Josh Childress

In my daily basketball readings certain things stick out. Over time they may become teaching points. Today, I read an interview with Josh Childress about the start of his European career in Greece. The interview was published at B92, a leading Serbian news source. Among other things, they asked Josh who was his favorite player of all time and his answer was Scottie Pippen. The reason is that Scottie did a lot of little things right. Then Josh said this sticky point: “Scottie was a born winner, he had capability to take over a game without scoring a single point.”

My first reaction was, hm, I heard people say this so many times, is it really true. Then, I thought, there are many aspects of the game, other than scoring: rebounding, assists, blocks, defense. I am not sure that’s what Josh is talking about. I think he is talking about intangibles. I’ve seen players whose quality transcends the stats. They make shooters on their team more confident, they toughen their team’s defense just a notch, they make opponent’s determination shakier – just enough to WIN. One European player who never played in the NBA was a Serb Zoran Savic. His stats were never great, but every team he played for was a winner.

Good luck in Europe, Josh!