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from one level of the game to the next.
    While these fundamentals have served me well, some of my most vivid memories are of the times that I failed to put them into practice. Sometimes we learn best from our failures rather than our successes.
    That lesson was hammered home at my first varsity basketball practice at Parkview. We were running a basic three-on-two fast-break drill. As we crossed the half-court line, the ball was in my hands. A defender came out on me to cut off the passing lane, so I fired a precise behind-the-back pass to the cutter. The pass was on the mark, but it went right through the guy’s hands and out of bounds. Even before the ball was past him, I could hear Coach Ripley’s shrill whistle echoing in the gym.
    “Everybody stop!” he shouted. “Take a knee right where you’re at.”
    I’ve since come to know that educators refer to these instances as teachable moments. All I knew back then was that I wished I could have not just taken a knee on the court, but that I could have melted through the floor and crawled right on out of there.
    “Everybody but you, Fisher,” coach added.
    I knew enough to make certain that I looked coach directly in the eye when he addressed me.
    “Look at your jersey, son. Does it say Patriots or Globetrotters on there?”
    Coach reminded everyone that there was the Parkview way of doing things, and I’d just demonstrated the way not to do things. As he said to all of us, why make a fancy pass when a good, old-fashioned, tried-and-true bounce pass would have done what was needed? He admitted that the pass was on the mark, but because I’d done it behind the back, done something unexpected, I so surprised the receiver that he missed it. Coach concluded, “It was pretty, but it wasn’t useful.”
    The message came through loud and clear. That wasn’t the last behind-the-back pass I threw in my life, but it was the last one I threw at Parkview, where, like at home, I received the kind of grounded training in the fundamentals of the game and of life that have gotten me where I am today. Only when it was the best alternative did I ever resort to a “fancy” pass again, and even then only after giving all my options careful consideration. That’s the benefit of being trained in doing the right thing. You’re more careful, more deliberate, and you “know” when it’s time to think and when it’s time to react and let your training take over.

CHAPTER THREE
    Developing Other Skills:
    Becoming Multi-Dimensional

    From the time I first played the game until now, every coach I ever had has stressed that the little things make a big difference in the success of a basketball team. That’s one of the reasons I started with the fundamentals. As I wrote, I really do believe that everything in my life has happened for a reason. Not only does that help explain why I was able to deal with my daughter’s health crisis so well, but I also believe it answers the question that has been on my mind and is on many people’s tongues: how did I make it into the NBA and have a career that has lasted so long? Certainly, a lot of players out there are taller, stronger, faster, better ball handlers, purer shooters, more tenacious rebounders, and are as astute about the game as I believe I am. Maybe they don’t outperform me in all of those categories, but at least in some of them. So how have I lasted into my thirteenth NBA season? How is it that the average length of a career in the NBA is five years and I’ve more than doubled that number?
    What’s funny to me is that I believe something over which I truly had no control initially got me driving down the lane toward success. If I feel special in any way, other than that I’ve reached the top in a select occupation, it’s that I’m left-handed. Estimates vary, but only somewhere between 7 and 13 percent of the people in this world have a dominant left hand.
    Why do I attribute some of my success on the basketball court to