Emotion X Ability: A Cleaner's mindset, what is needed beyond just the tangible physical ability and intelligence

"Great players are willing to give up their own personal achievement for the achievement of the group. It enhances everybody." and "One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team."

-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar formerly Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. 6 times National Basketball Association Champion and current all-time leading scorer in the league

"Life is marathon, not a race" this phrase had been used countless of times in order to indicate that firstly learning the process in life was the key factor and not just the result and not to compare oneself to other people, but one's own progress. And yet we would always wonder what other people did which made it seemed like their life is better than ours.... or they do accomplish more than us.

The picture above was taken from my own Instagram page when I complimented one of my own personal idols, Mr Tim Grover. Before I begin I ought to highlight that the cleaner mentality was created by Mr Grover and by no mean am I trying to plagiarize, repeat or copy him, however my article was a personal interpretation on how I utilize the information and how it personally has helped me to improve myself and how others might benefited from it.

A total of 14 National Basketball Championships, 9 NBA Finals Most Valuable Player, 45 NBA All-Star selections, 8 times NBA All- Star game Most Valuable Player and multiple records broken and rewritten. All these impressive awards and accomplishments were only some of the accomplishments of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade, all three of whom were believed in many popular professional analysts’ opinion and fans believed to be respectively first, second and third greatest Shooting Guards in NBA history with Michael Jordan being considered the single greatest basketball player in history.

Now, aside from all their athletic career, success and other success in similar statistics and category. One similarity seems to be overlooked despite being mentioned at rare times, and that all three men had Tim Grover as a personal trainer, this realization had fascinated me for years as not only he did he trained one, not two but three elite-level athletes who were considered some of the best of their respective generation and within their cohort, considered to be the best in the position.

For professional athletes, spending countless numbers of hours in the gym, honing their crafts, repeating countless numbers of hours for a drill and working out till one is about to puke would be a common thing however one would wonder what could create a pattern for once in a generational-defining athletes to come from one source consecutively and what made their list of accomplishments differs, of course I am not a professional athlete but despite that I found out multiple times that the analogy, metaphors and concept in sports also worked in everyday life such as defining the end goal clearly would result in creating a clearer vision for success or that there is no I in a team, as you couldn't handle the whole load yourself. Hence I went to conduct some research and I found out the cleaner concept.

For the benefit of everyone, Tim Grover is the Chief Executive Officer of ATTACK Athletics, Inc., founded in 1989. Aside from his work with the three players, he had worked and trained over hundreds of athletes from other professional sports league and events; National Football League, Major League Baseball, NBA itself and Olympic athletes. Throughout his career, he is regarded as the preeminent authority on the science and art of mental and physical dominance in order to achieve excellence.

Aside from his coaching career, he is a national bestseller author, his most notable work being RELENTLESS: From Good to Great to Unstoppable. Lastly Mr Grover makes appearances around the world as a keynote speaker and consultant to business leaders, athletes, and elite achievers in any area who wanted to know how the best can get even better in anything they do, teaching the principles of relentless drive, result-driven performance, and mental toughness. (all information are courtesy and edited from https://timgrover.com/about/)

Firstly, we would look into what would be within their job description their responsibility scope and then explored each of the three players profiles and what had they done differently which puts differentiated them from the rest of the pack and resulted in their success.

According to BBC Sports Academy, a Shooting Guard (SG), otherwise known as the two or off guard is one of the five traditional positions in a regulated basketball game. A shooting guard's main objective is to score points for his team and steal the ball as a counter when his or her team is on a defensive position.

Lee Rose, an American former basketball coach and college athletic administrator who wrote the Basketball Handbook in 2004 further elaborated that a shooting guard is one of the main scorers or would typically be the primary scorers of their team. As the name suggested,most shooting guards possessed good long-range shots and would typically average around 35–40 percent from three-point shooting range. Many shooting guards also possessed strong and athletic built and can get inside the paint (the area under the basket where they could score 2 points) and drive to the basket.

Aside from their scoring responsibilities,the SG could sometimes be used as a secondary ball handler. Some teams ask their shooting guards to handle the ball to the centre of the basketball court as well due to possessing adequate skill beyond their required position, these players would be address informally as combo guards.

