No Coincidences

Tag: pickup basketball

  • Resilience and Will to Win

    Resilience and Will to Win

    Before you read this – I start this post with a brief description of this year’s NBA playoffs. After this introduction I get into personal stories and what basketball this year has taught me. If you don’t care about the NBA, Just get through this brief introduction to get to some life lessons learned.

    If you’ve been watching any of the 2025 NBA playoffs then you’ve watched some AWESOME basketball. You’ve also heard about or seen the miraculous Indiana Pacers.

    For the record, I love this team. Tyrese Haliburton has been my second favorite player for some time but he might have taken the top spot.

    I watch all my basketball on a delay (DON’T TEXT ME ABOUT THE SCORE). I put my phone away and don’t look at it to the best of my ability until a game is over.

    The Indiana Pacers have had multiple games this playoffs that I’ve fast forwarded to the end, thinking the game was over, only to get to the end and say, “WHAT HAPPENED!?!” loud enough for my wife to get irritated with me. MULTIPLE TIMES. That happens once and it’s an out of this world comeback. The Pacers have had four of those occurences in one postseason.

    Here is something posted by a guy on Twitter about the Pacers comebacks:

    That is four times the Pacers have basically done the impossible. These Pacers have been so extraordinary they’ve made me stop and think more about resilience, will to win, heart, fight, belief, faith, and all the other never-give-up attitudes and character traits.

    I’ve been thinking about momentum. I’ve been thinking about when the energy in a room changes.

    Here’s my personal glory days basketball story I must now share.

    When I was a junior in high school my team was one game behind the fourth seed for the last playoff spot in our division. We played Centennial High School the final game of the season. If we won, we would be exactly tied with them in record. This would mean we would then need to do a one game playoff to determine who got that last playoff spot.

    We beat Centennial handily in the first game on a Friday night. No contest. We were feeling great. We just beat this team easily. Surely we’d do the same the very next morning, right?

    Wrong.

    Centennial switched up their game plan. They actually ran a triangle and 2 to keep the ball out of mine and another player’s hands. Things were not going well. We were down big. Something had to change. I didn’t expect that something being a 3 inch gash to my left eye.

    With things going so badly, our coach called a timeout. He gave us that classic, “You need to fight and be more aggressive” speech. So I went out there and got right on top of the person I was guarding. They swung an elbow down across my face. I went down in a heap. There was blood everywhere. I was taken off the court. I believe we were down 13 when I left the game. I thought everything was over.

    I went into the back and the trainer tried to butterfly stich my face so I could go back out. It was too close to my eye. He couldn’t stop the bleeding. So I was given a white rag to hold over my face and went to watch the rest of the game. To my surprise, as I walked back out to watch the game, I checked the score. We were up! We had gone on a huge run after that hit to my face.

    I was later told that our coach gave another classic speech, something like, “You’re going to let them do that to your teammate? To Quack? That’s your brother! They just busted his head open! What are you going to do about it!?!?!?!” Apparently my team went crazy. Playing with a new force, energy, and purpose.

    My team decided they weren’t going to lose this game while I bled in the back.

    We did win that game.

    Back to the Pacers.

    If you listen to quotes from Pacers players postgame from some of these miraculous comebacks, it’s all, “We never stopped believing”, “We always knew we would win”, “We never give up”. Usually these statements are just cliches, things players have to say as they can think of nothing else to say to a reporter postgame. Things that have to be said after a comeback. But with these Pacers I BELIEVE IT. I believe they never stop believing. I believe they always thought they were going to win. I know they never give up.

    From glory days 17 years ago to more recent, weekend warrior glory days.

    In a recent pickup basketball game my team was up 13-3. We needed to score one more time to win the game. The other team scored. 13-5. No big deal. The other team hit a three. 13-8. Okay. The other team hit another 3. 13-11. Uhm. The other team hit a three. 13-14. It was now next to score wins. At this point all 10 players on the court had watched the Pacers comeback just two days prior. We were all thinking about it. Those on my team felt like the Thunder. It actually crossed my mind, ‘This is how the Thunder felt, oh man, we’re going to lose this game.’ The 5 players on the other team were thinking, ‘This is how the Pacers felt. We’re going to win this game.’

    I took a moment in the middle of that pickup game and looked around at my team. I knew what they were thinking. I looked at the other team. I knew what they were thinking. Before you say, ‘How did you know what people were thinking?’ Well, when the game ended, we discussed it openly. All 10 of us were talking about the Thunder Pacers game and how we felt as a 13-3 lead turned into a deficit.

