Talking Mental Health with Toronto Raptor's Director of Wellness and Development, Alex Auerbach

Ahoy hoy.

Welcome to Head Games, the science psychology of Sports. I'm Dr. Brett Levine, joined as always by Dr. Ben Rosenberg. Our guest today is the director of Wellness and development for the Toronto Raptors and the former director of clinical and sports psychology at University of Arizona, Dr. Alex Auerbach. Alex, welcome to Head Games.

Thank you both so much for having me. Excited to be here.

Thanks for joining us from sunny Tampa and not Toronto because of certain pandemics. So explain to us what you do. Like, explain what does a director of wellness and development do and how did you get there?

Sure. So a director of wellness and development does both counseling and sports psychology and also oversees player development. So my role is really to think holistically about our players and their lives off the court. So you can sort of break that down into kind of mental health, mental performance, sort of life skills development, kinds of activities, professional development, and kind of community engagement. So I think about a lot of different ways that our players can get involved, help grow their personal brands, understand themselves better, understand their performance better, and try to really put a nice bow on what's happening away from basketball so that when they show up for basketball, they're kind of their whole selves and feel like they can perform their best. So that's the current role in a nutshell. And then how did I get here? So I am a counseling psychologist by training. So I did my doctoral training at University of North Texas, bounced around for my postdoc or pre doc internship, if you will, went to North Carolina, then came back to Arizona, was a staff psychologist there, then took over the sport and performance psychology services in the athletic department there, and then came to the Raptors. Um, but before I was a psychologist, I really wanted to be a football coach. So I spent a lot of time in college football doing recruiting, some defense, some offense, a full time coaching job, couple NFL jobs, but really, you know, resonated more with the relationship building side of the organization and less with kind of the technical and tactical stuff I was doing. And so made a career pivot into counseling and sports psych. And here we are. Nice.

You said you spend a lot of time with players developing them like off the court. Right. And enriching their lives off the court. And I'm guessing that the idea is it has some effect on their on court performance. Right. Is it the same thing with football in the same, like techniques that you use? Is it the same sort of approach? Or are football players and basketball players different from a clinical standpoint?

Yeah, I don't, I Don't know. From a. Yeah. Counseling or clinical perspective, I see the challenges as very different. From a sport performance perspective, I think they're pretty different. Basketball is a much more kind of fluid and evolving game than football. I mean, football, if you think about it in terms of plays, you know, you've got like eight seconds of activity followed by 30 to 50 seconds of inactivity. And so the mental side of that is this sort of constant like engage, rest, engage, rest and trying to sort of oscillate between the focus. You need to perform for those six to eight seconds and then give yourself a little bit of a break and then get back into it and sustain that over time. Sometimes 8:12 minutes in a row, potentially the length of a full basketball quarter. Right. And basketball, there's a lot more opportunity for interference and sort of responding to adversity at any given point. There's a lot more kind of constant evaluating of what's happening. And so the focus can't really wax and wane the same way it can with football. You have to stay as locked in as humanly possible for the potentially eight plus minutes you're out there on the floor and then you'll get a break and that's your time to sort of decompress, re regulate, and then get geared up to go back out there. So I think that part is different. Like the psychology of their performance between the sports I think is different. But from a sort of overall functioning and kind of wellness and holistic human perspective, I don't think it's a ton different. The one thing that maybe does come up a little bit differently is sort of the visibility of basketball versus football. I think there really is something to the idea that you can see an NBA player's face all the time, um, you know, when they're on the court, you know who is who, and you don't even need to look at the back of their jersey to know who is who for most of these guys. Whereas in football, like most of these guys, you know, have helmets on for probably the five on set offensive linemen and four defensive linemen. Like you can mostly walk past those guys in the streets. And maybe a few exceptions to the rule, but most of those guys nobody would recognize other than their, you know. Massive, huge. Yeah, yeah. And so I do think that part is a little different just in terms of, you know, comfort going out or being out and being seen. Comfort on social media. Like it's a little easier maybe to hide sometimes. And that might not be fully fair to say. Cause I think everyone experiences that stuff differently. But I think for players that are kind of constantly being seen, that's an interesting dimension that's different between the two.

