With this week being NBA Finals week and my favorite team, the LA Lakers inching closer to a Championship, I thought I would talk a little basketball. Nearly twenty years ago, Allen Iverson of the Philadelphia 76ers was recorded by the media at a press conference as saying his now-famous “Practice” speech. I can still remember where I was when I heard this news for the first time. Things didn’t go viral back then, but this press conference was as close to going viral as one could get. It was played on ESPN every hour on the hour. You could just say that it was the press conference ‘heard round the world.’
What made the press conference so iconic was that it involved an All Star, an unmistakable voice, and a long-held belief and value being questioned at its core. When Allen Iverson (AI) said, “Practice, are we talking about practice?”, it came across to every listening ear that this star point guard thought of himself as above practice. AI is known as “The Truth” and the truth is Iverson didn’t become the all-star he is without practice. Iverson knows this is true and would tell you to this day that he regrets the press conference. AI has gone on record saying that everyone finds his quote funny, but himself. There were a lot of things coming together at one time that caused AI to blow up and go on a rant that echoes throughout time. To his credit, AI got to an NBA Finals. Unfortunately, he never won a ring. My Lakers beat him!
This all brings me to an NBA player today that plays the same position as AI and has a similar size, skillset, and game. Like AI, this player has made some questionable comments in the past, but none so questionable as the comments he made this past week. Brooklyn Nets Point Guard Kyrie Irving has gone on record saying “I don’t really see us having a head coach.” That comment would be fine if it were true, but the truth is Brooklyn just hired a new coach by the name of Steve Nash days before Kyrie made his comments.
To make matters worse, Kyrie’s all-star teammate Kevin Durant chimed in saying that Nash’s coaching was going to be a “collaborative effort.” In other words, the players and the coach will coach the team. In speaking of Kyrie and himself, Durant continues, “I think a lot of people may question our leadership, overall or just us two.”
Collaboration and leadership are great things, that is when they are properly understood. In next generation ministry, collaboration and leadership are vital. Coaches and players should always collaborate, but never to the point where the players become the coach. If and when this happens, why even hire a coach? I do question Kyrie and Durant’s leadership style. I see Kyrie and Durant as great players, but not as great leaders. The reason is because underneath all of the player quotes run a philosophy or a belief system called postmodernism.
Postmodernism isn’t all bad. There remains a mixture of truth within this system. For example, the coach who doesn’t listen to anything his players say shouldn’t be coaching at all. But postmodernism also produces a belief system that ultimately can’t be trusted. For example, Kyrie Irving is also on record saying that he believes the world is flat. Just because you believe something doesn’t mean that it is true, yet postmodernism would say that what’s true for you is true for you and what’s true for me is true for me. At that point, the standard of truth becomes subjective and not based on something objective, such as the Word of God.
Leadership matters. And so does authority. Postmodernism undermines authority. For this reason, I don’t see how Nash, Irving, and Durant will be able to co-exist long enough to produce an NBA Championship. You need more than great players to pull a championship off. You need a great culture and you need great leaders at every level. Bottom-up leadership is a great thing, but not at the expense of disallowing those up-top of the ability to lead. In this way, postmodernism operates upside-down as it doesn’t make any more sense than the sense it takes to believe the world is flat.
In life, the Holy Spirit is our coach. The Bible says that he is our comforter and counselor. We all need a teacher, a coach. What we don’t need to do is to say that coaches are a necessary evil. Coaches are in place to help players get to the next level, to their next stage of development. This type of philosophy works at the professional level as much as it does the middle school level. Once a player thinks he has arrived, his growth is stunted. Who better to coach Kyrie than a two-time NBA MVP? Last time I checked, Kyrie hasn’t won one of those awards.