Excellence Is Love
Why LeBron is coming back
When LeBron James announced he’ll be returning to play basketball next year with the Philadelphia 76ers, he talked about love.
“I thought I was done when the season ended. I wasn't ready to announce it, and I knew I needed some time to really decide, but I was pretty sure I played my last game. I was honest at that last press conference when I said I needed to look at myself and deicide if I still love this game,” he wrote.
James said that he’s not returning for the money, as evidenced by his reduced salary. He’s also not returning for the limelight—the guy is already more famous than anyone in the world, save maybe Taylor Swift, Lionel Messi, or Cristiano Ronaldo.
“What am I really playing for at this point?” James asked rhetorically.
“I still want to sacrifice. I still want to work. I still want to grind. I still want to compete, and I still want to have a chance at the feeling of winning another championship.”
He put it plainly: “I still truly love this game, and I have more to give”
Love The Process And The Process Loves You Back
Earlier this year, another larger-than-life figure in the basketball world, someone I’ve gotten to know a bit and whom I admire greatly, was also contemplating retirement. When Steve Kerr decided to return as coach of the Golden State Warriors, he did for the same reason as James. He didn’t want to give up on the feeling of pouring his all into the game and trying to win a championship.
“A great basketball team stands on a shared feeling more than strategy or scouting. The team lives as long as the feeling lives and when it's gone, not only is it impossible to recapture, it's hard to even remember,” wrote Wright Thompson in an incredible piece on Kerr’s decision for ESPN. “They weren't chasing titles, only the feeling of saddling up one last time together, wanting most of all to feel justified when the ride is done.”
In that same piece, the word love occurs twenty-five times.
But then again, what is excellence if not caring deeply and paying attention and repeated practice and overcoming failure and staying curious and steadfast dedication and feeling the highs and lows and showing up again and again—which is to say it’s a lot like love.
People usually think about intimacy as being in a relationship with another person. But you can also develop intimacy with an activity or craft. It’s a sense of familiarity, respect, and attentiveness that helps you feel connected to what you’re doing, and to yourself. It’s being in the pocket of a deadlift, song, or painting; total immersion in developing an idea or refining a skill; losing yourself in the slipstream of a team trying to win a championship.
A Lesson for Us All
James’ returning to basketball is going to require grind and sacrifice. But that’s the point. The reason you feel love for the process is not in spite of what you put into it but because of what you put into it. It’s true in basketball and it’s true for essentially everything else in life.
It’s an important realization, especially now. People are increasingly content to outsource their work, leisure, and even romantic lives to artificial intelligence. It might make life easier, more comfortable, more convenient, and more efficient. But it doesn’t make life better. If anything, it makes life worse because it alienates you from the very feelings that you crave most, feelings like intimacy and love.
It’s not just James and Kerr. It’s all of us.
When you work hard at something, when you throw your all into a process, that process becomes an expression of your very essence. Musicians, coaches, teachers, physicians, leaders, writers, parents, and of course athletes all know this to be true.
The reason I write is because AI can’t make me feel what it’s like when a sentence finally clicks, when the words line up and land just right. The reason I deadlift is because no robot or algorithm can feel a heavy-ass bar start to move off the ground. There are tools that can write more words. There are tools that can lift more weight. More efficiently. More easily. But that’s not the point. The point is the experience, the feeling of being alive; the feeling intimacy and, on a good day, when the gym community is at my back, maybe even something like love.
These feelings are, at root, what make us human. They separate us from machines. Build your life around them. Protect them. Cherish them.
LeBron didn't stay and make something work. He left again, at 40, for a better shot at a ring.
That's not excellence equals love. That's talent chasing convenience.
Jordan stayed with a middling roster before the Bulls got good, and won six without ever putting on another team's jersey. That's the difference. Love doesn't change teams when the winning gets hard.