Let’s put it in perspective immediately; it’s a game. It compares not at all with the people who deal with the daily horrors happening in the Middle East or the natural disasters that wipe out thousands in an eye-blink. Or the quiet strength of those with a life-threatening illness or financial ruin.
I know that. I understand that it’s just a basketball game.
This past series between The Lakers (my team) and The (hated) Celtics had life lessons, though, in abundance. So many lessons in persistence, valor, and a will to succeed even when you feel like giving up.
Again, some perspective here. The men playing these games are millionaires; I could put up with a lot of failure and disappointment if afterwards I went home to my 5,000 sq.ft. house in Pelican Point or Beacon Hill. And yet, there is really no financial balm for the mental torture we can individually put ourselves through.
In 2008 the Boston Celtics rolled over the Lakers in the Finals kicking them to the curb by 39 points in game 6. Last year, the Celtics, beset by injuries, didn’t make it to the big show. This year they did, surprisingly by most accounts, and the re-match was on.
Failure can destroy or motivate - it depends on your perspective. A few years ago I
successfully pitched a project to Coquette Productions, the company owned by Courtney Cox and husband David Arquette. They hired me to write it and paid me handsomely for it. It was something that I was passionate about - perhaps, like Kobe said in the last game, I was pushing too hard because of the desire to both “win” and tell this particular story. The end result, for me, was disaster.
They hated the script. Okay, they didn’t say that directly - most producers are too political to put it in those terms, but they said it was “unfilmable” and didn’t even want me to do any rewrites. As I’ve long told my writing students, having someone tell you something sucks isn’t the worst thing they can say to you - it’s what they don’t say that can kill you - that long silence, the un-returned phone calls. When someone is directly pissing you off you know they’re at least engaged in the process; when they don’t call, they don’t care and that silence is dreadful.
I like to think that I’m a pretty good damned writer. I’ve sold/produced more than nineteen films - I must be doing something right. Sometimes I joke that I’m a writing whore (and I am) but even a slut has to deliver. So, yeah, I guess I’m pretty good at delivering.
Which makes what happened a real devastation. Honestly, since my very early days I’ve never not made a production company happy that they hired me. What made the
Coquette experience worse was that I was writing about something I knew well, wanted passionately to write about, and it would have been a good opportunity for me to step into the “A-List.”
The experience wrecked me for, oh...an hour. Then I shrugged and started writing again. But, and this is an important “but” I never stopped fuming; somewhere in the back of my mind was the thought that I would prove the execs at Coquette wrong about me. That I’d kick ass on my next project or the one after that and show them the mistake they made but be gracious about it at one of the cocktail parties at the Academy Awards. Okay, so I dream big - it doesn’t cost you anything more.
Recognize this - a lot of what we do to succeed doesn’t necessarily come from a positive mindset. We all have to be a little ego-driven and immature to want to define our self-worth by someone else’s standards or opinions. Who really cares if you’re rich or poor or talented or whatever - isn’t it what you do for other people that’s important? How you live and give back? Sure, all that. And yet, most of my success has come from trying to do exactly the opposite. I want to prove, daily, that I’m like the old SNL Stuart Smalley routine: I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me as a writer.
Turns out, the Lakers’ players, the ones who were pounded by the Celts in 2008 and just won it all against them in 2010, feel similarly:
Lakers' guard, Derek Fisher: “We haven’t stopped thinking about it (the 2008 loss.) Great accomplishments come out of negativity, setbacks, adversity. There couldn’t have been a more embarrassing loss to have in front of the whole world than that night and the last two seasons we’ve tried to erase that.”
As a player, Fisher, who Kobe Bryant acknowledged as being crucial to their win, has been criticized his entire career and especially this season as being undersized, too old, too slow, and not skilled enough. Fish never listened to the doubters - for the last fourteen years he has just quietly kept on making essential play after essential play until he’s now earned his fifth championship ring alongside Bryant.
And D-Fish knows about perspective. He moved back to L.A., to play for less money, when his young daughter was diagnosed with life-threatening eye cancer and there was better treatment here for her than in Utah where he had gone seeking a payday a few years ago. He knows where to put the importance of a basketball game.
Each of the Lakers, like each of us, has our own stories about what we want but more importantly, why we want to achieve it.
This from Kobe Bryant, a Laker’s guard who some consider to be the greatest guard to ever play the game: When asked what this championship ring (number 5) meant to him, Kobe said “One more than Shaq (former Laker center, Shaquille O’Neal.) You guys (reporters) know me - I don’t forget nothin’”
Three of the five rings Kobe has were achieved while Shaq and Kobe ruled the NBA together in the early part of the decade. Bryant has heard over and over again that Shaq was mostly responsible for his success as a Laker champion. Also, Shaq has been petty and critical of Bryant for many years after he left the Lakers. Kobe channeled all that into pushing his 31-yr-old body, beset by injuries, into some of the best basketball he’s ever played. He ran and shot and dished off like his hair was on fire for most of the year and especially the series; and was actually sat down for a bit because his coach thought he was trying *too* hard.
Say what? Kobe Bryant has got Shaq stuck up his butt? The man who has more individual honors and rings than anyone besides Michael Jordan (and continues to garner them) cares what a former teammate says about him?
This is why I love sports so much. No matter how many times I see these stories, they never fail to inspire me, to lift me to want to be better than I am.
Okay, so enough about the Lakers specifically. Their will-to-win and individual stories are indeed inspiring and a good lesson to all of us. If you lose today, you will win tomorrow as long as you don’t wallow in self-pity about how the world has treated you. Frustrated at your inability to get something sold - or even read? Good. Channel it. If you want to be a champion then use it all as motivation to continue to get better. Raise your game. Prove to the doubters that even down, you’re not out.
But no champion gets there because they repeat past mistakes. Champions absorb, understand, learn and move on. How much do you really want it is the question? If a setback can discourage you for a long time then maybe you’re in the wrong place. Don’t ever let those mistakes, those failures, define you. The lessons of life are given to you to constantly improve your skill set, and never quit, never stop trying. Remember, if it was easy, anyone could do it.
Just ask perennial madman Laker forward Ron Artest who said early in his career in semi-bitterness: “In the NBA, they don't promote guys like me. They like guys who like Cheerios, good guys.” (NOTE: Artest just got his face on a Wheaties cereal box as part of the 2010 championship team.)
Contrast that with these post-game comments about this, his first championship: “I’d like to thank my psychiatrist.” (seriously, he did) and then, after coach Phil Jackson praised him as the MVP of game 7: "He (Kobe) never passes me the ball, and he passed me the ball," Artest said with wonder, arms raised in victory. "Kobe passed me the ball, and I shot a three.”
And he made it helping to clinch The Lakers victory. This after missing some crucial shots during other games; after being questioned time after time again about his stability, his will to win, and his contributions to the Lakers.
Heroes aren’t born - they are forged from the red-hot crucibles of experience, formed from long hours of work, years of preparation for that moment when they can achieve success. They may be bent, battered, bruised, and bowed but they are never, ever beaten for long.
Mythologist Joseph Campbell said it right so many years ago - when you’re on the
Golden Path, good things will come to you. That path being your belief in yourself. You may have detours but eventually you will achieve the hero’s boon if you stay true to your quest.
Be strong and keep writing, editing, directing, acting - whatever it is. Don’t stop believin’ to quote a Journey song.
Even if you clank the rim, keep putting up those 3's. Play like your hair was on fire. Don’t listen to the doubters who think you’re too old, too slow, undersized.
Be inspired and do good work.