    I know you’re wondering how that game ended. I don’t want to brag but… you know… I finally decided enough was enough. Used a pick and roll, got a switch, pivoted into the paint, pivoted around a big player, and finished a left hand scoop layup. It was as cool as it sounds.

    But really. There was a moment when I decided, “We’re not going to lose this game.”

    I could have easily stayed in the mindset that hit me for a brief second, “We ARE going to lose this game.” I had to fight that thought. I fought it. And we won. If I stayed in that thought, there’s no chance we win.

    I know I know, pickup basketball at my church building pales in comparison to the NBA Finals.

    So think about the pressure felt by 5 players on a court surrounded by 18,203 watching fans all thinking the same thing: the Pacers are going to do it again. Think about that energy. Think about what that does to your psyche. If I felt it with 10 players on a church basketball court, what did the Oklahoma City Thunder players feel?

    Pressure. Weight.

    What is resilience? What is fight? What is the will to win?

    This is why I love sports. It teaches us about life.

    I tell the girls I coach all the time – “Yes, this is a game. You will win or you will lose. Things will go well or things will go bad. But how do you handle it? This is a game. What happens when life gets hard? What happens when life is easy? How do you handle it? Basketball teaches you about life. It teaches you about who you are. It teaches you how to handle adversity.” Every player I’ve coached has heard some version of this speech.

    So if life has been hitting you in the face lately and you feel like you’re on the other end of an 11-0 run. If you feel like nothing is going your way and you just can’t win. This is my reminder to you that the Indiana Pacers have done the impossible FOUR times in a month.

    Faith. Belief. Hope. Positivity. Fight. Never give up. This is what makes you a winner, in life and in sports.

  • Suns Experience

    Suns Experience

    Last week I got to play on the Phoenix Suns court. It was an awesome experience, one of the coolest things I’ve ever gotten to do. Huge shoutout to Robert, his wife Brooke, and Blake for making it happen. We got exclusive access to the court and were able to play pickup for three hours. Well, some of us were able to play for hours… more on that later.

    Some basketball thoughts from playing on a real NBA court.

    First, those lights are bright. When I’d shoot from the corners, if I watched the ball arc up before it got to the rim, I’d be blinded by the lights. If I looked up unconsciously while playing, I got blinded. Never thought about what it would be like to actually play under the “bright lights.”Speaking of the corners, it is a tight fit. Shooting an NBA three from the corner gives barely enough room for your feet. If you take a step back at all to try to explode toward the hoop, you’re stepping out of bounds. I have size 10 shoes. I don’t know how the size 20s even do it.

    Speaking of the lights, part of the package with getting to play on the court was we got to watch the Suns play that night against the Orlando Magic. We got to watch from the suite level with food and drink included. I’ve been to many Suns games, but this was a unique game to watch due to having been on the court just hours earlier. These things I mentioned like the lights and the tight space from the corner were things I considered more than I ever had before. The other thing that stood out to me that I’d never thought about before was how hectic an environment this was for NBA players to play basketball in.

    Basketball is a refuge for me. It’s therapeutic. Playing on an NBA court with thousands of people watching cannot be therapeutic.

    An NBA game is a chaotic and hectic experience. Of course, there are the thousands of people watching, yelling, and trash-talking. That’s crazy in and of itself. But what struck me the most after having played on the court was how loud the music was. While we played, we had a pretty chill March Madness game playing on the big screen with the volume on what I’d guess was around medium. It was still distracting. Watching that game later against the Magic I was focused on the NOISE, the MUSIC, and the BASS.

    It is pandemonium at an NBA game. For some reason I’d always thought the NBA players were a bit sheltered from the noise. After playing on the court, I realized it’s the opposite. They are at the bottom, center of a dome. All the noise and chaos are amplified on the court. It gave me my first true appreciation of home-court advantage. That chaos is one thing, but when it’s a chaos you’re not used to, (on the road visiting another stadium) with fans heckling you the whole time, it’s complete sensory overload.

    So, back to my time on the court, unfortunately I got hurt the beginning of the second game. I was running and just stepped wrong and twisted my ankle bad. It actually happened at almost the exact spot where Kevin Durant twisted his ankle while doing a routine warm-up layup a couple weeks earlier.

    Probably exactly what my ankle looked like, same spot.

    After I rolled my ankle, I at least got to see what it was like to be treated like an NBA player for a moment. Multiple trainers checked on me and brought me ice. It was a bit embarrassing. I got to spend the rest of the pickup session jealously watching with ice on my ankle from the sideline.

    Here’s the part where I insert what I learned spiritually from this experience.