Yeah, I think what? Go ahead. Sorry, Brett.

I'm sorry, Ben.

Ben.

I'm sorry, Ben. I'm so sorry.

Apologize. So I think what you're saying about the difference in the sort of preparation that's involved in getting ready for the on court or on field performance in each sport is really interesting. Can you talk a little bit about the different strategies maybe that would be involved in each? Right. You're saying in football, burst of action, little bit longer kind of rest and then another burst of action. Basketball, a bit more sustained action. How do the, that you use with guys differ?

Yeah, I think the way I sort of think about this dimension is kind of like drawing parallels to physical fitness. So football is like a really power based and speed based sport and basketball is kind of an endurance and speed based sport with some power mixed in. And so I think the ability to stay, for basketball, I think about skills like psychological flexibility type stuff, mindfulness, the ability to stay present, the ability to let go and redirect and quickly react to mistakes, you know, to process visual stimuli, to respond quickly in the moment. I think all of that's really critical. Football, I see it, you know, somewhat similarly depending on the position. But again, I think there's less, like, there are far fewer times when you need to, I would say, like activate resilience in a particular play. Right. Like, and that's maybe in the weeds, but you know, if a play goes well, like you won't really have had anything negative to deal with. So you're just kind of like keep rolling and sort of building momentum and there will be individual players on a football field who might make a mistake. And so we'll have to respond and come back next play. But overall, like things kind of reset and you have that natural break. Whereas in basketball, like if you miss a shot, you still have to go back and play defense right away. There's not that break to sort of process what's gone on, learn from that mistake and keep going in that moment. And so I think this sort of flexibility skills maybe get a little bit exercised differently in basketball than football. But by and large I think the techniques are pretty similar. It's just sort of how you translate and apply them to the performance domain that makes them a little different.

Yeah, you touched on something interesting. It reminded me of we had Connor o', Neill, he's a Mets minor league pitcher on the podcast a few months ago, and he described baseball, I think, very accurately as a game of failure.

Right.

That, like, you're great if you can, you know, get a hit one out of every three at bats. And, you know, I don't think basketball is as bad, but it's like, you know, you're missing most of your shots. And in a way, it also is sort of a game of failure on a personal level. So you touched on resilience. Is that a big theme from a lot of players? Because, like, you're right. Like, you can't. Like, you're still on the court. You missed a shot, you missed another one. We got to go out there and play defense. You got to go out there and come out with the same energy, enthusiasm for your teams. So what's that like? Do you see basketball as similar to baseball in the sense that, like, failure is definitely a theme that a lot of players are having to struggle with?

Yeah. I think, again, maybe the difference is kind of the break you get in baseball. Right. And so there's sort of time after a strikeout to go sit down and try to think about what happened and process and then let that go. Whereas in basketball, I think that process has to be almost instantaneous, or you have to choose to not deal with it in the moment and deal with it when you get to the sideline. And those choices are also sort of split second. But you're right, there's a lot of failure or missed opportunity that takes place in basketball. And I think one of the keys is learning to not ride the outcome so much of each individual possession or each individual shot, and to really stay. You know, we talk about, obviously process goals a lot in sports psychology or focusing on the process. And at times I think it's like a little overplayed, But I think there's a reality to just learning to stay in the moment, to learn to respond effectively to these missed opportunities and stay present with what you need to do. And there are different skills you can use to help you get on track. Right. Whether that's a quick reset and refocus routine or some sort of queuing. There's a lot we can teach players to do to help them stay in the moment when they find themselves distracted. But ultimately, you don't necessarily get the chance to deal with the missed opportunities in basketball the way you might get to in some of these other sports. I think, like hockey and soccer are kind of similar, right? These, like, constantly fluid. There's not necessarily natural breaks where you have these similar kind of dynamics where you have to learn to compartmentalize almost performance a little bit. Like while you're out there, you're just focused on the task at hand. You try to decrease your self monitoring, stay focused on what's happening with your teammates and sort of be in the game. And then when you come out, that's your chance to sort of again, self regulate, think a little bit about what's going on, reflect, and then try to apply what you've learned and get back out there and refocus again.

