Winning is not everything

We watched the NBA Western conference finals game 4 in the best of 7 series between Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs and came out inspired and appreciated the real meaning of sportsmanship.

While winning is the goal and the sweetest reward for a ball club and their fans the demeanor of the losing team particularly Brent Barry and their Coach Greg Popovich showed real class and dignified demeanor of an athletic warrior unwilling to feed the frenzy of the press to make a controversy on the outcome of their loss.

In the last 2.1 seconds of the play with the spurs in possession Barry faked Derek Fisher in the air, and then crouched under him while Fisher came down bumping his shoulder. No foul was called, Barry eased his way for a difficult three pointer missing the shot and the clock expired, Lakers took the game with a 3-1 lead.

After the game Barry was asked by Craig Sager if this could have been a defining moment for him as a player, he answered back that one single game does not make a career. As we watched Barry we were blown away by his demeanor looking in instead of giving excuses and acknowledging their failure to execute the plays unable to climb the hump instead of making excuses.

At the press conference when Coach Greg Popovich was asked about the last play between Fisher and Barry, his response was astonishing to say the least and asked in what respect since they were all there seeing the same thing. To quote Popovich:

I thought it was a proper no-call, from what I just saw" said Popovich, having reviewed the video. If I was the official, I wouldn't have called a foul.

You can sense the deafening silence, he could have played into it but choose not to do, now that is what makes this game so wonderful. How I wish that the Filipino politicians can only see this and learn from these professionals how to conduct themselves then we are probably on our way out of the quagmire they sank Philippine society. If only they can learn from this, on what respect is all about then we are halfway to ridding the nation of the kind of respect that is actually of the feudal authoritarian kind. If only the world politics is like a sports played like this and the demeanor of leaders like those shown by Barry and Popovich then we can probably make this world a better a place to live in.

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