From Bill Bradley's book Values of the Game:
There is an extra dimension to the respect that exists among teammates-a respect beyond that accorded the rules, the coach, and the opponent. Teammates on a team that wins will never be strangers. Teammates on a team that wins the state tournament in high school, or the conference championship in college, will forever be bound by their mutual achievement. In the pros, from exhibitions to playoffs, a team plays more that a hundred games a season. Players often have four games in five nights in four different cities. By late February, fatigue is the common enemy. Often there's not enough time for sufficient rest even if a player manages his day wisely-yet each night he has to go out and push hard to win. Dave DeBusschere, his face drawn from the long season, and Willis Reed, with his brow furrowed and heating packs on each knee, used to look over at each other in the locker room of the fourth town in five days, and their glances alone seemed to say, "I'm tired to my bones-I don't want to go out there. But if you do it, I will too."
Out of this kind of team commitment comes a deep respect. After a game, each man knows that everyone has given his all. It's an honest and open relationship; there's no suppressed anger because someone didn't set a screen, or rebound, or hustle on defense, but instead the assured knowledge that on that night the team went as far as its collective abilities permitted. If the outcome is a loss, the attitude is that we lost because we were beaten, not because we didn't extend ourselves fully. The conviction that each man did his best is unshaken.
