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1

No Guts, No Glory

Close your eyes for a minute. Go back to the late 1980s when the Chicago Bulls, led by Michael Jordan, couldn’t get past the Detroit Pistons. They were so close, losing in six games in 1989 and in seven games in 1990, but they just couldn’t get past them. You could see the devastation on their faces. You could feel their heartbreak. They knew how close they were.

Keep ’em closed. I know it’s tough to do that and read this book at the same time, but you’re going to have to find a way, because this won’t be the last time I ask you to do this. Rather than come back and try again, imagine that Michael simply left the Bulls and joined the Pistons. I know, it’s jarring. I’m sorry. I almost had to go to the hospital the first time I tried.

You can open your eyes. By now, you should know the story. Jordan used the losing as fuel. He stayed with the Bulls, worked even harder, and Chicago beat Detroit in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals en route to the first of three straight championships. That’s what basketball is all about. What sports is all about. What being a champion is all about. A little thing I like to call “The Climb.” When you can’t quite get to the mountaintop, you work even harder, add pieces, keep grinding, keep chopping, put the blinders on, come back and try again.

Unless, of course, you are Kevin Durant.

Let’s fast-forward from Jordan’s era to the 2016 Western Conference Finals. Kevin Durant was still playing for the Oklahoma City Thunder, Russell Westbrook was still his built-in excuse if anything went wrong, and they were up three games to one on the Golden State Warriors. One game away from the NBA Finals. So close to beating what many were calling one of the best teams of all time. The Thunder were on the precipice of the aforementioned mountaintop.

But Durant fell apart, shooting 22 of 63 combined from the field in Games 5 and 6, and Oklahoma City eventually lost to Golden State in the decisive seventh game. So close. Heartbreaking. All that work, all that sweat, the travel, the dedication, and they still came up short. And it’s OK that KD wasn’t great in those games. It happens. The Thunder wouldn’t have been in that position without him. I get it. It’s what happened next that makes it impossible for me to look past.

What you do in that situation, if you are one of the three best basketball players in the world and you are playing with another top ten player, is this: take a little break and then get back to work with your team. Like Jordan did. What you definitely don’t do is leave the team that worked so hard with you and join the team that you couldn’t beat.

Nope. Sorry.

You gagged. Not them. As one of the three best players in the world, it’s your responsibility to come back and fight with the guys that you led. Yes, even if one of the guys is Dion Waiters. That’s what the all-time greats do. They make champions out of guys like Dion Waiters. Dallas Cowboys legend Michael Irvin—The Playmaker—once told me there are two types of athletes: ones who put rings on other people’s fingers and ones who allow others to put rings on their fingers.

Speaking of Dion Waiters, here are the Top 5 people in sports and entertainment who connote something you would find in a restaurant.


Outside Looking In (OLI)

Jerod Mayo
Clarence Weatherspoon
Phil Coke
Cris Dishman
Jarrod Saltalamacchia
Dion Waiters
Willie Glass
Stewart Cink

5. Dave “Soup” Campbell
4. Antrel Rolle
3. Dottie Pepper
2. Sauce Gardner
1. Manute Bol

Anyway, you know I’m right about this. It’s impossible to disagree. Even KD knows he took a shortcut. Notice how sensitive he was when he was in Golden State? That was because he knew he cheated. He knew. And suggesting that one of the reasons he chose Golden State was to be close to Silicon Valley? No way. Silicon Valley would have come to Oklahoma City. Silicon Valley? What a joke. Here are the only reasons KD chose Golden State: Steph Curry. Klay Thompson. Draymond Green. And because he’s gutless. OK, and maybe, just maybe, because he was sick of playing with Dion Waiters.

Champions don’t leave their team before they become champions to join a team that is already champions—especially when those champions beat your team on the way to the Finals. KD took the easy path, plain and simple. And the easy path is never rewarded in my personal record book.

Do you know what the E in the Elias Sports Bureau stands for? Eleven, as in the number of players who have been named NBA Finals MVP multiple times, because Kevin Durant has no rings.