Magic, Bird, Free Play and Deliberate Practice

Magic vs Bird and Play vs Work

The fascinating 30 for 30 Celtics Lakers reminds us how Play and Work shape us, our potential, our future and even sport itself. 

The Foundation of learning sits on a continuum of Free Play and individual deliberate practice.  

Jean Cote divided up up practices along a continuum. On one end is free play, unstructured, fun, immediate, intrinsic; On the other end is Deliberate Practice which is the opposite, not inherently fun, extrinsic, performance related.  One is "play"  the other is "work"  and they are both important.  

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When you are young, lots of free play is important.  Serious preparation for the difficult competitions of life are forged not through hard work but with imagination, fun, and joy of free play.  Bear cubs wrestle and play to prepare themselves for the demands of being a top of the food chain omnivore.  

And it works for kids too, especially in sports.  The streets have always produced the best, most nuanced, most inspirational players in all sports.  In soccer Ronaldo quit his youth academy team to stay and play with his Friends in the local pick up game, he is maybe the best striker the word has ever known, Zidane brought a new level of skill honed on the streets of Marseilles, Maradona, Messi, Cruyff, there is no greatness without free play. 

And Deliberate Practice is of course well understood.  It is the hard work without the inherent fun.  It is disciplined, structured and difficult.  It tends to be what we think about when we think about great aceivement--and it's mostly true: Hard work leads to success.

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Let’s look at two examples, from Basketball, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. 

Larry Bird grew up in a small town in Indiana, he practiced a lot, and much of it on his own honing his skills through hours of repetitions. It was not inherently fun, it was work.  

Magic Johnson on the other hand hated to practice.  He liked to play in the 3 v 3 games at the local park in Lansing Michigan. . The problem was that at his home courts the games were plagued by fights, arguments, games would break up with players upset leaving Magic alone with a ball…and he hated to practice on his own.

Magic had to figure out a way to keep the game going.  He would pass the ball, that made the others happy (he would go on to become one of the best passers in NBA history), he would smile (his smile became world famous). He learned how to keep the group happy and productive.  

These two were shaped by this upbringing.  Magic, as a rookie led his team to the NBA title, in the final game he did this playing out of position for the Injured hall of famer, Kareem Abdul Jabar. Johnson recorded 42 points, 15 rebounds, 7 assists, and 3 steals in a 123–107 win, while playing guard, forward, and center at different times during the game. Johnson became the only rookie to win the NBA Finals MVP award and his clutch performance is still regarded as one of the finest in NBA history.

He still had a lot to learn.  His technical skills (outside shooting, free throw shooting, for example) were not at the level of other parts of his game and needed to work on those things to improve, but, by the time he got the NBA Johnson was a social genius.  

Larry Bird on the other hand was a tremendous technician honed through hours of solitary practice.  No one had ever seen a 6’ 11” player who could shoot threes as well as play inside.  But socially he was not a leader as he came in to the league.  It took him a few years before he won a title. A famous tv shot shows Bird waving a flag on the bench, tentatively waving on his teammates—it looked like Bird was doing what everyone thought he should do, but he was learning and working at it. 

Magic had to work on his technical skills, Bird had to work on his social skills. So maybe maybe how we spend the hours in sport as kids shapes our abilities and hence our strengths and weaknesses in sport. 

So both Deliberate Practice and Free Play provide pathways to success.  


Next blog, how we divide FP and DP.