We had a tough overtime loss to Los Angeles. It would be easy to make excuses and talk about playing on back-to-back nights and flying to LA for second game but champions don't make excuses. What some people don't realize is that champions do lose from time to time. Many fans think champions should be perfect -- they should win them all. Lose a game or two and many go into the "sky is falling" mentality.
One thing I have learned from playing at a championship level on the collegiate and professional level is that a big difference between champions and average teams is that champions learn from their defeat. And each defeat can teach a different lesson. The course of a basketball season is a long process with many opportunities along the way for us to grow.
On the professional level, you must be able to quickly move from one possession to the next. The same holds true for victory and defeat. You have very little time to linger on either unless you want it to allow you to effect you negatively in your next game. On the professional level, we play the best of the best each night. You must be constantly moving forward. At LSU, we were taught to be "NBA" players -- meaning NEXT BEST ACTION. Possession by possession...game by game!
Here are a few of my favorite quotes regarding defeat and adversity:
"What is defeat? Nothing but education, nothing but the first step to something better."
-Wendell Phillips
"It is defeat that turns bone to flint; it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle; it is defeat that makes men invincible."
-Henry Ward Beecher
"Failure is success if we learn from it."
-Malcolm S. Forbes
"Problems are only opportunities in work clothes."
-Henry Kaiser
"Opportunity...often it comes in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat."
-Napoleon Hill
"Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again."
-Henry Ford
"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
-Confucius
"History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats."
-B. C. Forbes
"Success...seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes but they don’t quit."
-Conrad Hilton
"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go."
-William Feather
"The glory is in being knocked to your knees and then rising again."
-Vince Lombardi
"Fall down 7 times...get up 8."
-Chinese Proverb
