April 03, 2025   |   Tagged Skills,

Why Compassion Is Crucial to Basketball Success

Compassion is often disregarded in the world of sports. Fierce, aggressive, and intense are many times the best adjectives for a seriously competitive team. Compassion can feel “wishy-washy,” and even more dangerous, coaches and players can erroneously believe compassion equates to a style of play that is soft, boring, and a losing philosophy. We hope you are willing to look past the stereotype and become curious about what this word can teach us to elevate our lives on and off the court. Research in sports has found that compassion forges greater unity among teammates and stronger, better performance. It is worth becoming educated about this transformational virtue.

What is compassion?
Let’s call it “suffering with.” This may be a good way to bypass the stereotypical aspect of the word. Compassion comes from the compound words “com” meaning with, and the word “passion,” which means to walk alongside another person and support them in whatever suffering life asks them to endure. When you think of the word compassion, fill that in with the phrase, “to suffer with.” What makes compassion so interesting is that you are working to share the suffering of someone else.

Compassion always leads to action.
Compassion without action is actually empathy. Empathy means you feel something for someone in pain or suffering but you are not necessarily helping that person. Compassion is active work to help the suffering person. It’s bearing the burden of suffering and helping move the person to a more secure and helpful position. In a hurricane, it's the first responders entering the storm to rescue a person in stress- compassion is the action to bear with someone else the difficulty or suffering they are weathering.

Wisdom in Compassion
Compassion requires wisdom as all higher-level virtues do. When we try and assist people who are suffering but we do so without wisdom, we can contribute to greater suffering. Like an unskilled swimmer entering the water to rescue someone who is drowning, this isn’t compassionate but rather dangerous.

Why is Compassion so Powerful?
Suffering is difficult and, in some cases, impossible to go through without help. Compassion provides the strength, hope, and comfort needed to handle suffering. Compassion increases courage, promotes the release of positive endorphins, diminishes stress, anxiety, and depression, and can create stronger bonds of community and friendship.

For a team or family, compassion is a powerful way to get through suffering together in a healthier, faster, more complete way than trying to get through suffering by yourself. Compassion changes difficult situations into hopeful ones.

Making Compassion Real in Basketball

Basketball has had many permutations as a sport. It has changed from a fully passing team sport to an individual star sport and now is gravitating slowly back toward more of a team-centric model. The change from basketball as a “team” sport to an individual star sport has created a very shocking nexus. Star players are paid more, they receive the ball more, and the other players become assistants to this star status. The dangers of this style of basketball are that the competition moves from beating other teams to competing daily against your own team for the ball, time on the court, and the earned spot as the “star” player.

Consequently, this scarcity mindset transforms traditional team requirements (self-sacrifice, service, compassion, suffering with) and turns the practice and team time into elevation of the strongest and worship of being the best.

This star mentality shifts immediately when the coaches and the “star” players make intentional decisions to value servant leadership and turn away from “star” favoritism to focus on the team first. This shift comes in how the team values each other and speaks to and about each other.

Let’s be clear. Some players should have the ball in the decisive moments. Some players should have the green light to shoot, and some should not have the green light to shoot because they don’t have the skill or the percentages to do so. However, those who get the green light should serve those who don’t get the green light with compassion. They should encourage, they should find ways to serve the team in other ways. They are being served by the team to hit the big shots, they should find ways to give back in humble and compassionate ways that acknowledge this earned status.

Instead, sometimes the star athletes can become entitled. This entitlement is cancer to quality teams. A coach or star player who cannot be compassionate with those who are dedicating equal time and intensity results in mediocre or disastrous teams. Players blind to the resentment and frustration they are creating in their programs and communities create more trouble. Inequity regarding mutual respect in teams is one of the biggest reasons for frustration.

The greater the disparity of talent on the team, the greater the problem. Therefore, the more humility the leaders must have to serve those who are contributing to their success.

Key consideration: How have you experienced suffering in your life? Who helped you through this time and what did they do to bring help? Have you experienced people who make your suffering worse by their help? Have you experienced pain in basketball from an injury, loss of dreams, difficult season? How do you find compassion for yourself during these painful times? How do you find ways to have compassion for your teammates who may be suffering in their lives?

Team Check-In What is the level of unity vs hierarchy/pecking order of the team? Does hardship draw our team closer to each other or does it lead to more suffering and isolation? Does our team know how to suffer together?

Does every player know the stress and struggle each person must shoulder? Does every player automatically look to help each player through compassionate action and bearing the weight of the journey together? Does the team understand compassion fatigue, and can each person use reason and wisdom to help others who are suffering?

Key Research on Basketball Talent
Lower levels of compassion toward yourself when you make mistakes leads to greater depression and the likelihood of making more mistakes. Research also shows if you are not compassionate with others, you will not be compassionate with your mistakes. If you get down on other players, heaven rue the day when you make mistakes.

As you head into the season, develop a plan to handle when you make a mistake. Watch the players who do this well. Don’t make a show, don’t blame, and don’t pretend it didn’t happen. Quickly acknowledge the mistake and keep your head up. Don’t look at the bench in fear, keep your thoughts strong. Be disciplined to say in your mind, “I’ve got this. I love to learn.” Turn your attention to the mechanics and get into a rhythm. Keep your mind from racing to fear of failure.

Hey NBC Basketball Student-Athletes,

We love that you can step into higher level processes and leadership attributes like the virtue of compassion without having to shut down the teaching because it isn’t something the mainstream emphasizes. This is high level educational wisdom, and you understand the importance of not only elevating your basketball skills and IQ to the highest level but also your virtue, your follow through, your emotional intelligence, and your insight. As you enter this basketball season, have a pre-season plan to deal with difficulty, pain, or suffering. Identify people who can compassionately walk alongside you to help you in real ways through hardship. Also, have ideas for ways you can walk alongside others on your team who will face suffering this season.

About NBC Basketball
Since 1971, NBC Basketball has been training athletes on and off the court to complete with skill and talent. Find out more about the NBC difference and what has made NBC one of the most successful camp programs in the world. Visit www.nbccamps.com/basketball