    I’ve twisted that ankle at least 3 dozen times, not exaggerating. It’s never fun. It’s always painful.

    That night, I was laying in bed with my ankle propped up on pillows. I’d already discarded the ice that was on it. It was the middle of the night and my foot was THROBBING. It hurt.

    It hurt badly enough that I started praying for relief. I don’t want to be dramatic. I know that on the pain scale, what I was experiencing was pretty mild. But still, it hurt. That’s when I started thinking about every groin pull, every sprained ankle, every concussion, every headache, every upset stomach, every scalping, every stitch, every ingrown toenail, every scratch, every bruise, every heartache, every heartbreak, every disappointment, every fear, every doubt.

    How could He have felt it all?

    Here I was, writhing in pain, whining, praying for relief, over a sprained ankle. And He felt every sprained ankle of every person that ever did or would exist, all in a moment. He felt it all. How?

    I ponder often on the Atonement. I’ve tried to wrap my head around it. It’s not something we can wrap our heads around. That’s the point. He did something unimaginable. He did something incomprehensible. And he did it for us.

    I believe (I know) that Christ felt it all that night at Gethsemane. I don’t know how; I can’t understand it. But I know He did. It’s why I write about Him, it’s why I think about Him, it’s why I serve Him. Because for a long time, I tried to forget what He did for me because of guilt, or incomprehension, or selfishness. But now I think the most important thing I do outside of anything with my family is write about Him.

    I think the most important thing I do for my daughters is teach them about Him. Few things bring me as much joy as when Ivy sees a picture, I ask, “who’s that?” And she replies, “Jesus.” I hope someone reads this that needs to remember Him and what He did for us. When you think about what He did for us, ultimately it must make us more loving because we’re considering a love that is unfathomable. That makes us better.

  • Republican

    Republican

    Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, I listened to an amazing, interesting, and intriguing podcast. This podcast hypothesized what would happen if Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and refused to give up the presidency. The podcast didn’t just hypothesize, they did a full-on war game.

    For those who don’t know, a war game is a military tactic to simulate an armed conflict between two sides. One general will make a decision – where troops go, where to attack, etc. and someone else plays the enemy, making counter moves. You attack here, I move my troops there.

    That is what this podcast did. It was described as “a political choose your own adventure.” So there were multiple teams: a Biden campaign team, a Trump campaign team, GOP elected officials team, Democratic elected officials team, a media team, and so on. The teams were presented with a scenerio and then they watched the teams respond. A literal political war game.

    What’s crazy is, I did some Google searching and couldn’t find the podcast. Why? Because no matter what I search, it comes up with a real result. For example –

    “Podcast about experiment if Trump didn’t give up 2020 presidency.”

    “Podcast about if Trump refused to give up the presidency in 2020.”

    These searches come up with REAL RESULTS. Does anyone realize how crazy that is?

    This podcast went through four scenarios. The one that they focused on was what would happen if the 2020 election results were ambiguous? In any close race there becomes some level of amiguous results.

    Do you know how some of those experiments ended? Protestors in the street. Everything short of civil war. The podcast noted that they had to cut some of their scenerios short because things got out of hand so quickly and the participants started to become unnerved at what they were learning.

    When I listened to that podcast originally, no joke, my first thought was, “oh this is how democracy in America collapses. Trump is going to refuse to accept election results and we’re going to have a civil war.”

    How close we came. I don’t think the average American knows how close we came to our democratic system falling apart. If not for a courageous decision by Mike Pence to defend democracy, that’s where we were headed. Mike Pence ended up getting death threats by members of his own party for that decision.

    Let me pause real quick. You probably think, after reading thus far, where my allegiances lie in politics, or even who I voted for in 2020. You’re wrong. That’s all I’m going to say. My own wife doesn’t even know who I voted for in 2020. Well, she “knows,” but I’ve never said it. She can guess. My point is, I’ve had to take a look at some things I value.

    When Putin invaded Ukraine and Donald Trump talked about how it was a smart move, that’s when I had to rethink some things, personally. It was a one-off statement. Except if you take into account January 6th and Donald Trump’s apparent feelings about power, it becomes a much bigger statement.

    Here’s the thing.

    What if the election was rigged? What if those sneaky Democrats, and the media, and blah blah blah conspiracy. Look, I’m right there with you on conspiracies. Ask my wife, I’m all about conspiracies. It annoys her. Maybe those dirty Democrats did rig the election to destroy our country. Whatever. I say whatever not to make light of our country being “destroyed.” I don’t mean to make light of politics and the seriousness of say, a legitimately rigged election, like what happens in Russia. I say whatever to lead into this –

    What if the election was rigged?

