這幾篇文章其實在討論一個很有趣的問題:
過人的稟賦對一個球員(人)來說到底是幸運還是詛咒?
以下我節譯了我認為重要的篇章, 希望能重現整個事情的來龍去脈,
但老話一句, 有興趣的人應該去看原文, 才能建立自己第一手的看法,
我所找到有關這件事最早的討論來自 Dan Devine 03/05 在 YAHOO! 的一篇部落格文章:
Tracy McGrady, 'freakish' talent and the peril of ease
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/Tracy-McGrady-freakish-talent-and-the-peril-o?urn=nba-330022
I walked into the 2011 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference thinking I needed to be quick on the draw with a graphing calculator and had to know my way around a scatter plot to keep up with the next-lev chatter whizzing past my ample Irish melon. At Friday's first session, though, I quickly found out that I mostly just needed to be willing to ponder Tracy McGrady's(notes) place in basketball's space-time continuum. Done and done!
在前往參加 2011 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference 之前,
我擔心的是我操作計算機和閱度讀資料圖表的能力太差會讓我跟不上進度,
想不到禮拜五會議開始之後, 我很快就便發現其實我只需要專注在一個問題上就可以了,
Tracy McGrady 在籃球史上的地位!
Well, that, and two other things. I needed to be willing to consider that being AMAZING at something — like, tallest letters on the marquee, top five in the world, stunningly and nigh-on-unfathomably gifted — could be not only bad, but also a massive impediment to becoming the best version of yourself.
其實, 在 Tracy McGrady 問題的背後,
會議真正的主題是: 一個人驚人的天賦, 會不會有時候反而成為阻礙他成就最高潛能的障礙?
Best-selling author and noted hairsman Malcolm Gladwell introduced the concept while moderating the opening session of this year's Sloan conference. The talk dealt with how the "10,000 hour rule" that Gladwell discussed in his 2008 book "Outliers" — that the key to success in any field is the purposeful practice of a specific task for 10,000 hours — relates to an athlete's development.
暢銷書作者 Malcolm Gladwell 在開場會議中提出了這個主題,
這和他在他的暢銷書"Outliers"中所提出的"一萬小時理論"相呼應,
"一萬小時理論"基本上強調要在任何一個領域成功, 你必需先花一萬個小時嫻熟這個領域的知識,
以運動員來說, 就是練習一萬個小時.
(譯者: Outliers 這本書值得一讀, 雖然我不完全同意書中的觀點)
...
As often occurs when discussing abstract ideas, talk turned quickly to a physical example — in this case, McGrady, whose combination of size, speed, power and grace beguiled the NBA in the last years of the 20th century and made him one of the league's most dominant offensive forces in the early years of the 21st.
抽象概念的討論毫無意外的很快變成對現存運動人物的臧否, 目標是 Tracy McGrady,
結合了身裁'速度'力量'和優雅, T-mac一加入NBA便令人驚豔,
而他也不負所望的很快便成為聯盟中所向無敵的攻擊利器.
But while McGrady's abilities were awe-inspiring, his willingness to further cultivate them wasn't, according to panelist and ESPN NBA analyst Jeff Van Gundy, who coached the Florida-born star with the Houston Rockets from 2004 through 2007.
相比於T-mac另人贊嘆的天賦, 他精益求精的決心似乎便有些不如了,
這是他在火箭隊前教練 Jeff Van Gundy 的看法.
...
"His talent was otherworldly," Van Gundy said.
"天賦橫空出世" Van Gundy 如是說.
Van Gundy's tone was echoed by his fellow panelist and former employer, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey, who inherited McGrady when he took the Rockets' reins in 2007.
火箭GM Deryl Morey 完全同意 Van Gundy 對T-mac 的評價.
After praising McGrady's talents, Morey said, "I do think [that ability] got in the way of Tracy's development."
但盛贊完 T-mac 的天賦之後, Morey 和 Van Gundy 都表示T-mac的天賦事實上阻礙了他的成長.
...
The basic principle makes some sense. If you're bigger, stronger, faster and more talented than the competition you're playing against, you're not forced to develop the finer points of your game, because when push comes to shove, you can just rely on your superior gifts to give you the edge you need. And when those gifts start to fade, if you haven't been developing new skills (or sharpening old ones) for a rainy day, you'll find yourself soaking wet in a storm that might just wash you away from the league.