Throughout the decades with the evolution of the game, the position of the two had evolved with two other variations; swing man and 3 and D players.

Coined by John"Hondo"Havlicek. In basketball, the term “swingman” (a.k.a. “wing” or “guard-forward”) referred to a player who can play both the shooting guard (2)and small forward (3) positions, and swing between the positions. As typically SG would range from 6 foot 3 inches (191 cm) to 6 foot 7 inches (201 cm), this is typically common for the player in this position whose stature is larger to play in the position to further contributed to defence.

In the current NBA landscape, there are some shooting guards referred to as "3 and D" players. The term 3 and D implied that the player is a good 3-point shooter who can also play solidly(sometimes elite-level) defence. The 3 and D players had become very important components as the game swayed to be more shooting oriented as compared to leaping and dunking and was credited as a fountain of youth for a long professional basketball career by USAToday due to the potential lack of impact on joints and muscles while executing the role.

Good shooting guards could often play point guard to a certain extent. It is usually a common trend that point guards should have the ball in their hands at most times in the game as the primary ball handler, but sometimes the shooting guard has a significant enough influence on the team where he or she handled the ball extremely often, to the point where the point guard could be reduced to a backup ball handler or a catch and shoot player.

Since all the detailed explanation of the position had already been listed, now the profiles of the three players would be listed, based on past reviews and analysis of how they executed their game.

Firstly, would be the man regarded as one of the all-time greatest in the history of the game and widely believed to be the greatest to play in this position, Michael Jordan. Jordan's story of how he began his rise to super stardom would serve as a motivational speech for self-improvement courses and talks on how to surpass one's limits.

 Despite sharing the love of Baseball with his father as their favorite sport, he would however, follow his older brother, Larry, whom he idolized and was a spectacular athlete in his own right, he began to play basketball.

He tried out for the varsity basketball team during his sophomore year, but at 5 foot 11 inches (180 cm), he was deemed too short to play at that level. And reportedly ran home, locked himself in his room and cried. Undeterred and determined to prove his worth, Jordan became the star of his high school junior varsity team and tallied several 40-point games.

The summer before his junior year, Jordan growth spurt kicked in and in 1979 he grew 4 inches(10cm) and worked out constantly and would reportedly play in community centre games on days he was supposed to rest. That year he made the varsity squad and instantly became his high school's best player, averaging more than 20 points a game. (Poppel,2015)

Analysts and NBA historians described Jordan as a phenomenal athlete with a unique combination of fundamental soundness, grace, speed, power, artistry, improvisational ability and an unquenchable competitive desire, Jordan single-handedly redefined the way NBA superstars played, according to his biography in the NBA website.

Jordan had a multi-sided offensive game, capable of aggressively driving to the basket, as well as drawing fouls from his opponents at a high percentage; his 8,772 free throw attempts are the 11th-highest total in NBA history according to basketball-reference.com for NBA & American Basketball Association (NBA precursor) career free throw attempts records. As his career progressed, Jordan also developed the ability to post up his opponents and shot with his signature fadeaway jump shot, using his leaping ability to "fade away" from block attempts.

According to two-time NBA coach of the year Hubie Brown, this move alone made him nearly unstoppable. Despite media criticism as a "selfish" player early in his career, Jordan's 5.3 assists per game which indicate his (1)willingness to defer to his teammates and prominently being displayed when he ran the triangle offence religiously utilized by his former head coach, Phil Jackson,(1) trusting and believed on his teammates individual capabilities during the Bulls dominance in the 90's.

The three-point shot became more of a focus of his game from 1994–95 to 1996–97, when the NBA shortened its three-point line to 6.7 m to 7.24. Additionally, for a guard, Jordan was also a good re bounder with a statistic of 6.2 per game. Jordan however, had been praised more on his contribution to defence and for being a capable all-rounder player by legends of the game.

To help improve his defence, he spent extra hours studying film of opponents and stated he took the opportunity to understand his opponents better while being teammates with them in the 1992 Olympics, as proven by him defeating three of them in subsequent championship games throughout the 90's.

