I’d like to see this type of process applied to the business world to young talent. In basketball, it appears that if you provide your younger players with more playing time (and proper coaching), they will become successful faster. Seems like it should translate, no?

David Thorpe has been making similar points for years. He talks all the time about “the royal jelly.” Literally, that’s what worker bees feed a chosen baby bee to make her the queen. But it’s also, says Thorpe, what coaches and others can feed players to help them achieve their potential. A lot of it has to do with building confidence. Throughout his career, Thorpe has been accused of hyping up his players up and giving them big heads, to which he replies, jokingly, “guilty!” Thorpe is convinced that “the royal jelly” can and has fundamentally changed the careers of countless players. The gold standard of helping a player evolve, he says, starts with playing time.

“Playing time is the first part,” says Thorpe. “A coach’s support is another thing — it helps you grow as a player if you know you’re not going to get yanked the first time you miss a shot. That gives you the confidence to be creative and expand your game. And then the final aspect of the ideal set-up is coaching you up on the new things you’re adding to your game. A great recent example of this was Trevor Ariza with the Lakers last season. In the spring, everyone was wondering why they’d let him shoot all those 3s. It wasn’t productive. But they needed him to be able to do that, they let him do that, they didn’t yank him for doing that, and they coached him how to do that better. And in the playoffs he was amazing at that and helped them win a championship.”On a lot of teams, Ariza would have been condemned to the low-earning life of a non-shooter, but the coaching situation, and minutes, turned him into a sniper.

Interesting perspective if you’re following the Lebron James free agency sweepstakes.  It seems though that Lebron and his camp may be thinking about his personal brand and legacy.

History also says that LeBron, from his years studying uber-successful mentors Warren Buffett and Jay-Z, is big on the word “partnership.” Sources with a pipeline to his inner circle say that James has been schooled to approach his long-awaited foray into free agency as a search for a business partner who can help cement the legacy of the LeBron brand as opposed to a strict hunt for the on-the-court sidekicks who can help him win the multiple championships he needs to get anywhere near Global Icon status.

I still think he should sign for the league minimum salary and win the next 7 championships, but that will (most likely) not happen. That, to me, is the quickest way to cement a legacy. It’s my guess that he ends up in Chicago or Dallas (long shot).

On a couple of occasions I’ve been accused of being a bit too lackadaisical with my approach to things. I like to marinate and let things come to me and take their natural course. It seems it could be the Buddhist in me. Or I could be a perfect fit for the Los Angeles Lakers. My philosophy has always been that I work best when I’m as relaxed as possible. I hate getting wound up and stressed out; I make mistakes and rush things. And, it seems, the Lakers agree.

Let’s take the game tomorrow night. A lot of people think it’s a big game. … The purpose is to give yourself an opportunity to get your best performance. It’s not about winning. There’s a difference. You want your best performance. You want your teammates’ best performance. And if you provide your best performance chances are you will win. But in order to have your best performance, you have to be relaxed.

Dave Eggers takes a look at why soccer hasn’t become a more popular sport in the US. GOOD and the New York Times explore the same question, but with a twist: is America’s obsession with college getting in the way of producing more soccer talent?

No other nation has as comprehensive a college-sports system as exists here, and none assume that an elite athlete will seek (or benefit from) higher education. “You have a major problem in the ages of 17 to 21,” Huw Jennings, now the director of the youth academy at Fulham, in the English Premier League, told me when I visited him in London. “The N.C.A.A. system is the fault line. I understand that it is good for a person’s development to go to university, but it’s not the way the world develops players.”

It’s a very interesting discussion and now makes me think about the NBA’s age/college requirements. If we’re talking NBA, I think more players looking to skip college should take the Brandon Jennings route (but maybe for longer than a year).

The original reason I went to Iron Chef Michael Symon’s facebook page was to talk about Symon wanting LeBron James to re-sign in Cleveland — going as far as to bribing King James with an Iron Chef style dinner for his family and friends

From David Halberstam’s book A March to Madness: A View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference:

Every team needs a motherfucker, someone who is tough and mean and willing to do anything to win. That can mean getting in the other team’s face or getting in the face of a teammate if necessary. Michael Jordan was a motherfucker, even if his college coach wouldn’t use the term.

From my buddy Don, comes this article on Tom Izzo’s student managers who slice video, track stats and never sleep. The part of this story that has interested me before is the blending of stat-tracking and coaching. The trend is for stats to translate to basketball.

“It’s probably the worst abuse of Microsoft Excel ever,” said Kevin Pauga, a 27-year-old former manager who is now Michigan State’s director of basketball operations. “We want to know everything. We sort the data and stats, and that helps us make crucial decisions. Our job is to help solve problems before they even start. You can be prepared.”

Here’s an interesting article about building the personal brand of Lebron James. I still go back to the idea of Lebron sacrificing a huge paycheck to win a championship. I think more superstars should take this mindset. Sacrifice some immediate money for the good of the team and your personal brand (should) increases as the team succeeds.