My mind immediately went to the viral video of Jalen Brunson's dad working him out (https://x.com/NBA_NewYork/status/1736602189097840773?s=20) and then to Brunson's stories about how hard the Villanova practices were (https://youtu.be/OtJ2PYcjcGs?t=1078). For what it's worth, I think there's a reason why so many of the Jay Wright-era guys have thrived in the NBA despite a general lack of draft pedigree.
Yes. This is excellent. Almost all success is built on tediously doing the fundamental things right, those things aggregate to a solid foundation. Even if that foundation does not lead to a truly exceptional outcome it sets a very high floor.
One of the tragedies of American culture is that a pathway to stability and comfort is readily available, yet so many aspects of our culture aggressively push people to take speculative short cuts and moonshots (you are failure if you didn’t disrupt into being a celebrity/billionaire etc…). It’s a good strategy for innovation, but the wreckage left in its wake is horrific.
The headline confused me for a moment, because his podcast called "No Chill with Gilbert Arenas" has thrived on hot-take bullshit spewed by grumpy older players who are mad they don't make the money that modern players do. His most recent viral clip included his note to the NBA that to improve defense the league should get rid of all Europeans along with a bunch of other dumbshit hog wash that tries to re-write the NBA's recent history. There's a firm case to be made that the Arenas rise in the NBA had to do with the rule changes that benefited offensive players like him. I digress.
He has a good message here. I'm not going to lie or argue. He's just the single worst messenger for it. I hope his son does well though, he seems to be a really, REALLY good player.
This is the argument I made to my wife about why we should enroll our kids in Kumon. Mastery of fundamentals is vastly underrated. There is a lot to say for drilling and repeating the basics until they become automatic.
I am far from a pro athlete but been coaching baseball for 15 years. I say every day @ practice the key is to master the mundane boring repetitive drills. Fielding a simple ground ball, then shuffle shuffle shuffle throw. After a dozen normal ones each kid wants to back hand or throw on run. Gil is spot on. Master the mundane
Well said. Agent 0 and T Mac are the two guys that had Pedro Martinez like prime domination but got overshadowed by the longevity/Ringzzz of LeBron/Kobe. I bet Arenas could hold a variety of shooting world records if he wanted to - that video of him making one handed 3s from the corner is burned into my memory. He would dominate in any era - incredible shooter/scorer. He'd be better today where coaches are embracing a let it fly attitude. The Cavs/Wizards battles of the mid aughts were captivating. Lotta trash talk, lotta cheap shots, lotta fun. I bet his son will be very good.
Reminds of me jazz pianist Kenny Werner's book Effortless Mastery. The point of which is, you have truly mastered something when you feel that doing it requires no effort. In music, to master the most complex difficult piece of music requires it to feel as easy as playing a single note, so that there is no thought about what your hands are doing, no question in your mind that it will be accomplished, because it is effortless for you (and he says that musicians share this understanding of the task with athletes). The paradox is, it takes a huge amount of work and effort to get yourself to this point with most things. So you have to look within yourself and reflect, why you want to do this? What does it mean to you? Where does the desire to master this come from? Are you doing it out of love? Pride? Fear? For example, it's sort of strange to imagine someone becoming a jazz pianist or basketball player out of fear, but the fear goes something like, "I have to get good at this now, otherwise I will die a nobody" - and this sort of fear leads you to want to rush toward things you're not ready for, when in in fact if you relaxed,detached yourself from the outcome of your efforts (another paradox) and let yourself do what only what is effortless for you, you would both be more confident and better at what you are doing, while also having the patience to do what needs to be done to get better. I recommend this book to everyone!
I feel like Arenas’ savant like basketball skills and occasionally brilliant insights into basketball along with the wild shit kinda make sense if u are of the mind that he might be *slightly* autistic
My mind immediately went to the viral video of Jalen Brunson's dad working him out (https://x.com/NBA_NewYork/status/1736602189097840773?s=20) and then to Brunson's stories about how hard the Villanova practices were (https://youtu.be/OtJ2PYcjcGs?t=1078). For what it's worth, I think there's a reason why so many of the Jay Wright-era guys have thrived in the NBA despite a general lack of draft pedigree.