In 1988, Jordan was honoured with the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year Award and became the first NBA player to win both the Defensive Player of the Year and MVP awards in a career. In addition, he set both seasonal and career records for blocked shots by a guard,(Ladewski, 2007) and combined this with his ball-thieving ability to become a standout defensive player, all coupled with his ability to increase his tempo and pace as the game prolonged and competitiveness, displayed by his prolific trash talking which his contemporaries claimed he was one of the best at.

The second person whom many pundits,journalists and analysts claimed to be the only person to match Jordan in terms of influence and his position amongst fellow NBA players along with being regarded as the second-best SG of all-time, would-be Kobe Bryant.

Bryant was the son of Joe Bryant, a former NBA player who was nicknamed Jellybean due to his flashy style of play and played a large portion of his career in Italy. Bryant claimed that his drive and fuel to succeed was the exclusion in a foreign land along with how the then lack of acceptance of his father style and him bowing to the public view, made him determine to reach an elite level in the league,

Standing at 6 feet 6 inches (198cm) and weighing 212 pounds (96 kg), Bryant played primarily as a Shooting Guard or sometimes as a Small Forward. Dupree (2006) and Pelton (2013) claimed that he was often cited as one of the most dangerous scorers in the history of the NBA, being able to execute exceptional level of shot regardless of the situation.

In his peak Bryant had drawn frequent comparisons to Jordan, after whom he modeled his playing style. (Hoffman, 2014) Just like Jordan, he became most known for using a fadeaway jump shot as his go to signature shot. In 2008 Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated described another of Bryant's most famous moves as the "jab step-and-pause": Bryant jabbed his non-stable foot forward to let the opposing player and defenders who guarded him relax, but instead of bringing the jab foot back, he pushed off of it and drove around his opponent to get to the basket and will shoot off-balance with it.

Bryant established a reputation as one of the premier clutch player; the one who took the deciding shots in the closing moments of tight games as noted by Jenkins (2014) as Pingue(2015) reported during Bryant’s impending retirement even when he was guarded by two or even three opposing players, and was noted as one of the premier closers in the NBA. In a 2012 annual survey of NBA general managers, Bryant was selected for the 10th consecutive season as the player general managers would want to take the final deciding shot with the game victory on the line.

 In addition to his offensive capabilities, Bryant also established himself as a standout defensive player. Bryant rarely drew any fouls or punishments when he played defence, which he believed spared his body and his technically- savvy style of defences contributed to his longevity. Some critics have suggested that Bryant's defensive accolades in his later years were based more on younger players fearing his reputation than his actual play.

Lastly, Bryant enjoyed being the villain, he received the thrill of being booed and jeered and then silencing the crowd with his game play according to Jerry Brewer of Washington Post in 2015. Benjamin Hoffman of New York Times however, noted that his ability to make difficult shots had also drawn criticism of the way he chose his style of shot.

Throughout his career, Bryant was disparaged for being a selfish, high-volume shooter; and he held the record for more missed field goal attempts in his career than any other player in NBA history. Phil Jackson, who coached Bryant for many years and winning five championships with him, stated that Bryant "tends to force the action, especially when the game isn't going his way. When his shot is off, Kobe will pound away relentlessly until his luck turns. “Horace Grant who played with both Bryant and Jordan indicated that in contrast, Jordan would instead head back to contribute to defence to increase his chance of a victory According to Bryant, "I would go 0 for 30 shots before I would go 0 for 9 shots as 0 for 9 means you beat yourself, you psyched yourself out of the game."

The last player on this subject would as of the writing of this article, still an active player but would be retiring in 2019 and celebrated his final all-star game, Dwyane Wade.

With the height of 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm) tall and weighing 220 pounds (100 kg), Wade played primarily as a shooting guard that is also capable of playing a point guard, the primarily ball handler and playmaker as he did during his rookie season and in subsequent seasons with smaller line-ups.

On offense, he had established himself as one of the quickest and most difficult players to guard, as well as one of the best slashers (players who primarily score by driving towards the basket) in the NBA. According to John Hollinger in 2007, Wade's signature one-two step allowed him to dash past bigger defenders and occasionally got an additional shot, by means of foul. He was also noted to be one of the most creative scorer, making up his lack of height in the position with multiple technical trick shots and footworks.