Right. Do you think that, do you think that makes, do you think in a way, like I like the comparison you made. A baseball player goes up there and just strikes out miserably, you know, and then there's that break. You go sit on the bench maybe for a long time before you get another chance to redeem yourself. Whereas in basketball it's like, okay, I missed a shot, I have to, you know, flip a switch. Now I'm playing defense. You know, you might not get a shot for a bit. You might get a shot maybe a minute later, right? Maybe 30 seconds later, maybe 10 seconds later, right. Do you think that is helpful or hurtful? The fact that like there is the fluidity to basketball and that does that give players a chance to sort of recover based on the rhythm of the game or is it hurtful because it can compound. You miss a shot, then you don't play defense, then you don't get to your spot, you don't, you know, you don't take a chance, whatever it is, you don't make the assist, like comparing, you know, sticking with that comparison in terms of just baseball and basketball. Do you think that's helpful? Do you think that's hurtful?

I think they both probably have advantages and disadvantages for basketball. I guess one of the challenges I see across the league is when you see guys who have made one or two mistakes, the normal response is to try to go massive at some point, take a huge risk, gamble on a field, take a 50 foot three pointer in some attempt to get yourself into the game. And so I see that as like a disadvantage of the constant flow of basketball. Is it almost like the mistakes can lead people to take increasingly bigger, less calculated risks to try to make up for the mistakes that have happened. Whereas in baseball, like if you strike out, you don't really get the chance to try to go hit a home run right away. Like you have to kind of sit there and dwell on that. The challenge is. So I think that's maybe a disadvantage of Basketball. But one of the advantages is if you can learn to not do that, if you can learn to sort of stay present with the game, allow things to unfold and develop, stay focused on your particular assignment and not try to make it, not try to make the 50 foot three pointer. You know, chances are you're going to actually help yourself get back in quicker, respond more effectively, all those things. And so that would be really positive. I think the disadvantage of baseball is if you don't teach people how to cope with those strikeouts, like you might just be sitting there in the dugout for a really long time thinking about your failure. And that's not really a good place to live either as it pertains to getting ready to go perform even if you're going to go field next, right? If you don't want to just be standing out there in the outfield reliving what you just missed three times on, that's not helpful either. But the advantage again is there, I think are quicker opportunities to learn and then let go than there might be. So I think it's like some of the emotion regulation, some of the thought regulation processes just play out differently.

So can you talk a little more specifically about that? Let's put yourself in the head of a player, a basketball player who just, who just failed, they made a turnover, missed a shot, whatever it is. Like what are the processes you're encouraging guys to engage in right then in that moment, such that they'll be right back into the flow of the game.

I think it's, you hear kind of the coaching cliches of next play, but that's very much where it is. I think for me it's just a little bit more focused. So it's sort of like once you put up the shot and the ball's like out of your hand cleanly, there's like really nothing you're going to do once the ball is in the air, right. So the best thing that you can do is determine what your next play is, right. And so you want to scan for whatever the cue might be. So it's sort of like if you make a shot, great, go locate the guy you need to defend. If you miss a shot, great, go locate the guy you need to defend. Like the process is pretty much the same, you know, barring maybe jockeying, right. So it's trying to help guys, you know, stay again, stay focused on the task at hand, don't worry so much about the outcome of each individual shot, you know, and then to try to give themselves catch little Moments where they can sort of allow things to let go. So some players maybe respond better to a gentle curse word underneath their breath or a loud curse word. You know, externally, whatever helps you sort of let that play go. And then again, refocus and redirect. And so a lot of it's really just about that kind of constant shifting of attention within the confines of the game that can be helpful. Right? So where things tend to go wrong is when you let attention drift to all these other consequences that you can't control. Right now, like, oh, if I make the shot, I'm going to get to play five more minutes, but if I miss the shot, I'm going to get pulled. Whether or not that's grounded in reality is almost, like, relevant, right? It just ends up leading down this really distracting rabbit hole that takes you literally off the floor mentally. Right. And then the goal is to really help players stay in tune with what is keeping them on the floor right now. And so, again, you ask about kind of processes. I think it's that simple reset and refocus routine. Let it go, redirect your attention. Try to be in the moment as quickly as you can, and you can help your. Sometimes you can have your teammates help you out with that, right? Like, if they can sh a direction to you to help you reorient more quickly, that's great. But if they can't, that's okay. It's partly on you as a performer to figure out how to do that effectively and quickly.

