In a basketball sense, cutting down the nets is the culmination of coming together as a team. But how about in life? Adam Nugent is joined by former NBA star Thurl Bailey, who for more than a decade played for the Utah Jazz and Minnesota Timberwolves. Together, they talk about his career, valuable life lessons in sports, his new book, and how sports teams can bring together unity among people from all walks of life.
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In this podcast excerpt, Thurl Bailey shares the sweetest moment of his career and talks about his new book, Team of Destiny, with Adam Nugent.
AN: is there a particular game or moment in your entire basketball career that’s just the sweetest? Can you go back to it?
TB: Of course. I think we all have those moments even outside of sports. I mean, we all have been in the zone, in a given place or time. I was a six man at the time. My job was to come off the bench and contribute. So, Jerry Sloan took over as head coach. And then I went in and I had a great game. I had 41 points, and I was playing against one of the greatest players ever, Alex English. We were kind of going back and forth, and it’s always good to have those kind of games.
AN: You’ve got a book coming out. Is this the first book that you’ve done?
TB: It’s my first book. If not for the pandemic, I may not have even finished it because my life is so hectic right now. I’ve really come to the conclusion that we don’t have to let the pandemic stop us in our tracks. It really is a time that we can become creative. There are so many people right now that have so many creative ideas, and it gave me a time to sit down and say, “Well, what can I write about in my life that can help people?” Even if you don’t know the story of the 1983 championship basketball team, even if you’re not a sports fan, it’s an amazing story. It is a modern-day Cinderella story.
AN: Is that something that you wanted to do, or did the direction of the book take on a whole different path because of what happened?
TB: It took on a whole different path. My first objective was just to interview the guys and just put their interviews in the story and say, “This is what we did.” But I think based on what was going on, it wasn’t about us. Yeah, we did something great, but it’s more about the reader and what they can get out of it.
