The Platoon

My interview with an NBA head coach

The book club I belong to has members from all corners of business, art, and science. It includes professors, doctors, a woodworker, an exotic dancer, and several retirees. One member is a championship-winning NBA coach who recently agreed to be interviewed under the condition that I protect his anonymity. We met in his garden two Saturdays ago for coffee where I recorded the conversation. It was a true honor given I am such a fan of his and professional basketball in general. 

Below is a transcript of our time together. My questions are in bold, his responses have been edited for clarity. 

Thanks so much for agreeing to do this, Coach. 

Of course. I know Good Information has tens and tens of readers so this is exciting. 

One thing I’ve always loved about your teams is how aggressive they are. Why is that an area of focus?

Well, I believe unchecked aggression is bad. Dangerous even. Our society expends a lot of energy stamping aggression out of our kids because of all the damage it’s done. But just because something is capable of causing damage doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad, like fire.

In my opinion, we’re a little too good at stamping out aggressive behavior. Too good at making kids feel guilty for [their aggression]. We’d rather them be harmless little angels.

So they grow up thinking harmlessness is moral and it eats away at their soul because they never say how they really feel.

People pleasing and resentment are two sides of the same coin. Apologies for the figure of speech.

Anger is a valid and necessary emotion. Children that are taught to ignore anger become, like you said, weak and resentful adults.

Nice guys and girls finish last not because we don’t like nice people. Nice guys and girls finish last because nice guys and girls are cowards and people very quickly grow tired of cowards. Especially cowards who pretend their lack of personal boundaries is a moral virtue.

They haven’t learned to play with fire. 

No they haven’t. 

How do you coach that in your players?

Have I told you about The Platoon?

I don’t think so. 

The Platoon was my grandfather’s boat. Now I loved my grandfather but I hated every second of being on that boat. 

And when I turned 18 he was dead set on sailing across the Atlantic to show me his hometown in Portugal. Then he got sick. Too sick to sail. So, trip canceled, thank god.

But then he calls me from his hospital bed and says I’ll make all the arrangements, you take The Platoon to Portugal.

I tell him I’m not sure that’s a good idea Grandpa.

He says nothing would make me happier than for you to make this trip. It would bring me so much pride.

I told him I’ve got basketball practice, taking two months off is a lot. But what I’m really thinking is I don’t want to sail the god damn boat. 

He said you know I’m dying right? I don’t have much time left. The plan wasn’t just to sail to Portugal together. It was to put the title of The Platoon in your name once we got there.

I was silent.  

He says I can have her sea-ready in a fortnight. All you have to do is sail.

So I show up to the harbor two weeks later. The Platoon has never looked better. Brand-new rails, chain plates, ropes, generator. Water tanks filled. She’s stocked with meds, ointments, painkillers, antibiotics. Cabinets have enough food for 30 days plus emergency pasta, beans, canned fish, the whole deal. 

He even bought one of those Garmin messaging and GPS systems so he could track my path and send messages out to The Platoon.

First week or so is fine. Averaging like 100 [nautical] miles per day. 

About a week in, I’m out in the ocean, bathing, trying to stay cool, when I hear the Garmin beeping. So I climb aboard and dry off and check the little screen. High pressure system Grandpa says. Another message comes in. Moving in fast. I check my radar. Sure as shit, huge system right in our path. Far too big to sail around. 

So I do all the prep. Secure the hatches. Stow away loose stuff. Plastic-wrap the electronics. Test my water pump. Put up the storm sail and double-check all my knots.

The entire horizon is black. I can feel the ocean swelling. It’s so, so powerful. One of those power laws, you know? 

Power laws? 

Like how a small fraction of authors sell the vast majority of books. Because a few good books leads to name recognition leads to more books leads to more name recognition. It’s the same thing in the NBA.

The league just sent out a report, let me pull it up. Okay, so we have 578 players under contract for 2024-25. $5.1 billion in salaries. The top 100 players getting paid $3.1 billion. That’s 17% of players collecting 63% of salaries. 

Last year, the Sixers rostered 28 players. The top 5 took 4,579 of Philly’s 7,331 total shots. That’s 18% of players taking 63% of the team’s shots. Same ratio as the money.

You score, you get paid, you get more chances to score, you get paid more. 

I understand. Power grows exponentially. 

Yes, the ocean is a power law of her own. She covers 70% of the earth’s surface. Like I said, her power was growing that night. 

Wind and rain and waves. Clouds so dark it looks like the night sky. I can’t see anything so it doesn’t make to be on the deck anymore. But inside the cabin is somehow worse. The waves are even more jarring. Tools rattling, clips banging, bottles rolling, and ocean water splashing in through the hatch. 

And then I hear whispers. It’s a lot harder to block out your paranoia in the middle of the ocean. So I start having all these horrible fantasies about my grandpa and his motives for sending me on the trip. How he doesn’t care if I die. He just cares if his grandson returns his most cherished possession back to its home. I’m seething with hatred.

Like some genetic instinct the idea of whiskey pops in my head. I don’t know how, I’ve only ever tried my grandpa’s beer a few times. Maybe it’s all the stories about the sea captain at the bottom of a bottle, who knows.

I wake up late morning the next day. First hangover of my life, worst hangover of my life. First thing I do is check my location. That’s not true. I step outside and vomit over the side of the boat. Then I check my location. Storm pushed me 20 miles south. It’ll be hard to make that up with the rocky waves so I just stumble back into the cabin and cover my eyes. 

I’m woken up by this annoying, repetitive beeping. It’s the Garmin but it sounds different. EMERGENCY WEATHER WARNING it says. You know, those automated things. 

The second night the waves are massive. Twice as big as the night before. Breaking and crashing and carrying us. We’re tumbling in the same spot over and over like clothes in a washing machine. 

For a few seconds everything is calm and my stomach drops because I know what it means. A rogue wave carrying us to the top of a crest. When The Platoon finally lands I hear a sound you never want to hear on the water. Wood cracking.

The automatic water pump kicks on. I need to send an SOS out. But the waves are so violent I can barely move. I finally reach the cord and work my fingers up to the speaker. 

Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. This is The Platoon. This is The Platoon. This is The Platoon. Mayday. This is—

Bang! Everything goes dark. Static from the radio is gone. The electric pump shuts off. I open the hatch and look outside. I smell it before I see it. The Platoon’s mast is split, one half dipping into the ocean. We’ve been struck by lightning. I’m so pissed off. I never wanted to be out there. I wanted to be home playing basketball not sailing my grandpa’s stupid boat.

Again I have these dark, dark fantasies about my grandpa and how he definitely did this to me on purpose. I go for the whiskey again. Six more days I’m out there. Just drinking whiskey and floating and creating all these messed up scenarios in my head. 

Once I’m rescued and brought back home I go immediately to the hospital. I see my grandpa. 

He says well, how was it out there?

I learned how to get a drinking problem, Grandpa, I said. And I had this real defeated tone when I said it. 

He waits for me to look him in the eye and he takes a deep breath and says, a nice person agrees to take someone else’s boat across an ocean when they really don’t want to, a good person takes power over their own life. 

Thanks for your time Coach.

I recently published a weekly workout series. Thank you to the friends who have tried it and given me feedback. It’s really special to have your involvement!