    Then every election was rigged. Why did the Democrats rig the 2020 presidential election but not the congressional one?

    Don’t send me all this evidence about voter fraud and blah blah blah. I’m sorry, stop it. Enough.

    If the election was rigged, then it just all falls apart. Then there is no democracy, there is no voting, there is no America. There is only insurrection. There is vying for power. There is civil war.

    That’s where we’re headed when we deny election results. Period.

    Maybe you believe your candidate got screwed out of the election. Maybe he really did.

    What happens if Trump wins 2024? Are results accepted then?

    What happens if he loses 2024? Does he accept those results? (Answer to that seems obvious).

    Are we, Republicans, going to support the path to civil war? Are you that big of a supporter of Donald Trump? What has he done to earn this devout loyalty of yours?

    Can we all just shake our heads and get out of this spell for a second? Donald Trump is not the Republican party. When did that happen? When did it become the party of Donald Trump? It’s so crazy to me to take a step back and look at sometimes. How did we get here?

    I’m a firm believer in Republican values, policies, ideologies. But are those ideologies worth ending democracy? Worth civil war?

    I don’t think so.

    Specifically in Arizona, we just finished a primary where the Republican nominee for governor claimed the election was rigged… even after she won.

    When I lose a game in pickup basketball, I don’t argue fraud. I don’t go back and reconsider the process of a pickup basketball game, and call fouls that previously happened. When I start a pickup basketball game, I agree to the unspoken rules of a pickup basketball game. I agree that we call our own fouls and if my team ends up with less points at the end of the game, then our team is off the court.

    A similar analogy applies to teenage boys playing video games. Teenage boys go into a video game prepared to cry that they were cheated or that the game wasn’t fair. “How did he no scope me!? I shot him ten times and he didn’t die!” I’m out of touch with teenagers, hip lingo, and video games, so “the kids” might be saying some other phrase nowadays. Teenage boys are consistent though, that they don’t lose, they get cheated.

    I know these aren’t perfect analogies. But I still believe it illustrates an important point.

    Our Republican candidates are already decrying fraud and a corrupt election even before it starts. They’re going into a pickup game saying the game is rigged. They’re prepared, when they lose, to call fouls after the fact. This isn’t how it works. When did the Republican party become teenage boys, crying about a rigged game before it even starts?

    This, in my opinion, is wholly unacceptable. You’re playing the game; you’ve agreed to the rules. Don’t run if you’re going to refuse to accept results that don’t favor you. Can you imagine that person in pickup basketball? Every time they lose, they refuse to get off the court and claim they actually won? That person would be immediately ostracized and removed from the game. Nobody would put up with that. Why do we put up with it in politics? It’s unacceptable. Lose with dignity. If the results come back and a candidate is unhappy with the result, say the words, “I lost, I concede.”

    That’s it. There is no other way.

    Well, maybe there is another way, in their minds: insurrection, force, civil war. I don’t want representatives representing me who claim fraud even if results favor them, akin to teenage boys.

    I know this will be very polarizing for some to ready. Surprisingly, it might have been polarizing to me a few months ago. By all means, I would love to have a candid discussion about this with anyone. Thoughts welcome. I would love to hear from those who support Donald Trump above all else. For example, I know the analogy of don’t play pickup basketball if you can’t play by the rules will have some say, “well then we just don’t run for office, or try? We just give over our values to the other party?” I know it’s not a perfect analogy. But what I’m saying is this:

    If you go down this rabbit hole of conspiracy, fraud, and rigged elections, then America as we know it is over. That’s it. Then it will be rioting in the streets, open warfare, civil war. If that’s what you believe needs to happen, if you’re that opposed to the other party’s ideologies and the risk of them winning an election, then ok, burn the whole thing to the ground. I disagree. But on that one, we’ll definitely have to agree to disagree.

    I HATE writing about politics. But I had to share my thoughts on this. Donald Trump still hasn’t accepted 2020’s election results. What happens when he denies 2024’s? Or, what happens when he wins 2024, but doesn’t want to be done in 2028 after serving 2 terms? If you can refuse to accept you lost an election, would it really be that shocking to refuse to only serve two terms?

    Then Donald Trump gets, potentially, his wish. He becomes Vladimir Putin.

    I don’t know about you, but that’s a scary thought, to me.

    P.S. It helped creatively to say I couldn’t Google search that podcast. Of course, I could go through my phone and find the played podcast. It’s a podcast called “Radiolab.” It is an episode titled “What if?” from October 22, 2020. Definitely go listen to it.