The Pressure Gauges of Elite Athletes
Who’s under the most pressure in this NBA Finals series? It’s a question that has been discussed on most of the popular sports media shows this week and for the duration of the playoffs as we lead into the series that will determine our next NBA champion.
There is some perceived pressure for the Celtics as an organization to win now. It’s an understandable premise given the recent history and the general nostalgia around the franchise. The Celtics have 17 championship banners in their rafters at TD Garden. The Celtics have made the Eastern Conference Finals 6 of the last 8 years. Led by Jayson Tatum and his sidekick, Jaylen Brown, they dominated the East this year winning 64 games during the regular season and have basically sleep walked through the playoffs as they have played under matched injury riddled squads in Miami, Cleveland, and Indiana.
It’s fathomable to believe that there are sky high expectations for the team and Tatum, as the leader. However, when speaking about pressure on individual players, I think this is an internal self vs self-conflict that can not necessarily be gauged by outsiders.
I’ve shared this sentiment about James Harden, Matthew Stafford (before winning a Super Bowl), Chris Paul, Dan Marino, Kevin Durant, and other prominent athletes who have had this debate about pressure to win a title permeate around their careers. Hypothetically speaking, what if some of these players are content with where they are or with how they finished in their careers? That’s a perspective that goes unnoticed in many of these conversations. I’ve always said, the accolades that fans use to put athletes on a pedestal aren’t the same accolades that athletes use to put themselves on a pedestal. Take a Russell Westbrook for example. A noted, non-champion, Westbrook had one of the greatest individual seasons in NBA history averaging 31 ppg, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists on the way to winning an MVP award in 2016–17. Is it too far fetched to believe that maybe, just maybe, Westbrook is satisfied with his career accomplishments if he had to walk away today? I can’t call it. Maybe the fact that he hasn’t reached the Finals since 2012 and that he hasn’t gotten that illusive championship ring does keep him up at night. Point is, only Russell himself, would be able to tell us that.
There’s something deeper that drives these athletes to succeed and exceed expectations. It’s not always the observer’s discourse over legacy that provides the fuel behind that. You have to dig deeper to understand that premise. It’s a corny cliche when we hear players speak on deterring the distractions but, maybe some of these players aren’t on social media and aren’t really worried about all the outside noise. Maybe some of these players don’t feel the need to uphold themselves to the standards of the public. We, as fans, project subdued feelings on to players because we speak about these things from the perspective of what we would want if we were in these athlete’s shoes. Simply put, we are not. That means there’s essentially no way to read the PSI on the pressure gauges that we place on players.
Next time you hear or participate in the discourse around pressure on players to do A or B, keep the following questions in mind. Does this player even want it as bad as we think? Are they content? Are they settling? No one really knows. It’s up to the player to look inside themself and question their motives behind these things. Athletes have to want it for themself no matter how much “pressure” we put on them. These debates are fun to have but, are merely abstract and imaginative in the grand scheme of things.
