What the NBA Can Learn From Elementary School Girls Volleyball
There's an easy fix for all that ails The Association. Just ask a bunch of scrappy sixth-graders.
LAST FALL, built around the talents of the most eager fifth- and sixth-graders in her school, my daughter’s volleyball team went on an epic playoff run that culminated with a championship rumble in which they stared down league’s best server, an exceedingly tall sixth-grader who consistently delivered some Garrett Crochet-level heat.
But my kid’s team had heart, hustle, and muscle, and their non-stop, unflagging energy overcame the scary server, leading to a nail-biting three-set victory, earning the team a gigantic trophy they dubbed Big Bertha.
This season, my daughter and her fellow sixth-graders moved up to the next age bracket, teaming with her school’s eighth-grader volleyballers…a group that was part of a squad which spent the 2024 season in or near the cellar.
From practice one, the difference in effort level between my kid’s seventh-grade contingent and the eighth-grade incumbents was as wide as the divide between the 2022 Kansas City Chiefs and the 2025 New Orleans Saints.
Where the seventh-graders dived, and jumped, and spiked (or at least spiked as well as they could; 5’0” isn’t the ideal height for skying above the net), the eighth-graders lollygagged after balls and periodically extended their arms.
As of this writing, the seven/eight team is out of the playoff picture. And I think we all can figure out why.
PICK-UP GAMES in the local gym or one-on-ones on the driveway are all about scoring. You take dumb shots, and sometimes they go in, but mostly they don’t, and a good time is had by all.
That is, until some asshole decides to play D.
And that asshole was always me.
I was, am, and always will be a terrible basketball player. I’m 5’9” with a three-inch vertical, my jump shot form would make Steph Curry throw up in his mouth a little, and my consistent lack of balance is just weird.
But people didn’t, don’t, and won’t like facing me. Because I play defense.
Y’see, newsflash, you don’t need a ton of talent to play competent D. You just need the ability and desire to try.
This isn’t to say I didn’t have some defensive fundamentals in my back pocket. My footwork was solid, my court awareness wasn’t bad, and I was good at avoiding fouls.
But I tried, and everybody hated it, yet it helped me or my team win when we shouldn’t have, so I didn’t give a rip.
All of which brings us to the 2025 Chicago Bulls.
THE BULLS currently sit at 3-0, arguably their best stretch of the last five seasons. Two of the three teams they beat — the Detroit Pistons and the Orlando Magic — are expected to make the playoffs, while last night’s win over the division pseudo-rival Atlanta Hawks was a game they should have won, and it’s been a good long while since the Bulls managed to regularly win the shoulda’s.
They’ve been able to do all of this without their best offensive player — Coby White, shelved with a calf injury — because they’re trying. Like, really hard.
This isn’t a team that should have a better record than the Knicks, or the Nuggets, or the Cavs because, on paper, the roster ain’t great.
Josh Giddey and Nikola Vucevic are both box score stuffers who, for reasons that elude me, don’t have the chops to impact winning. They have a zillion guards (Giddey, White, Tre Jones, Ayo Dosunmu, Kevin Huerter, Dalen Terry, Jevon Carter, and so on) with just a small handful of bigs who actually play big (Matas Buzelis and that’s pretty much it).
But after three games, the Bulls have allowed the fourth-fewest points in the league, and that could be attributed to exactly one thing: Effort. The fact that they have bouncy young legs (average age of 25.14, ninth-youngest in the league) doesn’t hurt.
On the defensive side of the floor, this gritty Bulls team is annoying as I am — better at basketball, of course, but still annoying — part of the reason they have the league’s seventh-highest margin of victory (+7.0).
Jones, Giddey, and Dosunmu are the peskiest Bulls in the arena, rarely taking a possession off, driving the Trae Youngs and the Cade Cunninghams of the world out of their gourds.
Is this sustainable? One can only hope.
TODAY’S BRAND of NBA basketball — lots of three-point attempts, not much grit — isn’t super-enticing. For that matter, thousands upon thousands of old-ass hoops fans (like me) have taken our early-1980s stance of, “I don’t watch the NBA until the playoffs, because that’s the only time they try hard.” So an under-talented, effort-laden, overachieving team like these Bulls is refreshing in its retro-ness.
Thing is, 82 games of incessant butt-busting could become problematic come May, when the legs aren’t as bouncy and their bumps and bruises are omnipresent. But this is the kind of effort brings home trophies.
Just ask my daughter’s 2024 volleyball team.
And Big Bertha.