Team Builder

"I ain't trippin' on who gets the credit just make sure my ring fits bruh!"

Mahatma Gahdhi walked in and said, “I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.” John Quincy Adams broke it down like this, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” Then Dwight D. Eisenhower kept it all the way 100 when he said, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

Earlier this week Kobe Bryant spoke to the media and completely threw Mike D’Antoni under the bus by essentially telling the media that he doesn’t listen to his coach and does whatever ever he wants to do. He asked the media, “Do you really think Mike is gonna tell me when to come in and out of games? I’m just taking the lead from both Magic and Jordan. They checked themselves in and out of games so I’m doing the same thing.”

Here’s the difference playboy, they did it without making their head coaches look like idiots in public. Everybody knows that Magic ran Paul Westhead out of LA but he wasn’t in the media slammin’ ole boy either. We all knew that Doug Collins couldn’t coach Jordan but he wasn’t pimp slappin’ him in the media because he could either. It’s called being respectful of him because he’s your coach bruh regardless of how you really feel behind closed doors.

 Now I know there are a lot of cats out there screaming, “Kobe’s got 5 championships! He can do or say whatever he wants!” Sure he can pimpin’, but he won’t win a 6^th joint operating like that. See cats that think that it’s OK for Kobe to operate like that have never won anything titles in life. I’m not talking about just sports playboy. I’m talking about winning major awards on the job or building an organization and finding real success at whatever you’re doing. If you’re working with other people you can’t always say what’s on your freakin’ mind. In the corporate world it’s called having a filter. In the hood it’s called being smart enough not to create beef.

Kobe won those joints because he wasn’t acting a fool with boyz. He wasn’t talking crazy to the media about his teammates. He wasn’t trying to show Phil up by telling cats that he could do whatever he wanted to do. Why? Because Phil wasn’t putting up with that foolishness. Why? Because Phil was about winning championships and you can’t win those joints operating like that. D’Antoni is a push over and pretty much sets the tone for Kobe to act a fool so you’ve got to blame him too.

Keep in mind that the Black Mamba has had 5 head coaches while he’s been with the Lakers. He’s acted a fool under the watch of the other 4 coaches. It's not surprising that he’s only won championships with Phil? Boyz wanna act like the word chemistry doesn’t mean anything in sports but it does. Kobe wasn’t calling teammates or coaches out during those championship runs bruh. He was a part of the program not operating under his own guidelines. That’s why he was able to win those joints.  

In order for Jordan to win those 6 titles he had to learn that it wasn’t just about him and what he thought. Before Phil came to the Chi MJ was scoring ridiculous points, fighting with teammates at practice and being an outright fool. Phil asked him point blank, "Do you wanna win scoring titles or do you wanna win championships?" He taught him how to be an effective leader and they went on a terror winning championships.

So sure, Kobe’s won 5 joints but he won’t win a 6^th because he’s content with having the 5! Otherwise, he wouldn't have gotten Shaq run out of town! He could have at least 7 now! I'm preachin' but y'all ain't listin'! That’s real talk because he’s not doing the little things that it takes to win anymore championships. I don’t care who’s coaching or who’s on the team. You can’t throw people under the bus and think that it isn’t going to create tension in the locker room.

Tension is always a relationship killer bruh! That’s why all effective organizations continuously do team builders to bring the team closer together to enhance chemistry. It works the same way in sports playa. As talented as the Miami Heat were in year one of the Big Three they weren’t capable of winning a championship because there was no leadership. They spent the entire season trying to figure out who was going to lead the team. LeBron or D. Wade? The crazy thing about it is that they made it to Game 6 of the Finals without having a true leader.

Once D. Wade submitted and allowed LeBron to lead it started clicking. That doesn’t mean that D. Wade is soft it means that he knew what it was going take to win another championship. Team chemistry is everything playboy and the Heat have it.

Remember last year when Trayvon Martin was killed and LeBron and D. Wade got the team together for the hoodie photo? That’s what folks in Corporate America call a team builder exercise bruh. Remember when the team put the Harlem Shake video together earlier this season? Another team builder playboy!

Not only was it effective for team morale but it was planned by their leadership and guess who went and picked up all of the costumes? The true leader of that team, D. Wade! On some real talk, he’s the silent leader on that squad because he’s smart enough to know what needs to be done in order  for them to win and he isn’t trippin’ on who gets the credit for it.  That’s true leadership!  

Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher, said it best with, “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”  Now I realize that Kobe can’t hide from being the leader but he needs to listen to my man Dwight D. Eisenhower again!

 Holla At Ya Boy!
Jay Graves
Get @ me on Twitter: @jaygravesreport
The quote under the caption isn't real but hilarious.