It's not easy. It can't be easy.

No. But that's what makes them great at what they do.

Right? There you go. There was this Forbes article that came out, and it was talking about the athletic intelligent quotient. And we definitely have an edge towards, like, sports analytics on the show. And, you know, I think when you. When you just sort of read that, you think like, oh, okay, are we getting. Are we. Are we leaning the world of clinical psychology into analytics a little bit? Can you explain what this question is, why it exists? And, like, is it helpful? Like, what purpose does it serve?

Yeah, so I can maybe unpack in a different order than you presented, but the short answer to why it exists, which is really a long history, is the two creators of the test, Dr. Scott Goldman and Dr. Jim Bowman, tried to basically solve the puzzle of should we draft Peyton Manning or Ryan Leaf? And why.

Don'T they call it the Goldman and Bowman quotient?

They're both too humble to slap their own last name.

Rare for egotistical scholars. Like me.

Oh, that's one of the reasons I love. But I think they really thought critically about how could people actually make that decision. What are some of the factors that actually separate people? And these two gentlemen are both very intelligent, and so they looked at some of the literature around what helps people be successful. And intelligence emerges pretty clearly across domains as a predictor of success. Whether that's in pilots or surgeons or or academics is really sort of a foundational element of higher performance. And that doesn't mean that people couldn't compensate or supplement intelligence with some other great characteristics. But I don't think it's fair to say that it's not important, right? So these guys try to then look into, like, okay, what's really happening in sport performance, right? Cause it's not the same thing that's happening in academic performance, right? Like, if you've. All of us have been through the process of taking an English test, right? That is very different sort of rote recall, or if you're really, really great with literature, maybe you just wing it. But there's a different sort of intelligence dimension that gets tapped into in that space than does in sport. And so they unpacked it and landed on these four factors. Visual spatial processing, processing speed, reaction time, and learning efficiency. And so visual spatial processing, you can think of, like, in my world as, like, court presence and awareness. How do you see the basketball court reaction time exactly as it sounds? Processing speed is really the speed and accuracy of your decision making. And then learning efficiency is kind of how quickly can you acquire and apply new information? And so really, it kind of boils down to, like, how do these players do what they do from an intelligence or cognitive perspective? And I think, to answer your final question, like, yeah, I think it's tremendously helpful. I think there's an element of this that's about helping performers understand themselves more and how they do what they do so that the test can be used to help players understand what might be factoring into how they're performing and then think a little bit differently or learn new strategies around how to improve their performance. So if there's one subtest, for example, that measures a person's ability to hold visually presented information in mind, kind of like a formation photograph on the sideline, right? If you're a guy who just doesn't do well with visually presented information, that's helpful because then you can tell your coach, like, hey, you really need to, like, explain this to me with your words. Don't just show me this photograph and let Me figure it out. Right. There's parts of that that we can then translate to the individual performer that we can help them see or understand better. There's sort of the. You talked about the analytics piece, so sort of this like scouting or profiling side. And I think about it a little bit more descriptive than predictive in some elements. So it's really about how are you doing what you're doing on the court. It's less saying, well, if you score 115, which would be a great score, you're destined to be the best performer ever. We can't tell you that because sport performance is really complex. So you might be incredibly smart, but you might not care about basketball at all. You might not work hard. And just at a certain point, no matter how intelligent you are, athletically intelligent you are, if you don't show up to practice, you're not going to know the plays, you're not going to know what you need to do, you're not going to be in shape. We can't just boil it down to this one factor, but instead we can understand. Well, if you're scoring really high but you're not performing well, where else can we look to understand what's happening with this particular player? From an analytics or scouting perspective? It helps to just give some metric for some of these other intangible things that people often talk about. Football IQ or basketball IQ or smarts or wanting smart players. That's all fine and well, but here's a way to capture it in a more scientific way.

Speaking of capturing it, how are these things measured?

