The Spurs are the Cleveland Indians and Will Make the Playoffs
How can the impossible happen if you never give the impossible a chance?
Too often, we presume we know what’s best.
Too often, we limit someone else based on what we think their limit is.
And it’s completely unfair.
In this work-a-day world, days come and days go, and many people’s ideas, ambitions, and dreams are cast aside because someone else thinks they’re dreaming.
But what if one person’s goal is another person’s dream. And so what if the goal is a dream — what’s so bad about dreaming?
It’s true that the vast majority of long shots are never realized, but that’s because they’re long shots.
And someone not only has to be willing to dare, but able to come through.
As we know, that’s highly unlikely, but there is beauty in the attempt; it’s hard to top a story of someone making a genuine go of it, whatever it is.
Sadly, we too often see bright and hopeful flickers of light snuffed out prematurely by others who know better.
Parents, teachers, coaches, and others presume to know. And sometimes, many times, they may indeed be right.
But what about when they’re not?
What about when their presumption costs us the impossible story?
I’m imagining a little boy playing off in the corner by himself. He’s quite happy, interpreting a pile of blocks and what to make of them in his own way. Laughing with glee when the blocks tumble and thinking whatever he’s thinking.
It’s that pure child’s play that we need more of.
Here, I’m not discussing anything spectacular. Just free and open play.
But every now and then someone comes along who is able to take free and open play and it turn into something spectacular.
If we intervene, just think about the new and amazing things we might never see.
When I observe Victor Wembanyama, I see someone very special.
Someone who not only has the skills and talent to play basketball, but the understanding to transcend what is possible within the game.
Thus far this season, we’ve seen Gregg Popovich and Spurs players limit and resist Victor.
Pop, a tenured NBA coaching legend, might see a team that needs more talent to win. Pop may also see a young player who needs to be guarded against the grind of an NBA season.
Victor’s teammates may see a talented rookie who is a threat to their own success.
But I don’t see what they see.
I see the greatest basketball player who will ever play the game, waiting for his team to give him a chance. I see someone who is poised to lead this team beyond anyone’s imagination.
And maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe conventional wisdom will hold true.
Maybe Victor needs four more years of experience before he’s able to take the leap.
And maybe the experts are right. Maybe this young Spurs team is too young and they’re years away from being ready.
But what would happen if the Spurs decided to tempt fate and fully buy into this 19 year old prodigy?
What if the greatest basketball player to ever play really is sitting just a few feet away?
And what if this talented Spurs group truly banded together, what could they accomplish — could they make the playoffs after starting out 5–26?
In 1988, a cellar dwelling Cleveland Indians baseball team found out the team owner was intentionally trying to lose games so she could move the team to Miami.
That Cleveland Indians baseball team made the playoffs.
