Love and basketball
Love and basketball
Steph Curry, couples therapist
The thing about growing up in a broken home is that life doesn’t really teach you to how to do your part in a healthy relationship. The thing about being a guy who likes watching basketball is that there are useful tools right there on the screen, all season long.
In economics, there’s a very basic question: guns or butter? The idea is that at all levels, from personal to societal, we face choices about how we use our resources. Some of it has to go toward necessities, while we can spare some for leisure.
One day in high school, I sat next to a friend who was struggling to grasp this concept. She was hung up on how subjective it felt, and while she raised a good point—who, exactly, got to decide that guns are what we need?—the next quiz was going to be bad news if she couldn’t wrap her mind around what the teacher was saying.
Eventually, another student raised their hand and offered a different way to look at it. Instead of guns vs. butter, they said, think of it as homework vs. Gilmore Girls. Each evening was only so long, and while my friend wanted to watch her favorite TV show, she also had to do her homework.
With the matter framed as something familiar rather than being an esoteric idea from a textbook, my friend got it immediately.
I love how the right analogy can do that. Take two subjects that seem unrelated at first blush, put them in the right light, and you’ll probably find the same fundamental patterns at their core.
Like basketball and marriage, for example.
Econ isn’t what troubles me
Guns vs. butter wasn’t a problem for me, but here’s something that can be: acting lovingly in my relationship with my wife, Katharine.
In the house I grew up in, we fought a lot. While I know now that it’s possible to be in conflict without it getting nasty, the younger me never really learned how to do that. When we disagreed with one another, we mostly just shouted or gave each other the cold shoulder.
Those habits are still alive in me, and changing them is a day-in, day-out job. That’s especially true in my marriage, as Katharine is the person my life is most intertwined with. I know how I want to show up with her, but being that person can be hard.
Sometimes, it’s good to apply a fresh lens to that which ails us.
Sometimes, it helps to have a Gilmore Girls.
Basketball is to 2000s TV drama as…
For better or worse, professional sports have held residence in my psyche for as long as I can remember. That’s the case for baseball and football, and even soccer and hockey, but it’s especially true for basketball. The degree to which I actively pay attention has waxed and waned, but I’ve always had at least half an eye on the NBA.
I’ve noticed something in my years of following: today’s game is far more statistics-driven than the Michael Jordan days of my childhood. Today, everyone in the league who isn’t a player, from front office execs to beat writers, seems busy pouring over numbers.
Thanks to all the statheads out there, I know stuff like the following:
The Oklahoma City Thunder are the league’s best team when it comes to scoring in the third quarter of games. For every 100 third quarter possessions, the Thunder average 13.7 more points than their opponents. On the flip side, the Orlando Magic are the NBA’s worst third quarter team, averaging 15 fewer points than their opponents for every 100 times they have the ball.
The San Antonio Spurs average only .7 points per possession when defenses force them to play 1-on-1, which is by far the worst mark in the league.
In last year’s NBA Finals, the Boston Celtics were almost certain to win when star forward Jayson Tatum assisted on seven or more baskets.
It goes on, in staggering detail. Steph Curry holds both a floor spacing and gravity rating of 100 (do I know what that even means? No, but stay with me). The Denver Nuggets average 1.11 points per possession when MVP Nikola Jokic posts up. People write papers like this, where offense is more math class than athletic competition.
In theory, teams can turn all this data into wins, as it can inform on which strengths to play to and which weaknesses to guard against.
Here’s where my mind goes with the bulleted examples above:
The Thunder are probably making the right adjustments at halftime, while the Magic are not. Perhaps the Magic could alter their routine so as to come out stronger in the second half.
In practice, the Spurs should work on some combination of isolation offense and countering the tactics their opponents use to force them into those situations.
If I’m the Celtics, I’d be smart to frequently put Tatum in a position to pass the ball.
This level of analysis has changed basketball. Zoom out, though, and we’re talking about way more than sports.
This is mindfulness. What’s happening is just a different twist on a tool that humanity’s wisest teachers have offered throughout history: be intentional about where you point your consciousness and make decisions based on what you notice.
What’s this got to do with my wedding vows?
I don’t remember not watching SportsCenter as a kid. I also don’t remember many lessons on how to approach interpersonal relationships. Might the thing I’m so familiar with hold lessons on the thing that I’m not?
Let’s say Katharine and I are a team, and that in the game we’re playing, we win when there is harmony between us– we both get our needs met, we feel connected, and we enjoy our time together.
On the other hand, a loss is when we don’t get along– we feel distant from one another, we forget that we’re part of the same whole, we speak and act in unloving ways.
