Malcolm Gladwell Challenges LeBron and Predicts an N.B.A. Champion
Released on 04/18/2018
(pinging)
(intriguing, mysterious music)
You just did the ballsiest thing I've ever seen,
you challenged Lebron James to a race.
Are you out of your mind?
So there was this debate about whether
Lebron can break five minutes for the mile.
And someone, because I am sort of around there,
someone suggested, well you should just
challenge him to a race, I was like, alright.
So I challenged him.
He would destroy me, to be clear.
In the race?
There was actually an online poll
conducted by Sports Illustrated about who would win.
And I voted for Lebron,
I think Lebron can run probably a 4:40 mile.
And I think the fact that he's 6'8 and 250
is beside the point.
I think his cardiovascular system is off the charts.
And I am, to be clear, 54 years old.
And he's 34 and considered an old man in the NBA.
You're an incredibly passionate runner.
My wife occasionally will see you running in Central Park.
This started out when you were a kid in Ontario.
There's a picture I've seen of you
breaking the tape in a 1,500 meter race
that you call the happiest moment of your life.
Greatest moment of my life, yeah.
And where was it?
That was
It was at Ontario Championships in 1978,
so I was 14, or 13, and I beat a guy who,
this is my great claim to fame,
who then went onto go to the Olympics.
And so, I, back the day, was better than a future Olympian.
You were the only person I know
that was thrilled to turn 50 because,
by turning 50, it put you in another division for racing,
and now you can beat the geezers and come in first.
Yeah, no I'm now I'm in the over 50 masters division.
How do you train?
Well, I've fallen in love with running heavy mileage,
which I never did it when I was younger.
So I run nine or ten miles a couple times a week.
And you're not bored to death,
running nine to ten miles doesn't hurt?
No, it's become increasingly important
because there's very little daydreaming time left.
You know, we used to daydream a lot.
You got your phone.
Back in the day, you daydreamed, now, you have your phone.
And daydreaming I think is insanely productive.
Do you get a lot of ideas running
Not directly or think things through?
but I'm sure indirectly.
I don't think you can be creative
unless your mind has some kind of free time.
I mean, this has been talked about to death
with the kind of phone addiction.
But one of your trade secrets is that you write in cafés.
In other words, you have a perfectly nice apartment,
you have a house out in the country.
And then you drive to a café,
or in the city, you walk to a café.
I don't understand this at all, why you'd wanna be
around other people and noise
and clattering forks and spoons.
It's because I came of age as a writer
in the Washington Post news room.
I see.
In fact now this is a crucial thing that will age us both.
Right.
Today's newsrooms are quiet.
That's right.
Our newsrooms
is noisy
Not just noisy.
You would get off the elevator
on the fifth floor of the Washington Post building,
and you would be hit by a wall of sound
which was 300 people talking loudly on the phone,
the clatter of keyboards, and people like yelling
One could only imagine typewriters
Oh, typewriters really... but I just, I love that.
I went into work each day waiting for that noise.
I loved that noise. You love noise.
One of the things that maybe running has sparked
in your mind is we're constantly talking about health care.
Health is only weakly correlated
with the health care system.
The things that make you healthy
are not doctors, nurses, hospitals, and drugs.
It's your diet, how well you exercise,
and your genes,
and your luck
and your luck.
We have convinced everyone that if only everyone had access
to the health care system, we would all be healthy.
That is nonsense.
Our real goal, when we talk about health,
should not be to perfect the health care system.
It should be to improve the health of Americans.
It has a lot more to do with eating properly
and getting, having the ability to exercise regularly.
When Mike Bloomberg wanted to put a tax on soda,
that was possibly one of the most important
health care initiatives of the past generation.
People treated it like it was a
civil rights decision
or a side show, it's not a side show!
He's absolutely right.
Would you tax McDonald's and
Oh my god, I would tax McDonald's through the roof.
What else?
The soda companies more than McDonald's actually.
I mean I really think we should be thinking
about soda the same way we thought about cigarettes.
I mean, it seems to be pretty clear
that they're in the same category
of incredibly harmful substances.
Is football on the same level as cigarettes?
Well, so I was gonna get to the exercise part of this.
Right.
That I think we need to re-think
the role of sports in our society.
We've got into this whole thing that the point of sports,
as a kid, is to be an elite athlete
and to perform at a high level
in that period of you teens, no!
What we should be doing is promoting
the kinds of sports that people can play
their entire life, or much of their lives.
And we should be permitting people
to play sports at a mediocre level.
You know, I was at Bard College,
which is near my house upstate,
and I was watching the Lacrosse team practice.
Bard probably has, I don't know
The 400th best Lacrosse team in the country.
But they're having fun.
They're having fun!
That is what college sports is supposed to be.
It's supposed to be anyone that wants
to play Lacrosse at Bard just shows up,
I'm sure, and is on the team.
And so those kids are running around,
having the time of their life, enjoying themselves,
and presumably, hopefully, laying down
a pattern of physical activity
that will be with them for the rest of their lives.
That is the goal, right?
At Hopkins, or at Duke, where Lacrosse is this thing,
you can't do that.
So you may wanna play Lacrosse, but unless you're
in the 99th percentile, it's forbidden to you.
That, to me, is crazy.
Yeah, if that shift happens in American life,
does that mean you won't get Lebron James
out the other end of the
No, I think you still get Lebron James.
If you look at marathon times in America 30 years ago,
the times were better than they are now.
I mean, when I say better, deeper.
The top 20 finishers at the Boston Marathon in 1978
was way more impressive than it is today.
Right.
But what's happened now is we've traded
elite performance for a much wider participation,
and that is exactly the trade-off we ought to be making.
Who's gonna win the NBA title this year?
Houston.
Houston?
Please explain.
Well, I, can I name drop?
Yeah.
I got a call to a friend from Steve Kerr,
and he said you should come to a game,
come and say hi to us!
So I went to a game a couple weeks ago.
Man, what more could you ask for.
And I went back and I met Steph Curry
and KD and Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston
and I mean, I was just like, I mean
it was maybe one of the greatest evenings of my life.
This did not give me any special insight
into the Playoff Prospects, but they're too banged up.
And Houston is on another level.
I sort of think, I don't know, I sort of feel
like they're not as deep as they were in previous years.
And Cleveland?
I don't think Cleveland can,
I mean Houston's on a, is a, I mean
they've figured out this sort of
they've exploited, they've hacked basketball.
I think that no one else has
Who has?
caught up with them... Houston.
That if you've got this three point line,
maybe you should just do nothing but shoot
layups and three point shots.
Alright that's essentially all they're doing.
Okay, I'll remind you that they have not won a title yet.
I know, but that's where I would put my money.
Okay, advice from Malcolm Gladwell,
put your money on Houston. Yes, Houston.
It's an absolute pleasure, thanks so much for coming by.
Thank you, David.
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