The Good Pain

A belated congrats to the Toronto Raptors for a historic playoff run, capped by a finals win over the defending champs, the Golden State Warriors.  Raptors fans and all of Canada are ecstatic, and can probably exhale now that their star player Kawhi Leonard made it through the entire year without re-injuring himself (after missing most of last year with a quad injury).  Speaking of injuries, hats off to the Warriors for fighting to the end despite absorbing devastating and potentially league-altering injuries to Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson. 

We are in the midst of a historically great era in NBA – as entertainment, as a marker of physical achievement, and as social commentary – and I am largely on the sidelines.  Actually, in the spirit of this analogy, I am not even on the sidelines, and I am not even watching from home.  For my schedule does not permit anything more than watching condensed clips and instructional videos the morning after on sites like ESPN, YouTube, and BBallBreakdown.  Yet even in 5- to 10-minute increments, I have vicariously experienced all the highlights, all the pettiness, and all the gut-wrenching drama.

In life, as in sports, for every thrill of victory, there are usually many more agonies of defeat.  Not sure if winning is sweeter than losing is bitter, but no one goes through life without tasting a little bit of both.  Of course, we all want to win.  But sometimes we have to lose first, and sometimes often, before we can win. 

Indeed, one might argue that losing is a prerequisite to winning.  Because winning requires a level of commitment and determination and sacrifice that is hard to manufacture simply by imagining how sweet it will feel to win.  Before you win, you don’t know how good it feels.  But you’ve often felt how bitter defeat is.  And it can be highly motivating. 

As you must know, here in Philly, we experienced a bitter loss earlier in these playoffs.  It took a dramatic, unprecedented buzzer-beating shot in the winner-take-all Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semi-finals for the 76ers to get eliminated.  And 76ers star Joel Embiid left the court in tears as a result. 

Losing hurts.  It is also an effective motivator.  Joel Embiid is only 24 years old.  He is only now maturing as a man and a basketball player, and is learning the difficult lesson of how much losing hurts and how much effort is required to make the leap from defeat to victory.  Here in Philly, we hope to one day draw a direct line from this bitter loss to a sweet win, in the form of one man and one team who, having tasted defeat, decided to do whatever it took to taste victory.