A tribute to ESPN+’s Detail: How Kobe Bryant inspired NBA’s disruptive innovations?
Our Co-Founder and CEO Marquis Cabrera shares how Kobe Bryant inspired the NBA’s disruptive innovations
By Marquis Cabrera
This last week, for me, has been a rollercoaster; from listening to hours of impeachment hearings to hearing about the perishing of NBA legend Kobe Bryant and Harvard Business School legend Clayton Christensen. I had to stop and pause for a minute to have a cathartic moment of expression.
I LOVE, love, love sports, including Kobe’s game (and mindset!), probably because I love game theory and strategy, which I studied at MIT. I grew up with Kobe. I was 8 years old when Kobe started playing in the league. I was 15 when Lebron started playing. I was 21 when Curry started playing.
In Jan 2010, I met Kobe Bryant for the first time when he was in Boston for a Celtics game. He, I know, was a maniacal competitor; I lived through epic battles. I watched him and Shaq compete against the Magic, Detroit, Celtics, Kings (Bibby, Weber, Peja, and Vlady!) in the championships, but I also studied and admired his work ethic.
Kobe believed: If you exponentially learn/practice, get better every day, work to stay healthy, practice more, you could consistently be great enough to break the current standard earned.
Kobe’s persona shouted: How do I create a personal competitive advantage, and how do I react to my opponent’s changing competitive advantage? This is why I love ESPN+ Detail because Kobe broke down game strategy with proper industry vernacular. Kobe (no doubt!) had his flaws; however, his pursuit of excellence, even as a marque in the face of injury, set a standard that many aspired to achieve. He inspired other athletes to achieve their own greatness by realizing and creating their own personal competitive advantage.
To me, the “Mamba Mentality” means:
- Feed and channel your own beast of burden.
- Create and master your personal competitive advantage.
- Failing to win is learning to lead and respect the competition.
4. Respect the classics and fundamentals. But if you want to be great, always be learning.
5. Embrace new cultures and talents, even if foreign and competitive.
Most people don’t understand what it’s like to chase something beyond you, not for the glory, but to master it at the highest of levels and break the current standard of greatness because you want to see if you have the ability to. To aim to always be achieving a standard of excellence and acceptance of your own beast of burden, your own drive to succeed at something bigger than you — to be as great as you can be at whatever you want to be great at.
If you look at my writing portfolio, I have written about the intersection of business and society. For example:
What Stephen Curry Can Teach Entrepreneurs (Huffington Post)
Was Mark Cuban “For Real” or Just Trying to Sell a Product? (Huffington Post)
Child Welfare Leaders Follow NBA Champion Spurs Lead (Huffington Post)
Brandon Marshall Gives $1 Million to Mental Health Care (Huffington Post)
How Can IBM Watson Help Professional Sports Teams Win Championships? (Huffington Post)
This piece is a tribute to Kobe’s legacy because he would say the show stills goes on. If you loved sports and competitive industries, raise your game and honor Kobe. Be your own MVP.
How?
Beyond physical attributes, what makes you win? How do you figure out how to win? What happens when strategy goes wrong? How do you adjust quickly, like Bill Belichick? What does winning mean to you because you must score at something in life? What do you want to be great at? What sandbox do you want to play in? What is your specific competitive advantage? These are questions Kobe taught me to ask. These are questions Kobe’s Mamba Mentality taught me to ask.
Kobe’s Mamba Mentality created many disruptive innovations, like Kyrie Irving and Stephen Curry.
Bias Alert! — My favorite NBA player today is Stephen Curry because I can relate to him in so many ways. Beyond being a close in height hazel green-eyed tan-skinned boy who grew up in the burbs watching Kobe and Lebron, his seemingly goofy demeanor, consistently take a risk, recognize talents, learn to win, “be you and do you” acceptance of others, and, more importantly, and being trained by the old school really vibe with me. Imagine if Curry had Lebron’s body type, he would be physically unstoppable on a court, which is why Kahwi and Giannis (with the clutch genes in their veins and developing their three-point shooting) have the ability to be the best in the game. This is why Kobe believed Tracy McGrady had no flaws in his game both offensively (and defensively!).
Case Study: Stephen Curry is a disruptive innovation in the NBA that Kobe inspired
My life experiences working at the White House, Wayfair, Massachusetts Appeals Court, and IBM, coupled with Clayton Christensen, led me to create Stat Zero. Stat Zero is disrupting corporate innovation approaches by enabling tech giants to successfully creatively destruct by helping governments to digitally transform. Recently, we won the ‘Best Sustainable Investment Company’ by World Finance Magazine because we were considered to be a disruptive innovation in global public sector markets.
Clayton Christensen taught me Disruptive Innovation. Clayton Christensen inspired Stat Zero’s competitive advantage: key business essentials, our corporate structure, and operating models.
Clayton Christensen, like Kobe, was also a basketball player. He played at Oxford and his son successfully competed for an NCAA championship with Coach K at Duke University. I am sure there are many lessons on business strategy Clayton learned, especially if you’ve listened to any of his best analogies. This is why I love Clayton Christensen’s books, The Innovator’s Dilemma, and read it 3x overs. My personal favorite is Disruptive Innovation.
According to Clayton Christensen’s definition and application of disruptive innovation, Stephen Curry can be classified as a disruptive innovation in the NBA, which is even truer because Curry grew up around the game. Disruptive Innovation (coined by Christensen) is an “innovation that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market-leading firms, products, and alliances.” If you need some basics, here’s a primer on Disruptive Innovation:
According to ESPN’s 2016 article, Steph Curry has no limit to his range, the NBA average on shots from 3 feet or closer is 59.5 %. Stephen Curry was shooting 60.4% on shots from 28 feet or farther in 2016. Even if you can shoot 20% from 28 feet, you can force the defense to play differently, which is why NBA coaches and teams have embraced a floor-spacing strategy, like Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey.
Curry actually implements a floor strategy “always make the defense scramble” that’s predicated on mastering the basics. Curry combined Kobe’s offensive game and mastery of basics with Dell Curry’s sharpshooting and Reggie Millers off the ball screens but tied in Lebron’s ability to make everyone a scoring option on the floor by mastering his ability to shoot from deeper in order to create more floor space. If you watch the Warriors, and I have been lucky enough to live in the Bay for their championship runs, check out how many off-ball screens Curry sets to enable everyone on the court to get space. By setting the off-ball screens after passing forces the defense to scramble, thereby making all teammates a scoring option. Therefore, Stephen Curry is always an offensive weapon because he creates space for himself and his teammates both on and off the ball, which has made the Golden State Warriors offensive dangerous and lead to a championship.
Stephen Curry mastered implementing a court strategy, which is predicated on the basis of learning how the game works and how the greats won. Curry learned from his dad, Magic, Kobe, and Miller’s court strategy to create his competitive advantage, but he evolved the game to encompass Lebron’s make everyone on the court a weapon if you’re a weapon when he could show coaches that he if he could consistently hit outside further from the three-point shot that they would let him take them. Kobe inspired this standard to master the fundamentals, but Curry pushed it to new heights, which has now transformed the league and inspired the next generation — shout out to Gigi Bryant’s fave player Trae Young — to adhere to a standard. However, I agree with Maverick’s Owner Mark Cuban that this could change easily if another Shaq joins the NBA.
In China, Kobe said, live life to the fullest in your own sandbox and make it as beautiful as you want it to be. This is why I loved ESPN+ Detail because Kobe was living his best life; he broke down game strategy with proper industry vernacular that I did not have and explained new ways to learn and apply competitive advantages, which will create even more disruptive innovations in the NBA.
