As a basketball fan and somebody who strives to be better over time, I felt nothing, but deep admiration for Lebron and great inspiration from him after this story from Wall Streel Journal. Per WSJ:
There used to be a way to make James slightly worse at basketball: make him shoot. He wasn’t a bad shooter. He just wasn’t a great shooter. It was smart defense to dare him into a shot if only because that seemed like a better idea than letting him try anything else with the ball in his hands.
I am old enough to remember the time when it gave teams a better odd to just dare Lebron to shoot. He could have done much more damage with his ability to drive or his excellent court vision and passing. There were games in which he shot the lights out. Case in point, 54 out of 78 games in which he scored 40 points or more took place before 2015. 9 out of 12 games in which he scored 50 points or more happened before 2015 (Source: Wikipedia). He is indeed one of the greatest players in history, but was not known for being a great shooter.
Well, not any more. I have watched Lebron take and make more threes and, scarily, deeper threes in the last two or three years. Per WSJ:
One of the most remarkable things about Lebron is his ability to look after his body. Entering the league in 2003 and playing many more games by going deep in the post-season (he has been to the Final every year since 2010), he still has the speed and explosiveness. The vision, the passing and the post-up are still there. Now, he added the pull-up threes to his arsenal. The thing with pull-up threes and long threes in his case is that they open up the defense. Defenders have to go up farther than they wish to defend Lebron. If you know he can make a deep three at 40% rate, it will be foolish to leave him alone. Hence, more space near the basket will be available for Lebron’s teammates and himself.
We can all learn from Lebron. Great as he is, he still strives to grow by adapting his game to the changes in the league. Steph Curry forever changed the NBA with his game. To compete and get better, Lebron managed to add more skills to his repertoire.
In this day and age, access to knowledge and information is more available than ever. There is no shortage of resources that we can use to learn. On the other hand, the job market is more competitive than ever. It is no longer sustainable for any individual to stagnate and be forever satisfied with his or her own skillset. If you stagnate and don’t evolve with the changes in the market, you risk being obsolete. Take some dying industries such as mining or coal. The thing with such industries is that no incentives can save them forever when better alternatives become increasingly cheaper (renewables). Workers in those industries need to be taught new skills to be more competitive in this job market. That’s the long term solution for everyone, not the incentives by the government or tariffs.
Technology opens up a lot of possibilities, but also makes it harder for anyone of us to stand still. A lot of tools nowadays facilitate design and programming for people without technical background with “drag and drop” features. Robinhood allows individuals to invest without fees to brokers. Workers in warehouses are increasingly replaced by more and more automation. Businesses are in the game to make money. If technology can unlock more efficiency with automation and strengthen their bottom line, that’s what they will embrace. As job seekers, we have to adapt and evolve to become an asset that is hard to replace.
Minh Quang Duong 