Theres always next year...

Ok, so by now everyone should know the terrible turnout of yesterdays Mavericks game. I personally did all I could to help them out and in the process lost my voice. I guess I thought that would make a difference.

So, immediately this morning I ran to Mark Cuban's blog, which I consider important to keep up with. Especially if you live in Dallas. I mean its one of the most popular blogs, in most search engines it will pop up in the top ten most popular blogs because lets face it, Mark Cuban is a smart guy. I mean , he did create the Dallas Maverick brand, machine and trend. The mavs are the most popular team in the nation and after last night they are even more popular, given to the negative publicity now surrounding them.

Well I checked blogmaverick because I thought Cuban would have posted a response to the this season and the playoffs, which many reporters know most of his comments and quotes in the media come directly from his blog. But nothing. And I guess it was dumb of me to assume he would make a comment. He doesn't need to and its also too soon to respond without your emotions getting the better of you, which we have all seen happen to him.

So, since I didn't get his view on the series except for his vague comment last night in which he said they would "not blow everything up." Meaning no drastic changes would be made to the team, which I totally support. They have a great formula going, they just have trouble in the playoffs. They can't seem to function under pressure, which is vital for anyone to succeed in the hard world of competition.

So I began to think, our society thrives on competition, its what makes our nation so great; we have winners and losers. We have success and failure. We have ups and downs. My economics teacher, W. Michael Cox taught me an important lesson when it came to our economy. We thrive because we have a competitive market. Human beings need competition to achieve great things. That's why socialism and communism have failed throughout history, it removes competition and the need to thrive among your peers.

The trick is learning to compete. Training, practicing, studying, whatever it is that you compete in, you must master. There is a psychological theory, the Yerkes-Dodson law, which demonstrates an empirical relationship between arousal and performance. It says that performance increases with cognitive arousal, but only to a certain point. When the levels of arousal become too high, performance will decrease. Even if its a mastered task, too much arousal can lead to a decreased performance. Maybe for the mavericks, the playoffs are so hyped up, Dirk has the added pressure of the crowd yelling M-V-P and they just put so much pressure on themselves to deliver, they caved in.

I mean, Lord knows I would definitely buckle under that much pressure. The mavs were probably facing some difficult mental games. The coach of the Golden State Warriors was a former mavs coach, he trained Dirk, he knew us inside and out. That in itself is hard to overcome and then all of the previous mentioned stressors. Winning would be hard.

So, there is always next year.