Wade was able to get to the free throw line consistently for additional points; he ranked first in free-throw attempts per 48 minutes in throughout the 2004 till the 2007 seasons. He had proven himself an unselfish player, averaging 6.1 assists per game throughout his career according to ESPN and was the main shot setter during Miami Heat championship run from 2011 till the 2014 for his teammates.

According to NBA.com after winning the NBA Finals MVP award in 2006, Wade developed a reputation as one of the premier clutch players in the NBA and just as the previous two individuals he gained a reputation for being capable of hitting game-winning baskets and potential game-winning free throws.

In 2007, John Hollinger of ESPN stated that Wade was also best known for his ability to convert difficult loose ball in the air to score, even after hard mid-air collisions with larger defenders, however as crowd pleasing as his high-flying style of basketball might be, he indicated some experts had expressed concerns over the dangers of playing in this manner, as Wade has already hurt his knees and wrists after mid-air collisions with larger players which benched him for multiple games, early in his career.

Colton (2009) praised of Wade’s defensive contribution as he had also established himself on defence for his ability to block shots and accumulate steals. He became the NBA's all-time leader in blocks for players listed 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm) and under, which he achieved in only 679 games, over 400 games less than the previous record holder: Dennis Johnson who took 1100 games.

David Thorpe, an athletic trainer who runs a training center for NBA players during their resting season, also cited early in his career, Wade's developing game under the basket as one of his strengths. "Watching Wade operated on the left block is literally like watching old footage of MJ (Michael Jordan)", as Thorpe commented.

Thorpe went on to say that Wade's best moves from the post are his turnaround jump shot, double pivot where he faked a ball direction before turning around as required and what Thorpe coined as a "freeze fake", pretending to shoot but would instead halt the movement to get his opponent to jump, so that he can then drive around him to the basket.

The main weakness cited in Wade's ability, aside from injury vulnerability, would be his lack of range from the three-point line as he averaged .289 on three-point field goal attempts for his career despite a slight improvement in his elder year when he was in Chicago. 

Conclusion

This particular article was actually based on a certain resolution I made this year after studying the cleaner concept myself. After two years in working to help establish companies in a start-up and a Small and Medium Enterprises, I decided to head back to my home country. Aside from the feeling of a burn-out, I felt that I needed to develop other abilities aside from occupational-related skills that I feel I am lacking, notably spirituality and greater emotional sensitivity and empathy

So not to digress, to make a further fair conclusion, it would be approached in two ways. First it would be a the key points from Tim Grover and the second part would be on how the three athletes applied them, this would be furthers supported by actual interviews, comments and comparisons from contemporaries and coaches along with how this can further assists in one's own development.

Craig Ballantine the co-owner of Early to Rise since 2011 and the author of "The Perfect Day Formula highlighted of the Relentless 13, the 13 guiding principles in Tim Grover's methodology which made an individual unstoppable. They are:

#1. You keep pushing yourself harder when everyone else has had enough.

#2. You get into the Zone, you shut out everything else, and control the uncontrollable.

#3. You know exactly who you are.

#4. You have a dark side that refuses to be taught to be good.

#5. You’re not intimidated by pressure, you thrive on it.

#6. When everyone is hitting the ‘In Case of Emergency’ button, they’re all looking at you.

#7. You don’t compete with anyone, you find your opponent’s weakness and you attack.

#8. You make decisions, not suggestions; you know the answer while everyone else is still asking questions.

#9. You don’t have to love the work, but you’re addicted to the results.

#10. You’d rather be feared than liked.

#11. You trust very few people, and those you trust better never let you down.

#12. You don’t recognize failure; you know there’s more than one way to get what you want.

#13. You don’t celebrate your achievements because you always want more. 

Application by the 3 subjects

#11. You trust very few people, and those you trust better never let you down and #12. You don’t recognize failure; you know there’s more than one way to get what you want.

