Who would you go to war with?

Steve Nash is a point guard on the Phoenix Suns. He’s a back-to-back MVP winner, in ’05 and ’06, one of the best players ever. But he could never get to the NBA finals, and this ate at him. Here’s a paraphrased passage from Bill Simmons’ The Book of Basketball: 

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Falling short in ’05 and ’06 hardened him. Before the ’07 season, Nash spent the summer mulling over the two years before, when he won back-to-back MVP awards, but still couldn’t make it to the finals. 

That summer he decided the only thing left for him to accomplish was a championship. Then, he thought long and hard about how to get that championship, ultimately cutting off his hair, and getting in unbelievable shape so he wouldn’t wear down in the playoffs. 

That year, Nash was on a higher plain. He used the first forty minutes of a game to get his teammates going, then took over in crunch time if his team needed it. Sometimes he’d even unleash the “Look there’s no way we’re effing losing this game!” look. 

You know Nash’s team will never get blown out – they’ll be fighting until the very end, and he’s the reason. At the end of the day, Steve Nash can’t play defense, and he has a back that could go out at any second, but you could go to war with Steve Nash, and really, that’s all that matters. 

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Who would you go to war with? 

This is one of the top questions I think about. 

Many NBA players are gunning for their moment in the spotlight, their brand, and cash. Guys like LeBron James - rolling in highlight reels, shoe deals, and conversations of best ever. Then, there are players like Nash – flying under the radar, loyally sticking to his team, and quietly being one of the best players of his era. Who would you rather go to war with? 

Of course, you’d line up behind Nash. 

I have a hypothesis about war guys. If you asked a group of people who ran in the same social circle, “Who would you go to war with?” They would come up with the same few names, and those few people would share common qualities. 

 

Guys like Billy Beane have a career because they figured out ways to analyze value better than other baseball teams. While other teams were courting flashy homerun hitters, Beane went after scrappy guys who racked up walks. 

The market inefficiency goes beyond sports. Take science - scientists are hired based on their publications, but is that really the best way to find good scientists? 

A resume can tell you a lot, but it doesn’t tell you if the person likes science or if they can come up with their own ideas. In science there are inefficiencies – hire the scientists with the best publications on their resume, and you might not get the best scientists. There are scientists that you could plug into a lab, and they’d have an impact on the environment, and swing it into a productive space. You could say they’d have a Nash-like quality on the lab. 

My hypothesis is that we are bad at analyzing other people's value. We overvalue certain qualities and undervalue other ones that would actually produce a good society. 

So anyways, I want to overanalyze the qualities of these war guys, except this is already too long so I’ll start next week.

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.