In Praise of the Dime

I haven’t had much time to write lately, because I’ve been busy with work. Blogging, for me at least, has two components. First, you need to set aside the time to write. Second, and equally important, you need to have some down time to brainstorm. Each of these things has been tough to come by for the last two weeks or so, but I’m making it a point this afternoon to take a long lunch and write.

I try not to write about sports much on this thing for fear that once I get started that’s all I’d do. I did come across this article though about which I’d like to comment. It basically illustrates the “Kobe effect.” For those that don’t know, Kobe Bryant, shooting guard for the LA Lakers, scored 81 points the other day. He shot the ball 46 times in 42 minutes. Just as there’s no “I” in “team,” there isn’t a “Kobe” either. Sadly, now all the kids in high school are trying to be Kobe, jacking up shot after shot. The very fact that such performances get lauded as great games further confirms the notion that our society is individualistic to a fault.

In both my (arguably) illustrious intramural sports career and as a career spectator, I’ve concluded that the most difficult thing to do in team sports is to make others better. The frustration involved is often expressed in the phrase, “Give me my dime!” A “dime” in basketball slang in an assist. Let’s say you set up a guy perfectly for an easy dunk or layup, say, and he totally blows it. Had he converted the easy shot, you would have been credited with an assist. Due to his gaff, you get nothing, hence the frustrated exclamation, c’mon, give me my dime! Or, in other words, convert the easy shot I worked so hard to create for you, dummy!

In short, assists are far more valuable than points, if only in their scarcity. Adam Morrison is leading college hoops in scoring at 29 points per game. Meanwhile, the top assists leaders in the country average between 6 and 8 per game. Still, assists is an incredibly crude and inaccurate measure for how good you’re making your teammates. Think about it. We don’t even have a statistic to measure what I’m taking about! One might argue that such a nebulous thing is difficult to quantify, but I think the problem is much deeper. Regardless, because we do not have the vocabulary to describe these random acts of kindness on the court or field, such acts go unnoticed, which makes it difficult to sensationalize, which makes it difficult to market, which means that youngens aren’t likely to emulate such things.

I believe this point has applicability to every day life. I haven’t exactly worked it out yet, but I’ll try to do so on the fly but I reserve the right to revisit the issue later.

One of the most interesting discussions I witnessed in law school was about the bystander effect. Basically, a group of individuals is less likely to do anything to stop the brutal rape they are witnessing than an individual. In a sense, responsibility diffuses over the group so thinly than no individual is moved to action. People tend to think of right and wrong strictly in terms of their own individuality. However, individual morality does not function well in groups. Mobs are moved to do (or refrain from) things than no individual in that mob would do.

Still, there is such a thing as group morality. There must be, for we see that individual morality is inadequate for group situations. And all it requires is slight paradigm shift from thinking about life as an individual sport to thinking of it as a team sport.

Growing up, my mom would always tell me to keep “good friends.” Not only that, when I made a new friend, she would ask me whether that person kept “good friends.” My mother isn’t the most articulate of people, but I understood what she meant. I thought. I shrugged it off as my mother being judgmental. After 25 years of life, I finally get it. I think.

Imagine the people around you as teammates. Some teammates will be like Kobe, people for whom individual success is paramount. Some teammates will be bystanders. In the long run, they won’t make you any better, and they may even make you worse. If those people are all you have, you’re unlikely to achieve greatness. What these people share in common is that they do not have a group-morality or a team-mindset and their individual morality is inapposite for the circumstances. The very group setting is like a weight around the ankle, hindering the player from reaching the heights of his individual greatness. You can see how trying to play one-on-one with ten people on the court may be problematic.

But imagine surrounding yourself with a bunch of team-players; a collective whole much greater than its parts, a bunch of mediocre players sharing in greatness. These people pick you up when you’re down, they inspire and motivate you. They ‘assist’ you in life. As such, they make you better than you ever could have been as an individual.

I’m wondering if I’ve befriended such people. I wonder if I am such a person to others. Do the people around me encourage me to be a mere bystander? Is someone else taking all the shots ala Kobe? Are they holding me down or lifting me up? Do I set up my teammates for success? Do I make the most of opportunities given to me by others? I’m not sure if I adequately give or receive such assists, but I’ve just now come to realize their place in life and relationships. The movie “The Legend of Bagger Vance” suggested that golf can be an allegory for life. What my mom was trying to say is that life is more appropriately likened to a team sport, like basketball. That is, living life is far easier if you have people trying to help you succeed. She wanted me to befriend those people. And it may have taken me a good 15 or 20 years to understand the lesson, but thanks ma, here’s your dime.