Both Jordan and Kobe had been described as a selfish player, Jordan notably highlighted in the sentence (1) and Bryant, as remarked by both of their former coach, Phil Jackson during his interview with Mike Breshnahan in 2013 on his second tenure coaching Bryant was"if Bryant talked to teammates in his earlier years with the Lakers, it was usually, "Give me the damn ball." During the latter period, "[Bryant] embraced the team and his teammates, calling them up when we were on the road and inviting them out to dinner. It was as if the other players were now his partners, not his personal spear-carriers."

One more notable instance was in the 1998 NBA Finals, whereby Michael Jordan allowed his teammate Steve Kerr, to perform the final shot. He was given the trust by Jordan due to him being willing to stand up to Jordan due to their dispute upon the team needing adjustment upon his return from his first retirement. Upon realizing that the opposing team would guard Jordan for the final seconds, Kerr told him to pass him the ball as he would not be guarded, true enough this trust resulted in them securing the victory and the championship.

While Dwyane Wade never seemed to have any comments of being a selfish like the "former" two and was not part of the coaching tree of Jackson, he was still a key offensive player and would indirectly received the guidance through former teammate Shaquille O'Neal who was Bryant's teammate for 8 years, winning three championships together. When he became Wade's teammate, he made it a point to highlight that Wade would be the leader of the team and that he would be willing to take a backseat due to his age, despite being in his prime. This eventually would serve Wade later on in his career.

• The willingness to trust and receive help from others is something which is applicable in life for any ordinary people, personally applying this has lighten the emotional load that sometimes put unnecessary weight on the mind.

#13. You don’t celebrate your achievements because you always want more and #9. You don’t have to love the work, but you’re addicted to the results.

As stated all three men had a combined 14 championships and 9 times considered to be the best player for that series and all three had at least consecutive title victories. While winning one was hard enough it would be even harder to retain it. This was further supplemented by point number 9, aside from opening up to others one ought to develop the other parts of one's skill-set to achieve victory.

Traditionally, the position of a SG didn't require much defensive contribution however Jordan could be considered the revolutionary guard who changed the mindset, being capable of playing both back court position(Shooting and Point Guard) as well as a small forward with Bryant and Wade emulating him.

Bryant was noted to be faster than Jordan and was noted by journalists to be obsessed in ensuring all of his gear would assist in his performance and would notably shaved several millimeters of his sneaker for a faster reaction time. Wade being a Chicago native would closely follow Jordan's style due to watching and idolizing him growing up and was notably holding the record of blocks for player below 6'4 and challenging opponents of larger build.

• Understood the basic requirements of your role while developing the additional skillsets to further guaranteed success

#3. You know exactly who you are and #4. You have a dark side that refuses to be taught to be good.

In Phil Jackson's book Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success, said that the main contrast between his two former star players are," One of the biggest differences between the two stars from my perspective was Michael's superior skills as a leader," Jackson wrote in the 339-page memoir, portions of which were published in 2013 by the Los Angeles Times.

"Though at times he could be hard on his teammates, Michael was masterful at controlling the emotional climate of the team with the power of his presence."

Kobe Bryant was a win-at-all-costs superstar who could score 81 points by himself if needed as noted by Jackson and has a win-at-all-costs mentality, as written in the same books, whereby it says Bryant doesn't know the meaning of surrender and will hammer away with his shot until it starts to click for him. In his interview before his retirements, the first all star game he met Jordan in 1997, he was told to stick to the game he knew and eventually all will worked out.

While Kobe entered the league younger than most players, hence would need time to mature to grow into leadership role as in his younger years, most of his teammates who were older and had accomplished more in their own rights compared to him would not willing to listen to him.

Wade was noted to peak early in his career and would notably apply the advice given by O'neal on when to step back when needed. In the 2010-2011 NBA season, two other all star players Lebron James and Chris Bosch joined him.

This signing sparked multiple infamous outcry from fans, former players and media due to how this over-tipped the spread of superstars in the league. However due to suffering injuries, Wade took a role as the play maker of the team instead of the main offensive source, notably the popularly named"lob-city" whereby he famously would perform extremely high passes that bounced off the Basketball rim and received by James who performed a dunk from the pass.

Wade not only embraced the negativity but indirectly also accepted point number 5 which in all resulted in two championships in four finals.

• Be true to what you excelled in but keep an open mind and control your composure to embrace negative perception of those who dislike what you are doing and new possibilities