It is an exceedingly rare thing for an elite athlete suddenly to lose his competence. The instantiation of this phenomenon is baseball pitcher Steve Blass.
I have never heard of it happening to a team. Until now.
This was to have been the year for the Indiana "Pacers," the year they finally displaced the Miami "Heat" as the best team in America's National Basketball Association. Indiana won 68% of its eighty-two games this year. However, through fifty-nine games they had won 78%; they have only had a 10-13 won-lost record since. Now in the playoffs Indiana, the best team in their conference (better than Miami) are losing a first-to-win-four series two games to one to the eighth "best" team in the conference.
What has happened? Roy Hibbert, 7'2", suddenly cannot catch a ball, make a basket or get a rebound, just as Blass suddenly began throwing the baseball six feet over the catcher's head. Hibbert was benched for a game earlier in the season because, his coach said, he was exhausted. It is all mental with Hibbert, as it was with Steve Blass. The entire team has not played well in the last two months. Two of Hibbert's teammates got into a fight recently in practice. The Indiana "Pacers" have had a mental breakdown. It was with Blass, it is with Indiana, excruciating to watch.
I have never heard of it happening to a team. Until now.
This was to have been the year for the Indiana "Pacers," the year they finally displaced the Miami "Heat" as the best team in America's National Basketball Association. Indiana won 68% of its eighty-two games this year. However, through fifty-nine games they had won 78%; they have only had a 10-13 won-lost record since. Now in the playoffs Indiana, the best team in their conference (better than Miami) are losing a first-to-win-four series two games to one to the eighth "best" team in the conference.
What has happened? Roy Hibbert, 7'2", suddenly cannot catch a ball, make a basket or get a rebound, just as Blass suddenly began throwing the baseball six feet over the catcher's head. Hibbert was benched for a game earlier in the season because, his coach said, he was exhausted. It is all mental with Hibbert, as it was with Steve Blass. The entire team has not played well in the last two months. Two of Hibbert's teammates got into a fight recently in practice. The Indiana "Pacers" have had a mental breakdown. It was with Blass, it is with Indiana, excruciating to watch.
