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TMZ reports that Kobe Bryant passed away.

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No, most bad things happen to you because you weren't lucky enough to be born in a situation where they simply cannot happen to you.
You were lucky enough to be born as the most intelligent, most adaptable species to walk this planet. You come from a line of winners a million generations deep or you wouldn't be here. From single celled ancestors a billion years ago all the way to your parents, all had adversity to overcome and they did. You aren't here because they were lucky. You are here because they were fighters and they fought and they won enough times to make you possible. Quit whining.
 
You were lucky enough to be born as the most intelligent, most adaptable species to walk this planet. You come from a line of winners a million generations deep or you wouldn't be here. From single celled ancestors a billion years ago all the way to your parents, all had adversity to overcome and they did. You aren't here because they were lucky. You are here because they were fighters and they fought and they won enough times to make you possible. Quit whining.

I'm a grandson of a Holocaust survivor. You better believe that I'm here because I'm lucky. Unless you figure that the other 6 million didn't survive because they weren't "fighters" or "winners."

Everything, everything about life is about luck.
 
I'm a grandson of a Holocaust survivor. You better believe that I'm here because I'm lucky.
I think it is shameful to not recognize the resolve it took for your ancestor to make it through. Sorry to hear you've thrown up your hands to let fate do as it will.
 
I think it is shameful to not recognize the resolve it took for your ancestor to make it through. Sorry to hear you've thrown up your hands to let fate do as it will.

She was 12. It had nothing to do with resolve. Just luck. That her father managed to hid her away. That she wasn't betrayed. That she never ended up in a concentration camp. That she grew up in a predominantly Muslim town so that it didn't take much effort for her to pass as Muslim.

Here's 25 members of her extended family who weren't so lucky. Or was it just that they didn't have the resolve?

 
You are both right. It takes both hard work and a sizable amount of luck to accomplish any sort of status.
Well, we're on an NBA forum. Is there a single player in the league right now who isn't there because of luck? From genetic lottery to having a father who played in the NBA, to simply being Giannis' brothers. Everyone is here due to tremendous amount of luck.

Oh yeah, I know. It still takes hard work. Maybe, though I've probably worked harder to install a new fan into my computer this morning than Zion has to become an NBA player. We can say the work is 1% and everything else is 99%.

Or look at it this way. Let's imagine a 30 year old with all the physical attributes LeBron James was born with(or even exceeding them) who hasn't made it to the NBA simply because they didn't work hard enough or didn't have the resolve. How many of those would you honestly say exist in the USA right now?
 
Well, we're on an NBA forum. Is there a single player in the league right now who isn't there because of luck? From genetic lottery to having a father who played in the NBA, to simply being Giannis' brothers. Everyone is here due to tremendous amount of luck.
Agreed.

It still takes hard work. Maybe, though I've probably worked harder to install a new fan into my computer this morning than Zion has to become an NBA player.
Doubtful.

Or look at it this way. Let's imagine a 30 year old with all the physical attributes LeBron James was born with(or even exceeding them) who hasn't made it to the NBA simply because they didn't work hard enough or didn't have the resolve. How many of those would you honestly say exist in the USA right now?
Born with? One or two, at least.
 
I've probably worked harder to install a new fan into my computer this morning than Zion has to become an NBA player.
You clearly no clue about what it takes to make it to that level. My kid is 11 years old. He's in 5th grade. He has private coaching two weekday mornings per week before going to elementary school, has two hours every day after school during weekdays with his club team, and competes on roughly half of all weekends year round. He's in fifth grade and he'll top 500 hours of professionally coached practice this year in his main sport, and he's been working at his main sport for years already.

To get to the NBA or equivalent requires in the neighborhood of 10,000 hours of coached practice. It is built from years of mornings and nights and weekends and traveling and sacrifice and frustration and pushing limits. Losers are losers because they're lazy. Losers only delude themselves into thinking their losing is due to luck so they can stand looking at themselves in the mirror.
 
You clearly no clue about what it takes to make it to that level. My kid is 11 years old. He's in 5th grade. He has private coaching two weekday mornings per week before going to elementary school, has two hours every day after school during weekdays with his club team, and competes on roughly half of all weekends year round. He's in fifth grade and he'll top 500 hours of professionally coached practice this year in his main sport, and he's been working at his main sport for years already.

To get to the NBA or equivalent requires in the neighborhood of 10,000 hours of coached practice. It is built from years of mornings and nights and weekends and traveling and sacrifice and frustration and pushing limits. Losers are losers because they're lazy. Losers only delude themselves into thinking their losing is due to luck so they can stand looking at themselves in the mirror.
Whoosh

Yes of the .001% of the population born with the potential to play pro sports only the .001% of them have the combination of luck and hard work to actually make it there.

There was no amount of hard work my 5'8" short armed self could have done to make it into the NBA.
 
You clearly no clue about what it takes to make it to that level. My kid is 11 years old. He's in 5th grade. He has private coaching two weekday mornings per week before going to elementary school, has two hours every day after school during weekdays with his club team, and competes on roughly half of all weekends year round. He's in fifth grade and he'll top 500 hours of professionally coached practice this year in his main sport, and he's been working at his main sport for years already.

To get to the NBA or equivalent requires in the neighborhood of 10,000 hours of coached practice. It is built from years of mornings and nights and weekends and traveling and sacrifice and frustration and pushing limits. Losers are losers because they're lazy. Losers only delude themselves into thinking their losing is due to luck so they can stand looking at themselves in the mirror.

I could've put 50000 hours in and it wouldn't have made me play in the NBA. The hours your kid puts in have no bearing on whether he makes it or not. Genome does.

Is it basketball we're talking about?

Well, let's start. First, you need to be born in a specific country. India has 15% of the world's population and is yet to produce an NBA player. I'm not going to do the exact math here, but if feels like more than half the world's population is automatically excluded. You gotta be born in the USA or one of a handful European countries, or you have to move to these places before you're 15 or so. Does your kid satisfy this requirement? It's because of luck.

I can't recall the last time a player under 6 feet was drafted in the first round. The average NBA player is 6'6. The average American male is about 5'10 and the average male globally is shorter than even that. You have to be that height without incurring other issues that come with it. You can't just be 7 feet tall because of some pituitary tumor, and your frame has to be able to support your weight and height. Most 6'6 people aren't all that coordinated, so you have to win another lottery to be coordinated like a 6 footer. Remember that for the first 50 years of its existence, basketball was not a tall man's game. For a reason.

You talk about professionally coached practice. That costs money. Unless your kid was a child movie star, they don't have their own money at 11. Certainly not that kind. Are they lucky enough to have parents who do? That's another layer of fortune you have to add here.

Come the **** on. I know you're a right winger who is still somehow on this 16th century Calvinist kick of success-comes-from-hard-work and failure-comes-from-lack thereof(or a moral flaw in general), but I know even you're not this naive. We're not quite at that point yet, but science will improve over the next 50 years to the point where you'll be able to look at every newborn in the country and decide immediately with great confidence which one of them has any chance in hell making it to the NBA.

Zion Williamson's contract is non-guaranteed because he just can't stay away from sugary soda and big-bootied pornstars but hey, he's clearly worked harder than me at being a basketball player. And I, clearly, have failed at becoming an NBA player or a professional footballer or the greatest guitar player of all time because I'm a loser and I'm lazy. Despite putting in probably 10000 hours into each one of those between the ages of 10 and 30, at the expense of things like laying big-bootied pornstars.
 
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