Every basketball team consists of star players (usually the scorers), role players and non-contributors. I'm not talking about professional teams here, since they try to form a team that consists of star players and role players only. I'm talking about amateur teams and pick-up games of players with a modest talent at best. There's always a star player, sometimes even two or three. Those are the ones with the most skills and who score the most. You can be a star player in one team, and just a role player in a team that's playing on a higher level. It's what happened to me. I'm the starting PG in my own team, but when I played for another team on a tournament, I found myself sitting on the bench a lot. It says a lot about my team, indeed. There are also a couple of role players in a team. Guys or girls that don't score double figures, but who can rebound, pass or even more importantly, defend. They find a way to contribute to the game. And then there's the non-contributors. I'd like tot talk about them. They are the people who love the game as much as any other player on the court, but just don't have the skills. It takes a lot of virtue to be a non-contributor who is also a non-complainer.
There are two kinds of non-contributors. The ones who know and the ones who don't. I can be brief about the ones who don't know. They ruin games, period. They don't contribute in any significant way, but they demand the ball. In their own minds, they're star players. They think they matter, while in fact, the team would be better off without them. There's no art to be found in those players.
A couple of years ago, we had a guy on our team that really, truly, totally and completely sucked at the game of basketball. And he knew it. His name was Peter. Peter loved the game. He loved being on the court. He screwed up every play; he missed wide open lay ups (he did hit one once, but in the wrong basket. Irony, yeah, don't I know it); we applauded Peter for every brick he threw, because a brick is still better than the air balls he usually tossed up; he couldn't inbound if his life depended on it and I'm not even going into defense here. I think a newborn kitten would do a better job than he did. I've never experienced a player who sucked more at playing basketball than he did. He was an embarrassment for the game. But, and this we had to give him, Peter knew everything there was to know about basketball. He knew all drills, tons of statistics, a zillion plays and he knew exactly what had to happen to turn a game into our advantage - usually it just took substituting him. Well, since we lacked a coach, we promoted Peter to be our official player-coach/mascot/water boy. We also let him write the recaps, because he was funny as hell.
What lesson can be learned from Peter? First of all, there can be no such thing as being unimportant. You can be a non-contributor when it comes to the actual playing, but there's always a way to be of importance for a team. A good team is more than a collection of skilled players. A good team needs glue. It needs someone like Peter, who entered the locker room with a huge smile, funny stories and great jokes. He was able to ask how everybody was doing in person before the game started. He made sure fights didn't erupt, he helped players sort out personal situations, he was there when things started to get heated during a game to get every body's cool back. Peter was the glue. His skills were so deeply below zero, they froze on you, but he was the one thing that made us a team. A good team, as well.
Secondly, we shouldn't look down on non-contributors. It was very, very clear Peter would never be able to ever excell in playing basketball the moment he first threw a ball, but we didn't look down on him. We helped him where possible, usually futile, but when you're part of a team, you should be a team all the way. Managers, players (all of them), assistants, waterboys and towelgirls, all are part of the process and all should be respected, no matter on which level you are playing. There can be a significant role for everybody.
The title of this article is somewhat misleading. There's no art in not being important. Not important are the non-contributors who think they are. No, the real art is to be like Peter, to find a role that is of importance, even if it's not the role that'll give you a lot of spotlight. Peter found a way to contribute in a very important way, even if he couldn't catch a ball if it was given to him. There's art in that. It takes courage to accept those facts and still find a way to matter for your team. And it takes a real team to give such people a chance to matter.
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