It's basically a sequence of 10 puzzles delivered on an iPad. Takes about 35 minutes to do it. And the instructions are written for fourth grade level. So it's pretty easily comprehended. And the tasks are all culturally agnostic. You don't need any historical knowled of the English language or English American history to score well. So if you think about traditional intelligence tests like the Wechsler scales, they'll ask questions about Martin Luther King. That's great if you went to school in the States. But if you didn't go to school in the States and you've never heard of Martin Luther King, the score is not really going to reflect what you're capable of. It just reflects that you don't know. So the items were all designed with that in mind.

Okay, you mentioned that at times, or the essence really is to sometimes just be more descriptive than prescriptive descriptive. But you're measuring these things and I have to believe that at Some level, you know, these three, these three measures.

I'm forgetting visual spatial processing, processing speed, reaction time and learning efficiency. I got you. So team effort.

Thanks.

That's right.

Thanks for the assist. I have to imagine that these three things are in some way measured in terms of performance. There's gotta be some sort of like predictive level here that like the higher you score on these things, the better the player is. Like when we talk about this like, you know, in terms of predictive validity here, like I've got to believe that these three level, you know, these three measures relate to some sort of performance measure. Is that true? And if so, you know, what is it most related to? Is it related to like assists? Is it points scored? Is it, what is it?

So we have done some research and we're kind of constantly doing research. We've partnered with a couple different labs now to try to take it sort of outside the company and see what else can happen without it being the three scientists who have worked on it. But I think we found some position specific things across sports, whether it's baseball, football or basketball. Those are kind of the three places, three playgrounds we've played in the most, if you will. So there's some in football, some research that suggests a higher AIQ score leads to, I think it's career approximate value, which is the sort of of pro football focus metric around like how long you stay in the league, what you contribute. And then there are more sort of nuanced things, you know, like I'd have to look at it to refresh my memory, but there's a relationship between, I believe it's reaction time and tackles for linebackers and defensive linemen, you know, things like that. So there is some research that's out there. You know, we try to share as much as we can, but it's also important from a good scientist perspective to get some, some kind of independent research done. That's not us. And those folks have found basically the same things we have, but are more capable researchers than I am and so can attack it in a way that's a little different, but there is some predictive validity and some prediction out there. But I think one of the challenges with that in sport, as you both know, is because it's complex. If you can find something that's predictive, people tend to latch onto it in ways that I think can be helpful from a business perspective, but might be unfairly boiling down sport performance to one thing. If the goal is to help the people that we work with really understand the performer better, which is what it's all about. The prediction piece is nice, but the descriptive piece holds a lot of value as you start to piece that with the other data points that you have.

Yeah, I think that's an important distinction that you're making between description and prediction and really emphasizing the descriptive piece because often, as you said, media or other folks kind of get a hold of something from science and they're like, oh, this is going to be used to predict xyz. And as you said, it's sort of too simple. But to circle back to the original kind of positioning of the AIQ in terms of drafting Peyton Manning versus Ryan Leaf, which is hilarious, by the way. I hope it was. I hope it would position them to pick Peyton over Ryan Leaf. No offense to Ryan Leaf. Are teams using this for drafting purposes now or free agency acquisition purposes? Like, what are some of the ways in addition to this prediction piece that teams might be using the aiq?

Yeah, I think all the ways you mentioned. Right. So teams are using it for draft profiling purposes, again, as one piece of the puzzle. So if you think about the NFL, they've got the Wonderlic that everyone does. And teams have basically said like, I'm not sure there's a huge relationship between identifying the next number in a sequence and scan a visual field. So we're going to try this other metric out. And we've had a lot of sticking power in the NFL in particular, which is where we sort of started. So I've been going to the NFL combine for 9ish years now. This will be a weird year with COVID but have been involved with several NFL teams as part of their draft profiling process. Have also been involved with several NBA teams and MLB teams, some Major League Soccer, some NHL and some Olympic sports. And it's all varies. Right. So it's, you know, there's part one is the draft profiling, but then there's this benchmarking capability you have. So if you have a guy that you love, how they do what they do, you can give them the AIQ and then start to look for guys who might have similar profiles. And that can give you some insight into whether or not you might be able to at least be directionally correct in understanding future prospects. And then there's again, kind of that coaching element of it where you can have a guy complete the test and then you can understand a little bit more about them and that can shape how the coaches interact with this particular player to get the most out of them. And all the really teams across all the major leagues have used them in all three of those capacities. I do think the draft profiling one is probably the most heavily used. And I think that's really teams trying to get a better handle on this part of the equation. And there are other pieces that go into it. But this is a really critical piece, I know, even for myself as I started to dive into the research on what makes great teams, how do great sports teams do what they do? One of the things that consistently emerges, and they call it a bunch of different stuff, but it's essentially this idea of intelligence, general mental ability, shared mental models, all this fancy language thrown around, basically, like, can people effectively understand the field or the court in the same way? Can they process it in the same way and use that synergy to perform the task at hand? And so as I've started to see that myself too, I mean, it's a critical part of what I do as well.

