to be the two fiercest competitors, and it’s no surprise they were so successful. LeBron has been successful but with talent that exceeded those two. If he had the same fire, I suspect he would have won every year. Then you have the Curry types with talent but not enough desire to hit his potential. Nothing wrong with that, but just a shame to see it wasted.
I like to play video games too.....
Agreed. I see the path to greatness like this:
- You must fulfill physical prerequisites (height, athleticism, etc.)
- You must have the right mental disposition (work ethic, intelligence, drive, etc.)
- You must have the opportunity, which obviously not always in your control.
When I think of Kobe I think of optimization. He had the requisite physical characteristics, he had the right mental disposition, and through luck he got the right opportunity, then he optimized the shit out of all that. Left nothing on the court.
With Shaq and LBJ, they filled box 1 and kind of sort of filled box 2. Shaq had more opportunities to dominate the league than LBJ did until LBJ took control over his career. But even despite not being driven as Kobe they became wildly successful.
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