What Steph Curry Can Teach Us About How to Change the Game

At times in my career driving progress in healthcare, I have felt like the wind is blowing in my face. In a system that systematically rewards the wrong things, we at Octave have come to believe that it is more important to change the game than keep playing in it.?

In that vein,? we draw inspiration from the NBA and the story of how Steph Curry became one of the more dominant players in the game.?

In 1979, the NBA was a Goliath’s game, dominated by people who were 7 feet tall. From 1960 to 1979, 10 of the scoring champions were 7-footers and the majority of championship teams were built around centers. After a game is played thousands of times, competition points it in a certain direction – in this case, rewarding players who can shoot without fear of being blocked, and these tended to be the tallest players. A Goliath’s game, in my opinion, is no fun to watch – just pass the ball to the 7-footer and watch them do their thing. We appreciate the skill, but none of us can ever picture being 7 feet tall, and it’s hard to love a game where the little guy has no chance.

The NBA apparently agreed because in 1979, to make the game more exciting, it made a small change to the basis of competition: It introduced the three-point line – one more point for shooting from a farther distance. At first, nothing changed. Less than 1% of total shots made were three-pointers in the 1980 season. But over the next 30 years, the addition of a three-point line accelerated and were complemented by innovations in the way the game was played by individuals and teams, things like pick & rolls, off-ball screens, stepback jumpers, and quick release shot techniques.??

As a result, it became possible for smaller, less bouncy players to score in ways that were not initially thought possible. In 2022, 15% of shots made in the NBA were three-pointers. Dominant teams today are mostly built around a mixture of skills, but certainly require three-point shooting. And the bottom line for the NBA? More exciting games and soaring popularity for the league.?

In today’s NBA, Stephen Curry has been one of the most dominant and arguably the most influential player for the last decade. He is the prototypical “David” – a relatively short basketball player and with average leaping ability – and his level of athleticism at least appears attainable for all of us. His success is the product of both his genius and a game that has evolved to allow him to benefit from it. In short, a seemingly small change to the basis of competition, combined with time and the power of innovation, can change the whole game. Human ingenuity is the most powerful resource we have, if only we let it thrive – in basketball, in healthcare, and in any competition.?

?I run a small company – a David – playing in the mental health industry. After billions of dollars of venture capital investment, I’m watching as all of the dysfunction of the rest of healthcare (the prototypical Goliath’s game) gets imported into my industry. We are now competing with companies more than three times our size, and with more funding, negotiating with companies that are thousands of times larger than us, convincing them to do things that are against their instincts but in their (and everyone else’s) best interests long-term. Last year, we realized that in order to achieve our mission – of increasing the accessibility of high quality mental health services in a manner that is sustainable for clinicians – we can’t just play in the game, we have to become a catalyst to some rule changes.

I draw a little inspiration from Stephen Curry, but a lot more from the teams and rule makers who enabled his genius to thrive. Likewise, I hope that if we are as clear as possible about why, and make the changes required as small and palatable as possible, we just might be able to change the way the game is played in my industry.

Step back and think about the industry that you work in every day and forget your part in it. Is competition pointing your industry in a direction that serves ALL of its stakeholders well? And if not, is there a three-point line – the smallest change possible that might drive things in the right direction??