That's so interesting, I think, also to think about, and I don't know if this is out there. Is there a way to sort of aggregate the team's metric on this or score on this? I should say, like, is there multiple levels to it? I guess is my question, like, can you look at it from an individual perspective? But then to your most recent point, like, is there a way to aggregate all the scores to then have some idea of the team's level of, as you said, intelligence or whatever you want to call it?

We haven't quite gotten to that point part yet, but I would say I personally kind of experiment with thinking about things in that way, you know, especially as I've done some of my research and thinking about how I can contribute to our draft process. You know, I think oftentimes in sports people get hung up on, and perhaps rightfully so, to a degree, kind of like character strengths or personality characteristics. And I do think there's a place for that. I think there's value in some of the those things. But what the research sort of bears out is like the level of usefulness of those measures is relatively lower in terms of predictive capability than intelligences. And so I sort of see it as like concentric circles, right? Like, you need to have a baseline level of talent to make it to the NBA. Physical talent, right. Like, no matter what happens, like, you just, you have to have that if you want to play. And then I, for me, the next concentric circle is the intelligence. And it's, you know, I think, kind of agnostic of basketball system. It's just like, you know, if you draft a guy, you want them to be able to learn the system quickly and play amongst a variety of systems, not have to rely solely on that physical talent to perform. And so for me, that's a critical piece. And then I think some of these other kind of personality dimensions are also important, like how well might this guy connect with teammates? You know, I think that's interesting and has merit too. But in terms of what they do on the floor, oftentimes in elite sport, being able to make the right decision and having the talent to perform tend to be enough to help people connect with you as a teammate. And you can kind of tolerate some of the individual differences around personality for a great player. And so I think that's how I've tried to kind of gear the way I think about this stuff. And it's constantly evolving, but that's where I'm at right now.

Yeah, interesting. So I guess another big topic that I think that's important for us to talk a bit about is mental health and sports. Obviously your other sort of hat that you wear. As you said, there's been a big emphasis, particularly I think, from the NBA, and kudos to the NBA for allowing players this kind of freedom. But you've seen Kevin Love over the years talking a lot about his mental health struggles. We saw just recently coming out of the bubble, Paul George talking about his issues around anxiety. What would you say the NBA is doing kind of at a broad level to support players mental health?

So the league has had an initiative, really for the last couple years that they're calling mind health, that's been pretty good about promoting just sort of basic knowledge about mental health, helping folks, players and the community surrounding players understand the different practitioners that are available. You know, what mental performance means, what mental health means, what the different specialties can do. I think that education has been helpful, but I think one of the other things that's been great is at the organization level, once these players have spoken out, there's a lot of support internally for that messaging too. Right. And we talk a lot about stigma in sports, and I think that's still a huge, huge issue to navigate. But the NBA has really, I think, created a way for players to speak up and still feel well received by what's gone on. And I think, you know, maybe seen bits and pieces of it in other spaces. You know, I think Hayden Hurst in the NFL is a wonderful example in his support of Dak Prescott. And I think that kind of internal community support happens a lot in the NBA where, you know, even if a particular player can't necessarily directly say, oh, like, I share that experience, or I feel that way too, there's a lot of support still for saying, you know, hey, thanks for speaking up, or I appreciate you saying that, or oh, that was really cool that you did that. And that sort of peer to peer level respect is really, really important in this space. And I think the NBA has done a great job both at the team level and kind of larger league level of promoting and supporting that kind of camaraderie and support that I think is critical for changing some of that kind of stigma based narrative.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, Ben mentioned, like, you wear like different hats, right, at different times based on what you're up to. And in terms of mental health, I mean, again, this may be private in terms of like individual level, but like, I guess how much of your time is spent being sort of like a stereotypical psychologist in that way? Like, do you, you know, like as a clinician, right, you're trained as a clinician. Like, what percentage of your time is really spent, like, you know, sitting down with players and talking about their mental health?

