Burnout and Basketball Dynasties
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Burnout is losing joy in the grind while expecting results you can’t fully control in a certain timeframe
April 23, 2023
Sitting in Section 203 as the Sacramento Kings inbounded the ball with 10 seconds left on the clock and the Warriors clinging to a 126-125 lead, probabilities ran through my head like a poker player calculating the odds of her top pair on the flop holding up. Is this a coin flip? Given how efficient both teams had been in terms of points per possession, does that make the Kings more likely than not to win the game? Wait, if the Warriors lose and go down 3-1, didn't I just see a stat recently that teams historically have only come back to win a series from 3-1 like 5% of the time? What are the chances this is Steph, Klay, and Draymond's last year together? It's almost certainly Dre's. Is this the end of the Warriors dynasty?
Thankfully, Harrison Barnes' shot bounced off the back rim and my panic subsided as the crowd at Chase Center erupted in jubilation. Dynasty not over yet.
The end of the dynasty
Now that we can definitively say that the Warriors dynasty—at least the Curry-Klay-Dray-Dre dynasty—ended with Andre Iguodala retiring in October 2023 and Klay Thompson signing with the Mavericks in July 2024, if we didn't celebrate it while we had it, it's definitely worth taking time to celebrate it now. But how did it start?
A lot can happen in 10 years. In 2013, Steph Curry not only wasn't a two-time MVP and four-time champion—he wasn't even an All-Star yet. He had just signed a 4-year, $44M contract extension that was deemed risky at the time given his injury history, and was arguably one of the biggest all-star snubs that season. I remember conversations with my friend George, pictured on the left above, about how Steph Curry (my favorite player) and Kawhi Leonard (his favorite player) would be All-Stars someday and how they both got snubbed in 2013. Even as huge fans of Steph and Kawhi as we were, I don't think either of us dreamed big enough. A lot can happen in 10 years, and big things start small. Things that feel inevitable start small, and there were lots of little things along the way that played major roles, but didn't seem crazy at the time: signing David Lee, drafting Steph Curry, drafting Klay Thompson, hiring Mark Jackson, Steph Curry getting injured, drafting Harrison Barnes and Draymond Green, trading Monta Ellis for Andrew Bogut, firing Mark Jackson and hiring Steve Kerr, moving Draymond into the starting lineup... Generational companies and lifelong relationships also start with a series of small things.
Why does all of this matter? Because my friend George in the first photo never got to see Steph Curry or Kawhi Leonard become All-Stars or NBA champions.
Most things that are really valuable take time to build—whether we’re talking friendships, families, basketball dynasties, or companies. They say you overestimate what you can do in the short term and underestimate what you can do in the long term, but what that overlooks is that in the short term, you can easily lose sight of the long-term goal, which leads to burnout. We’re not great at perceiving how fast or slow we’re going—only acceleration or deceleration. When we stop feeling progress day to day—that’s when it’s important to focus on the long-term goals. But if you don’t love the process day-to-day, you can lose yourself chasing those long-term goals, and if the difference between a dynasty and a footnote, between success and failure, or between being able to argue about sports with loved ones or just having to sit here writing about them are all ultimately out of our control, you have to try to love it all.
On Burnout and Perspective
I previously drew parallels between burnout and sports’ injuries— we should take preventative steps to avoid them— prehab is easier than rehab. As an individual, losing sight of the long-term goal and trying to win it all with a single short-term move without looking forward to the future is what leads to burnout. Burnout can mean a lot of things. The Mayo Clinic defines it as “physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity”. Most of the time when we talk about burnout, we focus on the former part of that sentence—“physical or emotional exhaustion”. But those are really the manifestations or symptoms and don’t really need much explanation. The part that’s worth double-clicking into here is “a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity”.
Every season that doesn’t end with a championship can feel like a failure, but if you zoom out, the progress becomes clearer. Maybe that’s why Steph Curry always seems to have more fun than anyone else—he knows that the journey matters just as much as the outcome. When I’ve faced burnout, it often stemmed from expecting a specific milestone by a set time. What helped me recover was finding flow in the small, daily actions—paradoxically, focusing on the small things often realigns you with your bigger goals. Ask yourself: if you were doing the same thing 10 years from now, with everything else different, would you still want to be doing it? Does the process itself make you happy, regardless of the result?
Friendships and relationships that span over a decade are rare, and I will always cherish them. Hopefully, in 2033, there will still be basketball to watch—maybe even with 38% gravity, making shots and dunks all the more spectacular! Both friendships, a personal love of the game, a shared love of the game, and a collective love of the game are excellent antidotes to burnout. Whether you’re chasing a championship (or not two, not three, not four, startup success, or any big goal, remember: the path is unpredictable, luck and factors out of your control play a huge part, even for the best in the world. Zoom out to the big picture, and zoom in to find joy and flow in the small things, and you never know what you might build.
Thanks to Amanda, Ricky, ChatGPT 4o with canvas, o1-preview, and NotebookLM for reading/helping me edit drafts of this.
References and Inspiration
- Burnout - Mayo Clinic
- Adam Grant - "There's a Name for the Blah You're Feeling: It's Called Languishing"
- San Antonio Spurs 2013 Season - Basketball Reference
- Golden State Warriors 2013 Season - Basketball Reference
- Warriors vs Spurs Game 2013 - Basketball Reference
- Surviving Burnout - Audrey's Life
- Letter to a Burnt-Out Founder - Tree and Forest
- Discussion on Burnout - Hacker News
Thanks for reading!
If you enjoyed this post, check out my latest post: An Archipelago of Ideas:
What if you thought of your writing, coding or building process as discovering first one idea island, then another, then another, until you can see the archipelago of ideas, and only worry later about building bridges to connect them?
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