Toughness: Developing True Strength On and Off the Court

Toughness is the ability not to rationalize.

Toughness is the ability not to rationalize. Rationalization is to make an excuse for not achieving more than you have to that point.

Failing doesn’t make you a failure. Failing makes you a competitor. Every competitor fails. If you lay it on the line, you will come up short at times. Failure is a part of competing, and embracing that fact is an important component of toughness. Tough people fail, but tough people are not failures. The only failures are those who give up, or give in.

Life isn’t easy, but you never quit. Never. I may not have been the best, but I can always give my best. That’s how you demonstrate toughness.

Responsible to the element, accountable to the mission”:

Practice, for better or worse, is going to be re-created in a game,” Knight said. His goal was to correct mistakes in both practice and games, and he posted a sign over the locker of every player that read, “Victory favors the team making fewest mistakes.

A true friend is somebody who can make us do what we can.

You can’t get to the top of that ladder in one step. But you can get to the bottom in one step.

When my players say, ‘My bad,’ after a mistake, it drives me crazy. I saw it; I know it was your mistake,” Williams said. “Saying, ‘My bad,’ is just a way to relieve yourself of responsibility for the mistake.

You need to concentrate on what you’re doing, while you’re doing it,

But I did not want to be common; I wanted to be uncommon. I did not want to do what was easy; I wanted to do what was hard, and do it consistently. To get the most from myself and to get the most out of practice, and to give the most to my team, I should have put more effort, energy and thought into preparing myself for each practice. Each practice is an opportunity. It is an opportunity to get better, and an opportunity to make a breakthrough and reach a new level. I should have done a better job of preparing myself for that opportunity, instead of treating some practices as “just another day.

Knight has always said that there are many more mental mistakes in games than physical mistakes. “I always say, ‘Dumb loses more games than smart wins.’ That’s about concentration, discipline, understanding the game and your impact on it. That’s toughness.

To be great defensively, all five defenders have to play together, “five as one,” instead of just “five ones” out on the floor.