Chris Collins breaks down the mental game of elite basketball players like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Michael Jordan. They describe how these players control opponents and momentum by treating the game like chess, preparing obsessively and never letting up.
I think just watching the NBA Finals this year with LeBron, like, he's just on another level mentally. Even when things don't go right for him, he just comes right back.
That's right.
And Kobe had that.
He did.
Michael had that. You know, times he did. He did his mental.
You see those guys, too. They turn it into chess. Like, LeBron was not playing basketball the whole time he was playing chess with these guys. Like you could. He was just. Every move he made, everything he did, he was angling to, you know, towards the finish line. You know, the refs, the coaches, the getting in the heads of the other players. I mean, it was. It was pretty amazing to watch him. He was not going to be denied.
No, he wasn't. What a comeback, right?
Yeah. Crazy.
That was amazing. Like him or not, you have to respect what he did.
Yeah. I mean, I'm in the Bay, so I'm a Golden State fan, and I wanted Golden State to win, but I was. I was. I was marveled at what he did, what he pulled off.
Yeah.
No, and our trainer, when we go to the gym, he was. You know, he was kind of making fun of me because I said that they were going to win. The Cavs. It was. It was LeBron's year. And when they were down, he was. Was like, you still think they're gonna win? I'm like, yeah, I kind of do. Like. And he did. Like, it was. You could just see it in his eyes. He wasn't gonna be denied.
Yeah.
No matter what. And it's mental more than anything you could see. The other team, you know, just didn't have it in their eyes.
Yeah. Game after game, they were. You could just see it on their face. Steph Curry was just crumbling. I mean, he's a talented, extremely talented basketball player, but his head got in his way. He just couldn't. He couldn't wrap it up.
Or Jordan had that. Like, he wasn't. There's so many players that played against Jordan that would say, like, how intim. Or someone says intimidating someone, say, he's your friend. And then he would flip it on you, like. But he wasn't. I don't think anybody could figure him out. He was. He was always a step ahead of everybody. Mentally.
He was. He was. And he played. He's not a guy that ever paced himself.
Yeah.
You know, some of these guys, they have a couple big games. They let up a little bit. He never paced himself. He went in. One of the few guys in any sport that really went in and gave it all, every single game with that relentless, just relentless mindset and attitude.
Yeah.
That typifies Jordan.
It's funny because you watch him and you think, okay, he's just an amazingly talented guy. And I think on the, on the face of it, you assume that's all there is, you know, that he just was born with this amazing talent. And then I read that book and it's incredible the amount of preparation and, you know, the amount of work that he put into being that to making it look that easy, you know, because when he got onto the court, he just made it look easy.
You know, during the Olympics when he was on the Dream Team, it bothered him that some of the players weren't taking it serious. And he's watching game film right out until he runs out onto the court and these other guys are just loafing around and, oh, it's going to be low hanging fruit. But he respected himself so much and he was so disciplined in that regard. He's not capable of turning it off and dialing it down because he's wired a totally different way. He couldn't do it if he wanted to.
Yeah. It's funny. Magic Johnson tells a story, his favorite Jordan story happened when there were no cameras in a practice where he said he decided he was going to talk trash to Michael. And they were beating Michael's team, you know, in the Dream Team in practice. And then Michael goes, oh, okay, and he flipped the switch. And then, you know, nobody else scored but Michael. So there's.
