Monday, November 3, 2008

Looking at the bigger picture of what you're trying to achieve

James Posey has been a member of two of the last three NBA championship teams. So when he arrived in New Orleans in the off-season, he was immediately regarded as a team leader.

Said NO head coach Byron Scott:

"He has changed our culture because we came into training camp talking about how our defense has to get better in order to win a championship, and no one knows that better than James.

And he's always the first guy off the bench to scream and yell. We needed that. All the guys ask him questions, and you know they're going to listen to him because he has two rings and these guys want to win one.

He's like a few players in this league that can affect a game without scoring. He's going to take the charge, he's going to guard the best players, he's going to communicate at all times. I loved him for all those reasons. He's won where he's been. He hits big shots in big games, he defends the best players almost every night."

As for Posey, he contends that winning is an attitude and a process:

"It's a mind-set, and I'm trying to get my teammates to buy into that. I'm just trying to share some of the things that I've learned on those two teams where I won and the mind-set as far as preparing yourself to actually win a title. What I keep telling them is: It's a process. You can't get bored with it.

You have to prepare for it each day by practicing hard, getting better and looking at the bigger picture of what you're trying to achieve. You can't get too high in this game in this game and you can't get too low. You've just got to keep working and keep pushing."