The analogies between war and sports are numerous and vast. Regardless of sport, the toll that prolonged training, long seasons and high stakes playoffs take on teams and players can’t be underestimated. This season Lebron James lamented over the number of stars that have gone down with injury, suggesting it was the result of a shortened offseason as well as a grueling regular season. This despite teams playing ten less games than usual. But the price of success has been consistent for as long as players and teams have been competing for the pinnacle of life in this game. If anything, in today’s NBA, players and teams have found ways to navigate these tolls so they take less out of them, with the forethought to help them get closer to apex of their season. Enter Kawhi Leonard and the new buzzword of “load management”.
When Kawhi Leonard was traded to Toronto he was coming off a season where he played just nine games while dealing with a quadricep injury. The disagreement on how to approach play was part of what led to the split between the Spurs and Leonard. He eventually asked for the trade that landed him in Toronto. Once there, Kawhi played 60 games, and most often never played in back-to-back games. The focus the entire time was to build him and the team up for a deep playoff run that would lead them to a championship. It paid off. Kawhi healed, got comfortable in his new setting and when the time finally came, he did all that was needed of him. The result we already know. The Raptors won the championship. In one of the biggest gambles in NBA trade history, the Raptors conscientiously drew a royal flush. And with so, NBA stars and personnel turned their heads North and what once sounded like a silly, hyperbole of a term (load management), took on life. A new weapon in the war for success that had proven success.
But injuries, amongst other NBA Championship deterrents are a part of the game. They’re a part of all sports. In war we take losses and still carry on. In sports, injuries and other deterrents take their place. Every season, in every sport, players and teams have to battle injuries. The Raptors rarely had their team at full strength that season until the playoffs started. Over history, it was unheard of to rest players, and yet the top teams usually proved to be just that when all was said and done. As Tom Thibodeau and his former Bulls and now Knicks team can surely attest, you can’t play peak level, playoff basketball the entire season. Thibs is known for a gritty style of play that relies on his core to get the job done. Philosophically it makes perfect sense. You can’t expect to turn something on when the time is right. You have to be working towards it the entire time otherwise you’ll never know what it looks and feels like. But playing at that level not only takes a physical toll, but a mental one as well. Maintaining high level focus over a long, extended period of time is wearing. For many players and teams today the cost to benefit ratio is too daunting.
So were teams just stronger, better built, and had more focus before? Are we breathing in a more human era of the game where we consider the whole as we dig in the trenches towards success? Or are we just more educated as to what goes into building a contender? In some form, you need a balance of both. You need the longer view of things and how to manage to path there. But you also need those warriors who battle physically and mentally every day to set the tone for when the heat of battle rises several degrees. You need those with that eternal flame of passion to set the rest of the team on fire when the war nears its summit. This year’s NBA playoffs have been no different. Phoenix and Milwaukee have navigated the war scrupulously to get to the Finals. Whichever team plants their team’s flag as NBA Champions will have done so because they were able to both maintain their internal fire and navigate a season with more land mines on the battlefield than most seasons.