Thinking Basketball Podcast, my name is Ben.

Welcome back to another show.

One of the last shows of the 2020 season, I guess,

for winding down the year. It's really crazy to think about how long this season has been and how far we've come.

And here as of recording this sitting on the precipice of the NBA finals, each series in the East and the West currently stands at 3.1.

Lakers ahead of the nuggets in the Western Conference. In the Orlando Bubble Western

Conference Hotel Edition and then in the east the heat with the

3-1 edge over the Celtics.

So today I wanted to discuss sort of a big lesson or lessons, kind of like things that have jumped out to me from the bubble.

And you could go in so many different directions here in terms of

neutral court, no crowd, the backdrop of the shooting and things of this nature but

there's one specific element that I keep coming back to that

kind of jumps out as a theme that is a big takeaway for me.

And we'll get to exactly what that is shortly in the show.

But there is a line of thinking that led me

to this particular takeaway or learning that I want to talk about today.

So let's start with that.

And that line of thinking starts with an idea that I've mentioned before, I think I mentioned it over the summer, which is that

rookies are no longer rookies.

It's something that's said seasonally when you get to the end of the season and you say,

well, a rookie isn't really a rookie, you'll hear coaches say it, a rookie isn't a rookie anymore

because he's been through the 80 games and he's gotten past the rookie wall and now he's in the playoffs

...