It's that time of year again - the National Basketball Association's trade deadline is this coming Thursday. The rumor mill will start churning on which team is interested in moving which player, which player can help a team make the deepest play-off run, and (always) which team is putting together the kind of package to entice LeBron James to sign with them the next time he becomes a free agent. One of the most talked about trades (so far) has been the Sacramento Kings trade of DeMarcus Cousins to the New Orleans Pelicans. DeMarcus "Boogie" Cousins is one of those extremely gifted athletes who has a reputation for having a terrible attitude. The Kings traded him for next to nothing - some would argue that they were happy just to get rid of him. Now he has become someone else's problem. I don't know how the trade will eventually turn out, but based on the analysis that I've heard, the Kings view the trade very much as "addition by subtraction." Cousins was simply the wrong fit for them - great talent, horrible chemistry.
What is this thing that sports teams always talk about, team chemistry? In my opinion, team chemistry is just another name for culture - "the way we do things around here." Team chemistry, or culture, is why sports teams such as the New England Patriots (see my recent post, "The Patriot Way"), the St. Louis Cardinals (Major League Baseball), the New York Yankees (Major League Baseball), the University of Alabama Crimson Tide (college football), the Duke Blue Devils (men's college basketball), the San Antonio Spurs (NBA basketball), and the University of Connecticut Huskies (women's college basketball) continue to win, year after year after year. It doesn't matter what the roster looks like on these teams, they simply find a way to win. In the case of the professional sports teams, ordinary players move to these perennial winners and become very good players, and the very good players from other teams join these teams and become superstars. What is the secret sauce here? Culture. The coaches and/or managers (respectively, Bill Belichick, Tony LaRussa/Mike Matheny, Joe Torre/Joe Girardi, Nick Saban, Mike Krzyzewski, Gregg Popovich, and Geno Auriemma) of these teams set the tone that helps foster a championship culture. The players on each of these team follow suit, and eventually the culture just becomes part of the fabric of these organizations.
In several of these cases (obviously the professional teams, not the college teams), players moving from another team to these championship teams fully embrace the culture and often become better players. The Patriots, in particular, have a long history of taking maligned or underperforming players and creating superstars! The Yankees are another good example - for example, both Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon cut their hair short and shaved their beards on the day they signed with the Yankees. They both said, "This is the Yankees - this is the way that the Yankees do things." Culture is infectious!
The Cardinals and Yankees organizations are of interest, as the championship culture continued even following a change in leadership (Tony LaRussa retired and Mike Matheny took over as manager of the Cardinals, and Joe Torre retired and Joe Girardi took over as manager of the Yankees). In the Cardinals case, it helped that Mike Matheny played for LaRussa and was a member of his coaching staff. In the Yankees case, Joe Girardi played for Torre and also was a member of his coaching staff.
I think it is still too soon to tell whether DeMarcus Cousins will take the New Orleans Pelicans to the next level and become a championship team. There is no question that he is a talented player - indeed, he is a NBA All-Star (his trade actually happened over All-Star weekend). History would suggest, however, that since he is not joining a team with a culture of winning, his troublesome attitude will continue.
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