THE SET-UP MOVE

The set-up move isn’t the move you’re using to exploit your opponent. It’s the move you use to create an opportunity to exploit your opponent. The shot-fake, the inside-out dribble, the crossover-double-crossover, etc. are those types of moves. The greats master the set-up moves because they lengthen your career long after your athleticism is in decline. The masters of set-up moves know that if I can get you to leave your feet, get your shoulders to shift outside of your balance base, shift your weight from the balls of your feet to your heels…I GOTCHA.

Set-up moves occur outside of basketball too though and they look harmless. Imagine you have an enemy. Now imagine that enemy wants you to fail in as many ways as possible. He/she wants you penniless, wants to defame your character, wants you injured, wants you depressed to the point of suicide and wants you to be the very portrait of what people hope they will never become. If that enemy is crafty, he’ll have to set you up because your inclination may not lean toward vice. For example, if your enemy wants you to fail but you’re committed to preparation, he’ll tempt you toward distraction. If you’re a character guy or girl, he’ll look for a weakness or a deep felt need. Have you ever wondered how the girl headed the four-year college of her choice wound up pregnant two months before her freshman year? Easy answer, the void for companionship and affirmation trumped the commitment to academia, The set-up move is always a play on one’s deepest most fundamental sources of self-worth. If you want to know what people value most, look at where they have failed. You will find that concessions are made when the promise of having a need met is presented.

All this to say, be vigilant, be accountable and be honest. Even the best defenders in the NBA get taken off the dribble sometimes. Simple science says that if you lean too far, react to swiftly, fail to slow down in time, you’ll usually blow your assignment. The same could be said for the daily life practices. If you had an enemy, he’d want you to ruin your prospects of impacting the world around you. But he’d start subtle and graduate to the significant. Dating someone and not sure why? It’s a set-up Move! It creates the habit of settling and soon you settle for something that moves your life in a direction you don’t wish to go. You think that your incapable of making the bad choices some of your friends have made? It’s a set-up move! You’ve been deluded into thinking you’re cut from a different cloth, hewn from rare stone. That’s a great way to be blind-sided later when temptation knocks and you answer thinking your above it. The bottom line is that set-up moves can work for or against you. Today matters. Limit the turnovers today and tomorrow. Pay attention to the details that seem small. They never are. Every move you make is a set-up move for your benefit or your demise.