Malcolm Gladwell Challenges LeBron and Predicts an N.B.A. Champion

(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.