聽起來有道理, 如果你天生就比人快比人高比人強,
你不需要再學新的技巧, 憑著過人的天賦你便可以贏過競爭者,
問題是: 當有一天優勢不再, 如果你沒有未雨籌謀發展新技能,
你很快便會瞭解什麼叫浪花淘盡英雄.
...
Still, I can't help feeling like selecting McGrady as the poster boy for wasted chances is at least partially a function of our own propensity as writers, observers, executives and fans to jam talented players into a hyperbolic chamber, imbue them with whatever dreams may come and then get all pissy when they don't pop out, pure and perfect, exactly the way our imaginations envisioned.
這些都說得不錯, 可是我還是覺得以 T-mac 作為天賦害人的例ˊ證,
是出於我們這些稟賦一般的運動作家球迷, 對天資出眾運動員的一種報復心理,
尤其是當他們"辜負"了我們強加在他們身上的期許時.
Maybe more diligence would have enabled McGrady to avoid the lower back, left knee and left shoulder injuries that have cost him wide swaths of playing time over the past nine years, first with the Magic, then with the Rockets and, in a playing-out-the-string sequence, the New York Knicks and Detroit Pistons. Maybe adhering to a better class of regimen would have mitigated the fallout of the injuries, or would have gotten a healthier version of T-Mac back on the court sooner. These are reasonable possibilities.
也許更加自我激勵可以讓 T-mac 避免下背'左膝'左肩的受傷,
也許更好的療程可以縮短他因傷缺席的日子, 這些都是有可能的.
But all that said, it would be ludicrous to act like McGrady hasn't turned in what one can argue is still a Hall of Fame-caliber career, even with the allegedly abysmal habits and all the time he's spent on the shelf, especially considering that this is a Hall of Fame that includes the likes of myriad college and foreign players that never attained nearly the level of individual notoriety that T-Mac has.
儘管有這些傷害, 巔峰時期的 T-mac 還是交出了名人堂級的成績,
遠勝許多大學或國外出身的球員.
McGrady has led the league in scoring twice and finished in the top 10 six times. He's made seven All-NBA teams (two first-team, three second-team, two third-team) and produced a 2002-03 season for the Orlando Magic that Zach Lowe of SI.com's The Point Forward blog calls "perhaps the most under-appreciated great season in NBA history." And according to the Hall of Fame Probability Rankings on Basketball-Reference.com, McGrady has the 13th-best shot for enshrinement of any active ballplayer, right between Chris Paul(notes) and Amar'e Stoudemire(notes). (The top 10 are virtual locks for Springfield. Vince Carter's(notes) 11, and he'll be the subject of some debate when his time comes, I'm sure.)
T-mac 拿過兩次得分王, 兩次第一隊, 三次第貳隊, 兩次第三隊,
2002球季帶領魔術打出被SI作者Zach Lowe稱為聯盟史上最少人注意到的最佳球季,
根據 Basketball-Reference.com 的名人堂可能性預測,
T-mac 在現役中排名十三, (前十名都是可以說篤定入選名人堂的球員)
The most famous knock against McGrady is that he's never made it out of the first round of the playoffs ... Tracy McGrady was one of the baddest man on the planet from 2000 through 2006, but because he frequently had to go to war as a one-man gang against opposition that had better arsenals, he lost. Are his practice habits to blame for that, too? Do we offer context for the losses, or merely count them as a black mark on his permanent record, as well?
對 T-mac 最常見的批評是他從未能帶領球隊打進第二輪,
但是從 2000 到 2006, T-mac 是這個地球上最好的球員之一,
不幸的是他一直只能孤身面對其他陣容更佳的球隊, 所以他輸了,
這是因為他不練習嗎? 還是因為時運不佳, 還是誰管你那麼多反正我就是要把賬算在你頭上?
...
"Freakish" sets McGrady's talent apart, but not necessarily in a positive way; it makes him an undefined "other," a dude capable of feats beyond our ken. In most walks of life, we tend to regard such others skeptically, looking for what makes them somehow wrong and us somehow right. We look past the 18,000-plus points McGrady has scored and see only the 10,000 more we feel pretty confident he should have pocketed if only he wasn't screwing around, because what can't superheroes do, right?
