Improving Needs No Proving
The NBA playoffs have begun. Round one is underway and Oklahoma City is already doing what Oklahoma City does. They’re unnerving their opponents by guarding the guy with the ball, as well as all the guys without the ball... and the hoop... and the deadly deep corners of the court... all at the same time. They’re making each other-- teammates who happen to each be other-worldly in their own right-- even more other-worldly than they already are. They’re continuing to play pinch-and-poke like middle-school boys at their post-game courtside interviews. They are who they are no matter who the opponent is or what might be on the line.
Ambassadors of clarity, bullet-proof identity, buy-in that runs thick and rich like blood, they are the standard. The team to beat. The defending world champions.
But do not use that word.
“Defending.”
“Defending” is not a concept the Oklahoma City Thunder acknowledges or accepts.
“We aren’t defending anything,” coach Mark Daigneault has said repeatedly. “Last year’s championship is over. No one can ever take it away. This is a new year.” Then very simply, “We’re pursuing a title in 2026.”
Semantics, some people say (though never would one coach ever.)
Maybe. But “defending” and “pursuing” might be next door neighbors who live on completely opposite edges of the world.
Words matter. They carry all kinds of layered power that directs our trajectory. A slight variance in flavor can drastically affect an ultimate destination. In aviation, this concept is called the “1-in-60 Rule,” which means that a one-degree deviation can throw a landing off by one mile per every 60. In extrapolation, if you were going to the sun, you’d miss your mark by over 1.6 million miles.
Perhaps you wouldn’t die, but it would be tough to get back home.
Defending implies protecting. Proving. And if not directly, at least adjacently, “standing firm,” “holding steady,” “not giving up any ground.” But excellence is not a thing you build a wall around and guard. It’s a thing you continuously run toward. A thing that requires an ever-onward onslaught to be attained. So often, “defending” and “pursuing” are ombre`colors fading ever so slightly into one another that we cannot see danger in varying hues.
The Florida Panthers hoisted the Stanley Cup in 2024 and again in 2025. Likewise, this past spring, Rory McIlroy won the Masters again, just like he did the year before. A few crazy strings of back-to-back-to-backs (like Roger Federer’s run at the US Open) and back-to-back-to-back-to-backs (like UCONN women’s basketball stampede from 2013 through 2016) have been inked in the record books. It’s tough to imagine any of these repeat offenders at the highest level marching around in circles protecting the hardware they’d been handed the year before.
Every pursuit is novel and alive, each deserving and demanding singular attention. Nobody gets where they want to go by thinking incessantly about where they have been.
The words we use infuse us. They frame our intentions. They ground our floor, they pipe in our oxygen, they shape the way we think and move. Sometimes they help us pave the way to win again.
P.S. Post-Game Antics