Novak Djokovic says Kobe Bryant taught him to stop avoiding the painful tape and to deliberately rewatch the moments that made him uncomfortable because that’s where you learn
“I had a three-year period where I didn’t win a Slam. I was winning some big tournaments, but I couldn’t win a Slam. These two guys were beating me in every big match, Federer and Nadal.”
“I changed rackets, team members. I did everything I could to find the right formula. I was struggling physically as well. I was very thorough in my analysis of the matches afterwards, even though I don’t necessarily like to watch matches that I lost.”
“Kobe Bryant used to talk about this a lot. When I was talking to him personally about that, he said, even if it’s just specific intervals of the match that you lost, you definitely look at that. You need to analyze that.”
“You need to go through that cramping feeling because that’s where you learn from those mistakes. That’s where you have an opportunity to rectify that the next tournament or next match. That helped a lot.”
DeVonta Smith says NFL players have no excuse to not be prepared
“The NFL season is so much shorter. We’re the only sport that practices more than they play. You have so much time to get the understanding, to know what you’re supposed to do.”
“If you’re not doing it, what’s your excuse? We practice four days out of the week. You play for two hours. There’s no need for you to not know what you’re doing. There’s no reason that you shouldn’t be able to go out there and perform.”
“You’ve got so much time to perfect the stuff that you need to do that when you get to the game, it should be easy. You’ve got so much time to perfect your craft.”
“And that next-man-up mentality is very real too. You’re out for a week or two and somebody performs, they’re going to rock with who’s performing.”