"變態"是在這次討論中最常聽到用來形容 T-mac 天賦的形容詞, 強調他的與眾不同,
但"與眾不同"不一定是件好事,
普羅大眾對與眾不同者通常抱持敵意, 而且總是會想方設法法來證明前者的正確性和後者的荒謬性,
這是為什麼這些人無視 T-mac 得過的一萬八千多分,
卻專注於那些他應該可以卻因傷未能得到的分數,
畢竟對這些人來說, T-mac 不是人而是超人, 而超人難道不該無所不能嗎?
上面的文章刊出之後幾天(03/16) ,
HoopsHype 的部落格作家 Chris Tomasson 針對這件事去訪問 McGrady,
http://blogs.hoopshype.com/blogs/tomasson/2011/03/16/talking-about-practice/#ixzz1GmPwCugv
以下是 T-mac 的回答:
“I just wasn’t a great practice player,’’ McGrady, a Detroit guard, said in an interview with HoopsHype. “I just wasn’t. I wasn’t.’’
我不是那種苦練型的球員, 一向都不是.
“That could be it,’’ McGrady said. “I just think I could cruise through practice and still be effective. Some guys have to really go (all) out to really have an impact on practice. My ability was just I had God-given talent to where I could just cruise through practice and still be an effective practice player… I was inconsistent. Some days, I have really good (practice) days where I just go hard and a lot of days where like, ‘Uh,’ and I just go through the motions. But I work hard. But I’m just not the best practice player.’’
他們說得也許對, 我一直覺得在練習中我不需要全力以赴也可以很有作用,
有些人必需拿出全付精神才能在練習中發揮影響,
我的天賦讓我在練習中即使談笑用兵也可以發揮影響,
... 有時候我在練習時會很認真, 但有時候我只想輕鬆應付.
“I got by and I still was head and shoulders above what I played with, and I think that’s what they were saying,’’ McGrady said when asked about comments by the two. “Like, if I would have went the extra mile of practicing hard, who knows what I could have been? But that part I don’t really buy into. But I think the way I work out individually, to get ready, to prepare myself for the season (has been acceptable).
我輕鬆打就已經遠勝其他球員,
如果我能更認真練習, 天知道我會變成多可怕的球員,
我想這是Van Gundy和Morey想說的,
我不認同這種猜測, 我對自我的訓練應該是足夠的.
“I really don’t see how, maybe I’m wrong on this. I don’t just see how going hard in practice is going to take my talent to another level. I just don’t see that… As far as the team jelling and practicing like that, yeah that’s how you make your team better. I’m saying me personally, I just didn’t see how me practicing hard was going to take my talent to another level. I always felt like working on my individual skills was taking my talent to another level… Now when I say I wasn’t a great practice player, it’s not like I sat out of practice. I was participating. I always participated.’’
我真的不覺得, 也許我錯了, 但我真的不覺得更加努力練習會讓我的天賦更進一步,
當然對團隊合作會有很大的幫助,
但對我個人來說, 我真的不覺得(團隊)練習會讓我更進步,
我一直覺得加強自我技巧的訓練才是讓我球技更精進的方法,
... 喔, 我說我不是個苦練型的球員, 並不是說我不參加練習, 我從來不缺席練習.
“I find myself going harder than in my younger days because I have to now. So, yeah,’’ McGrady said of now being a better practice player.
"我現在認真多了, 老了, 沒辦法!" T-mac承認現在的他必需認真練習了.
Pistons coach John Kuester agrees. He said he’s “very impressed with his work habits’’ after letting McGrady know he had to make changes when he arrived in Detroit.
活塞的教練 John Kuester 同意 T-mac 的說法,
他對 T-mac 的練習態度非常欣賞, 當初 T-mac 加入時他們便溝通過了.
“He’s made some adjustments,’’ Kuester said. “We’re hopefully getting him to work a little harder in that area (of practice). I said, ‘You had to practice.’ And that’s basically what it boiled down to. We have to have him because of the dynamics of our team now… He’s got to make some adjustments. He’s got a lot of basketball still left in his life.’’
他做了不少改變, 我們希望他更認真練習,
我們的隊型需要他, 所以他必需適應, 他應該還可以打好幾年.
大概的情形就是這樣, 原帖所引用的那篇文章事實上是再引申出的看法,
我就不翻譯了.