It would be hard to put a percentage on it. I think if I was saying a percentage of stereotypical clinician, I would say probably like 0% or 1%. This role is very different than traditional mental health settings in that you may not have kind of a formal session as your opportunity to make a difference. It might be a player walking off the court after shooting. It might, might be catching someone on the way to the locker room, and all those different opportunities are opportunities for the intervention. But there's not that kind of formal session necessarily. And so I think it kind of happens piecemeal, which is why it's hard to give a percentage. Right? Like, there's a little bit of learning about this guy here and a little bit of understanding there. And then all of a sudden there's this conversation that you have. And if you plant one good seed for a good idea, that might be the work that you did today. But then I think it's also organization level for me, like, I really think for this, the change in a larger way, Even like a 17 player level way, the organization and the environment surrounding the players has to be conducive to them being mentally healthy. Like it's. I think as a field, I would love to see us emphasize that part of stuff more. You know, I think there's a lot kind of chalked up to you and teams, you know, all professional Sports leagues have tried to address this in some way. Designated team clinician that you have to have for eight hours so they have to be in the building, like that's great. But if all your time is spent behind a closed door, one on one, and all your work's confidential, nobody really understands what it is you can do or how you can help on a larger level. And constantly putting out fires is not really an efficient way to firefight. Like it would be better to build a fireproof building. And so if that's even at all possible, you know, I think in that regard probably 100% of my time is spent on some sort of mental health related initiative or way of thinking. And I think that's at the staff level, that's at the coach level, that's at the player level. Because I don't think they're just. We spend so much time together, it's impossible to separate them out. And imagine that, that if staff member X shows up feeling really down and they have an interaction with all 17 guys, it's hard to think that that won't have at least some impact on the 17 players. Right?

Right.

And vice versa. And so I think a lot of the time is spent thinking about these kind of organization level and environment level things, right? So environment being like who the players go home to or what's happening away from the organization or organization level being what happens in our four walls, you know, I think those pieces are really important, you know, and like simple examples, right? Like if you go home to an unhealthy relationship, like I don't know that you can expect to show up and be your best self and go play for 48 minutes and you know, and so we've got to think about all those different dimensions. And so in that regard, kind of always thinking about that or trying to intervene or support that in some way. And I'm lucky to work for an organization that really values this piece of what I do. Honestly, like for me, I believe this is kind of the way of the future of sports psych and performance psych. And I'm biased because that's how I'm wired. But I think it's just not going to be especially like at the college level where I was, where you have 500 student athletes, like you just can't, there's not enough time in a week. You can't spend 168 hours that you're alive in a week in therapy is not possible. And so to just keep sort of responding like, well, we'll just keep Adding clinicians, we'll just keep allowing coaches to run programs however they do, or allow the environment to not support the student athlete the way they need to be supported, or wake them up at 6 o' clock to work out and keep them until 9pm at study hall and just hope that they magically sleep as teenagers. Like you can't keep doing those things and just asking clinicians to resolve it for one hour a week in a therapy room and hope that that's going to make the difference. Like it's just not to do it that way. So soapbox moment for me here, but. And totally. But I think it's, it's both 0% traditional but 100% mental health.

Yeah, and you mentioned, I mean, I think you touched on something important though, that it's, it's at an organizational level. Like this is not a traditional one on one sort of setting. And you know, the Raptors to their credit obviously hired you, so they certainly value it, it. And they've kind of been known like to have a strong culture and you just recently joined the team. But like they sort of have had that vibe, you know, going for a few years now, going back to their, to their championship two years ago, that they sort of had that, you know, that rhythm.

I guess.

I'm not asking, I'm not asking you to quantify this, but like, how much would you say that culture played a part in winning a championship and how much does it, you think bode well for continued success?

