Miami Heat: Culture Is Something That, Even, Legends Can See
On said “Culture” though, former Miami Heat champion and All-Time NBA great, Gary Payton, had a pretty neat and nifty summarization in a piece from The Players’ Tribune during the Heat’s NBA Bubble Finals run. It’s actually a pretty cool little anecdote, but perfectly symbolic of what the Culture is.
"“I’ll tell you about the day I bought in,” Payton wrote. “I still remember it. It was this one day at practice where Pat and them had us doing wind sprints — doing old-school stuff from when you was back in the eighth and ninth grade! OLD school, you know what I’m saying? Doing defensive slides, taking charges. And I’m loving it, man. I’m loving it. Then I look around. Whole team is loving it. And I’m just thinking to myself, like, Wow."
"You have this whole group of NBA vets back on their eighth and ninth grade shit? You’ve got that kind of power??When he did that, I think that’s when I said, OK. This is different. This is real.”‘"
In case you are confused as to how that relates, it all points back to that “habit”. If you make a habit of doing the little things and all the necessary work, then the big things that actually require that work don’t seem all that daunting.
That’s exactly how the Miami Heat operate. It shows in every facet of their play and in every facet of their team.
That will all start to make sense now.