What patterns does the game follow? What strategic choices are available to us? Which plays get us open looks, and when is our defense is most likely to get exposed?
Crunch time
Consider the first example from that list, about the Magic being weak in the third quarter. In the game Katharine and I play, it’s useful for us to be aware of when we tend to stumble.
To be specific, I’d wager that an outsized number of our arguments tend to happen in the first half-hour after Katharine gets home from work. On any given evening, if a fight doesn’t happen in that 30-minute window, it’s far less likely that one will happen at all.
How do I prepare for this critical moment in the game? One tactic is taking a little time to tidy up the living room and clean up the kitchen from lunch if I haven’t already. The de-stressed environment is a good first step in setting things up to go our way.
Cleaning up the turnovers
Looking at the second example, our analog to the isolation offense that the Spurs struggle with might be conversations about thorny topics like scheduling, finances, or home repairs. I don’t have crazy cameras set up to track this, but I’d guess that if we were to run the numbers, we’ve got an above-average turnover rate when these subjects come up.
Knowing this, are there things we can do to make sure we keep our cool even when wading into fraught territory?
On the court, my team can run offensive plays that keep the pressure at bay. At home, my moves might be to lower the volume of my voice, resolve to do more listening than speaking, and pay attention to my breathing. Even in the heat of the game, I can return to my highest goal, which is to collaborate with Katharine rather than bully her into seeing things my way.
Making the right pass
About the third example, where the Celtics won Finals games when Jayson Tatum had seven or more assists. My take there is that Tatum’s team is benefiting from more than just the points scored as a result of those particular seven passes. When Tatum gets his teammates involved, it creates an energy that the Celtics feed off of and that the defense must react to.
What kinds of actions tend to create momentum for Katharine’s and my team? Saying “thank you” for something routine? Doing her dishes? Filling the gas tank?
It’s not like smooth sailing is guaranteed just because I do these things, but could they have some kind of intangible effect on our atmosphere? If I make X number of intentional efforts to lighten her load or make her feel appreciated, might that be equivalent to Jayson Tatum getting his assist numbers up?
Do the numbers actually matter?
A few of my friends like to debate just how useful advanced stats even are. One of them frequently notes that you don’t need a spreadsheet to know that you should pass the ball to the tall guy in the paint. When I told him I was writing about all this, warned me not to overcomplicate things.
“If you make a stat for every little thing,” he joked, “your marriage will end up as boring as baseball.”
He’s right. In sports and beyond, the modern obsession with being Data Driven can get a little tiresome. We’ve leaned so hard on the quantifiable that we’ve forgotten how to trust our eyes and gut, two of our most critical truth-tellers.
Forget the numbers for a second though, as well as the argument over stats vs. the eye test.
What’s actually important is that I arrive at the lesson I’m meant to learn, which is this: you don’t end old habits randomly, just like NBA teams don’t just hope and wish their way to wins. Making adjustments demands situational awareness and intentionality. If the numbers aid in that effort, great.
Let’s win
Back to where we started: guns or butter? (Or if it’s easier for you, think homework vs. watching TV.) Where do we put our resources? What choices do we face about how to use our time, our energy, our consciousness?
Can you imagine a world where we invested in our relationships the way we invest in sports?
Here at home, how much of a difference can I make if I commit to paying attention to my tendencies the way that analytics pay attention to basketball?
I’ve got some good habits, to be sure. But there’s also some serious inertia behind some of my more destructive ways of interacting with people close to me– generations worth of it, really.
I’ll take all the help I can get with interrupting it. Maybe that means reading a marriage book, or perhaps it’s going to couples counseling.
I’m cool with shooting vs. passing, too.
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A couple more notes:
If my work is valuable or enjoyable for you, please consider sending some financial love via Venmo (@Jonathan-Neeley-2) or PayPal (neeley87@gmail.com).
I teach creative writing classes that are great for anyone into self expression or introspection. New dates start in January. (And membership makes for a great Christmas gift!)
If you could use a movie recommendation, check out Jonah Hill’s Stutz on Netflix. It’s basically one long interview with his therapist that manages to stay lighthearted while also offering really clear examples of tools for taking care of your mental health. Katharine and I watched it last weekend and it was like reading a self-help book, but much more fun.
Enjoy Sunday’s games if watching is your thing, and of course:
Much love,
Jonathan
This gave me a new perspective on how to help prevent turnovers in my relationship. Like you stated, your most turnovers happen after Katharine gets home. Such a great outlook, thanks for sharing! :)