I think the culture piece is huge in terms of winning a championship. I don't know that you could quantify it, but I think what you found is a really unique appreciation for everyone's individual contribution and role and a clear understanding of how those individual contributions and roles contributed to the larger team success in ways that you may not find in other places. And so, like, there was a great paper, I can't remember who wrote it, called the Too Much Talent Effect. And it was all about basketball. And you sort of progressively add these superstars and then team chaos ensues because everyone wants the ball. Everyone, you know, and it's like we were the opposite of that almost, you know, and we did have obviously several great players on that team. But what I think partly helped those players be great was knowing the support that they had from the people around them, both on the court and off the court. And I think that's really carried through. I mean, I wasn't with the team for that championship, sadly, but I still feel sort of the reverberation of that championship level culture every day. Because there really is an emphasis and a focus on making this a place where people, players can show up and do their best work and contribute and nobody's bigger than the team. And I think that that's a really, really important piece of what we do. And we put the players at the center of what we're doing. And the coaches too. They're kind of the critical performers for those 48 minutes or two and a half hours, if you're watching on TV. Those are the guys that we spend a lot of time sort of focusing on. But it's really, really important that they feel supported and contribute to each other. I forget the second part of your question. Sorry.

I think that was fine. I forgot.

I think you hit it. It's funny you mentioned that paper, Alex, because I was just reading and I sent to our group text thread for head games basically re. Look, reanalysis of those data from that paper that just came out in like one of the big psych science journals. And I guess the new finding was that actually in the NBA you can never have too much talent. Which like, to me, I. And again, the data say what the data say. But to me, I agree with your sentiment. Right. Like it does seem like at a certain point there might be diminishing returns because you do need to have this sort of institutional culture that sets guys up for success maybe in addition to, if not in place of just adding and adding and adding and adding.

Right.

You look at the Nets with Kyrie and Katie and Harden, which, like, who knows what's going to happen there. But that's a lot of big players, a lot of big personality. Where does the kind of culture or chemistry piece start for the Raptors? Like, is it at the top? Is it the coaches? Is it everybody? Like, who's kind of in on this?

I think it's everyone. But I'm fortunate to say our team president, Masai Ujiri is very clear on what he wants for the organization. And coach, nurse, you know, buys in and supports and has his own things that he values and supports. And it's really kind of a synergistic relationship and it's easy to get on board with because it's all based in, you know, treating people well, you know, competing, trying to get better, you know, all those things that are sort of of aspirational, inspirational, motivational things that we all value. But I think, you know, for me, I think like we're all responsible for the culture. I don't think you can boil it down to one or two people. I think that's an unfair expectation of one or two people or one or two players. I think everybody has to kind of contribute to that and be a part of that. I think on the player side, you know, all of our players value creating a space that's allows them to do their best work and to challenge each other and support each other. And I think those dimensions also really play a big part. And so I think it's on all of us to sort of observe and constantly be thinking about how we're contributing to that and whether or not the way we're showing up is kind of conducive to creating that healthy and promotive growth oriented culture or not. And I think that's. I'd be curious. You should send me that paper you read. You know, I think there's probably pieces of that that are great, but if you look at like the old Heat teams with, you know, Chris Bosh and DWYANE Wade and LeBron, like, they're all great, but they didn't win this eight championships in a row that LeBron promised on one, not two.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, part of that is probably like at a certain point, you know, some players just get tired of sharing the ball and I don't think we have any of that. And so we're lucky that we have players that are really supportive of each other, that want to get each other involved in the game and take that responsibility personally.

Well, man, I think you mentioned it. I think you're really spearheading something important here. You've unpacked a lot for us. I think even as Ben and I call ourselves psychologists, we're learning a lot about what you're doing and this work that's going on in the mba, it's noble work. It's good work. It's helpful for everybody. This is awesome. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you both for having me. It was fun.

Yep.

You are on Twitter lexauerbachphd.

Okay, very good. Please rate and subscribe where applicable. And thanks as always for our editing team for putting together today's show. You can find us on Twitter headgamesych. You can find me on Twitter Dr. Brett Levine, you can find that guy on Twitter @BD Rosenberg, PhD. And thanks as always for tuning.