The biggest surprise has been making the adjustment after losing a game. In the NBA you could lose tonight and you have to put that game behind you because you have another game the next night.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I don't know concretely if it's due to superstition, but any time a new rule is implemented into the NBA or a new piece of equipment or a new technology, there is always a transition and adjustment period by players and coaches and anyone involved with the game.
The midpoint of the NBA season comes a little after the turn of the calendar year. As we settle into the new promises we've made to ourselves, basketball teams are busy evaluating how the promises they made to themselves over the summer are going.
There are going to be losses. There are going to be bad plays. There are going to be mistakes.
The 3-point line has changed the game so much. The day of the big man, unless you're extraordinary good, is not numbered, but certainly you gotta be a lot more versatile to play the game today. You gotta be able to really run up and down the court.
The NBA is becoming a global game.
I expect more people from China and Asia to end up in the NBA.
Everybody says that it takes a loss to lose and I think it did take a loss for us to lose in a sense. But overall, when we win games here at Duke, and we don't play well, we might as well have lost the game.
The league is changing, and we don't have many back-to-the-basket players. We now have a game that requires skill and versatility. A lot of that is about being able to think. It makes all the difference in the world to have a player in there with a high basketball IQ who can make the right decision.
Everybody in the NBA works on their game. I just tried to follow that lead when I was in high school, college - and now.
In the NBA, you win, and you think you're going to win tomorrow. But as soon as you lose, you don't think you're ever going to win again.