The invisible basketball prospect trait.
The difficult thing about talent scouting is that the hardest trait to detect in a prospect is also one of, if not the most important aspect of their success as an athlete. The trait I am referring to is competitiveness. Hard to find and quantify, but if you get a player with great internal motivation and truly loves challenges and to compete, the prospect will evolve in one of two ways. The player will either greatly out perform his own abilities and surpass almost all of their expectations. Or, if the athlete has a natural athletic gift to go along with their competitive nature, they will most likely develop into a super star at the next level.
For clarification, the dictionary definition to compete means to “lo strive against another or others to attain a goal, such as an advantage or a victory”, competition refers to “a test of skill or ability; a contest”, and competitive is defined as “liking competition or inclined to compete”. These definitions broadly categorize the nature of competitiveness. Expanding on these definitions, I believe competitiveness is a will, motivation or a drive to be the best you can possible become. It is an attitude that 2nd place is never acceptable and even after they personally have success they as an athlete and a competitor is not satisfied with that success. Competition in general means more to competitors, they are passionate about what they do, they are intense and assertive in pursuit of their goals. They crave greatness in every way they possibly can, they are not content to just win once, and they want to win everything and anything they compete in. A perfectionist mindset adds fuel to motivation. With that motivational fuel, athletes that are competitive generally work harder, play harder and are more effective in competition. Of course, all professional athletes have a basic level of competitiveness which allowed them to get where they are at. Yet, at the highest level, I believe it takes that extra effort to be truly great and that is what competitiveness brings. Winners do the things other people do not want to do, that statement encapsulates what I believe competitiveness is all about.
I have multiple personal theories on just what makes a basketball prospect into a great player at the next level. I originally thought it to be general athletic ability, the ability to be superior to their competition in terms of jumping ability, quickness, explosiveness and general conditioning. I thought athletic ability is what separated the men from the boys at the next level. However that is not the case, there are classic examples of JR Rider and Harold Miner, to a lesser extent Shawn Kemp, Stromile Swift and Darius Miles. Of course, these players were not benchwarmers at the next level, but all were ridiculously talented athletically, however they never reached the potential heights that they should have been able to reach with their athletic talent. The story has not been written yet on Swift or Miles, however considering their athletic superiority and talent, I believe both of them have underachieved at the NBA level so far. Another example would be Vince Carter, however once his stay Toronto was up and he was traded to New Jersey, he once again became a dominant NBA talent and a top five player within the league. Now is that the system in place in New Jersey? Is it coach Frank’s ability to tap his talents more efficiently? Maybe, but I believe Carter’s success stems from pure motivation. The key is when an organization can bring in a prospect that is already motivated, loves challenges, loves to compete and strives to give it his best every single time, if the organization does that they are ahead of the game I believe.
The ideal the formula for greatness in the game of basketball I believe to be is when a prospect has three basic abilities or traits. The first one I have discussed, competitiveness, a player has to be driven to succeed and competitiveness in general implies that a player will work hard at all times because they must win, and really that is all you can ask from a player, hard work. The second trait is superior athletic ability, having the natural ability to be able to run faster and jump higher than the other players. The Third trait is having a very sound application of general basketball skills, being able to handle the basketball, pass the basketball, shoot the basketball and defend as well. Just the general skills needed to be effective within the game. A player can get by with only having two of these traits, for example Larry Bird was not very athletic, however he had great basketball skill and was a extremely competitive person. The absolute ideal for this model would be Michael Jordan obviously, he was the perfect combination of athletic superiority, basketball skill development and outstanding competitiveness.
I have always been a believer than if an athletic team tries their hardest, gives it their absolute best, that is the essence of competition, and most of the time if a team gives maximum effort and has talent they will succeed. However, if that kind of mindset, work ethic and spirited pursuit of excellence is not reflected by each of the players, problems can occur. To have 90% of a team working hard and committed to winning, but the other 10% does not follow that same belief system, the team in general will have problems.
In an ideal world, there would be a test or a machine where you could hook up a potential NBA player to and be able to tell how competitive they are. It is possible to do this with physical skills and abilities, it can even be done with statistics and in game performance. However, there has yet to be a test or machine invented that can measure competitiveness in an athlete. Not to say there has been no attempts at this area of scouting, I am aware of the ‘brain doctor’ that assists Danny Ainge and others in the NBA with their player management decisions. However there has yet to be proof that what he tests is actually legitimate. It is difficult to quantify something that is un-quantifiable.
Within my scouting experience, I have developed a few ways to help tell if a player is competitive or not. In general, the obvious one is if the player plays hard at all times. Competitive athletes do not play down do their competition, they do not slack off before the whistle blows and you can visually tell they care about the competition. Another way that I measure competitiveness is physical aggression or assertiveness, athletes using their body and sacrificing it in a way for the good of the team. Very few players that do not greatly care about the outcome of a competition dive into the stands after a loose ball. I also look at straight on body language, how they walk, how they talk and how they move. Along the lines of what the ‘brain doctor’ does, I look at facial expressions and verbal outbursts of aggression in some way. Honestly, when I am watching a game and a player yells intensely after an aggressive dunk or physical play which they succeeded, I am happy to see that. The sportsmanship fopah occurs when an athlete does the cutthroat hand gesture after beating their opponent. The media gets all over such gestures and demonizes them, but honestly I do not see anything wrong with it. In my world that gesture is a way for that competitor to express their inner thoughts without doing any personal harm. Why pretend that those kind of thought processes do not happen in professional sports when the athletes are paid to beat each other and are in direct competition with anyone outside of their organization.
The only true negative with selecting an overly competitive athlete is that there can be side effects. Be it moderate problems in the fact that they might not relate to individuals that do not have the same passion for competition that they do, which could cause overall team friction. Or the fact that some competitive athletes are at higher risk of burnout because they train so hard and diligently that they become encapsulated within that training regiment. Eventually they end up burning themselves out and their performance greatly decrease. However, with the resources available to NBA franchises, I find it hard to believe that those issues can be not address before they actually occur. When the business they are in is about winning and losing, I don’t know how organizations can pay players that are not dedicated to personal perfection and winning.
In conclusion, yes competitiveness is an intangible subject. It is hard to quantify, hard to analyze and even more hard to predict. However, I feel the mental makeup of a prospect from a talent evaluation standpoint is just as important if not more important than any other skill the athlete has. To reiterate, winners do what other people don’t want to do, that in essence is a competitor, doing what they must do to win.
Will you be able to spot the next great competitor?