Yes. This is excellent. Almost all success is built on tediously doing the fundamental things right, those things aggregate to a solid foundation. Even if that foundation does not lead to a truly exceptional outcome it sets a very high floor.
One of the tragedies of American culture is that a pathway to stability and comfort is readily available, yet so many aspects of our culture aggressively push people to take speculative short cuts and moonshots (you are failure if you didn’t disrupt into being a celebrity/billionaire etc…). It’s a good strategy for innovation, but the wreckage left in its wake is horrific.
HIBACHI
The headline confused me for a moment, because his podcast called "No Chill with Gilbert Arenas" has thrived on hot-take bullshit spewed by grumpy older players who are mad they don't make the money that modern players do. His most recent viral clip included his note to the NBA that to improve defense the league should get rid of all Europeans along with a bunch of other dumbshit hog wash that tries to re-write the NBA's recent history. There's a firm case to be made that the Arenas rise in the NBA had to do with the rule changes that benefited offensive players like him. I digress.
He has a good message here. I'm not going to lie or argue. He's just the single worst messenger for it. I hope his son does well though, he seems to be a really, REALLY good player.
Sounds like being a writer. ✍️
This is the argument I made to my wife about why we should enroll our kids in Kumon. Mastery of fundamentals is vastly underrated. There is a lot to say for drilling and repeating the basics until they become automatic.
I am far from a pro athlete but been coaching baseball for 15 years. I say every day @ practice the key is to master the mundane boring repetitive drills. Fielding a simple ground ball, then shuffle shuffle shuffle throw. After a dozen normal ones each kid wants to back hand or throw on run. Gil is spot on. Master the mundane
Well said. Agent 0 and T Mac are the two guys that had Pedro Martinez like prime domination but got overshadowed by the longevity/Ringzzz of LeBron/Kobe. I bet Arenas could hold a variety of shooting world records if he wanted to - that video of him making one handed 3s from the corner is burned into my memory. He would dominate in any era - incredible shooter/scorer. He'd be better today where coaches are embracing a let it fly attitude. The Cavs/Wizards battles of the mid aughts were captivating. Lotta trash talk, lotta cheap shots, lotta fun. I bet his son will be very good.
Reminds of me jazz pianist Kenny Werner's book Effortless Mastery. The point of which is, you have truly mastered something when you feel that doing it requires no effort. In music, to master the most complex difficult piece of music requires it to feel as easy as playing a single note, so that there is no thought about what your hands are doing, no question in your mind that it will be accomplished, because it is effortless for you (and he says that musicians share this understanding of the task with athletes). The paradox is, it takes a huge amount of work and effort to get yourself to this point with most things. So you have to look within yourself and reflect, why you want to do this? What does it mean to you? Where does the desire to master this come from? Are you doing it out of love? Pride? Fear? For example, it's sort of strange to imagine someone becoming a jazz pianist or basketball player out of fear, but the fear goes something like, "I have to get good at this now, otherwise I will die a nobody" - and this sort of fear leads you to want to rush toward things you're not ready for, when in in fact if you relaxed,detached yourself from the outcome of your efforts (another paradox) and let yourself do what only what is effortless for you, you would both be more confident and better at what you are doing, while also having the patience to do what needs to be done to get better. I recommend this book to everyone!
Arenas walked so Kyrie could run
I feel like Arenas’ savant like basketball skills and occasionally brilliant insights into basketball along with the wild shit kinda make sense if u are of the mind that he might be *slightly* autistic
I'm reminded of that possibly-apocryphal quote from Bruce Lee:
"I do not fear the man who has practiced 1000 different moves. I fear the man who has practiced the same move 1000 times."