Structured Creativity: Detroit Pistons Basketball (1989 &1990)

     When we discus creativity, we tend to focus on the arts; things we can all identify as abstract and inventive even if we have limited knowledge about it. This sets a precedent pushing us to ignore that creativity can show up in many circumstances, it just takes a more expert level eye to identify it. This can apply to the arts as well; for people to notice more creative nuances in a sculpture or song if they have an involved background, but I believe fields like natural sciences, engineering, and even professional athletics have their own expressions of creativity as well. 

    I want to focus on a specific moment in athletic history in discussing this concept: the 1989 & 1990 Detroit Pistons.  As someone from a former basketball player Michigan, this team has a very profound influence on the basketball style and culture in state to this day. Throughout the history of the sport of basketball, stylistically, the game has changed many ways; perhaps one of the most significant ways being the rule changes in the NBA after this program won back-to-back national championships. A lot of different things we at play here to push the organization to these decisions, but one was the implementation of their stylistic creativity. Before this program, the professional world of this sport was very offensively oriented; people focused a lot more on scoring points than stopping the other team from scoring points. Something that brought to soar above the rest was their willingness to be defensively passionate as well as aggressive. Similar to when people make potentially lief changing scientific discoveries that go ignored or disrespected, people did not like the idea of the game shifting in that way. It made the winner of games less predictable. The creative approach to structure game plans around defensive skill set and focus on offensive skills second was unheard of and generally not supported. This team proved that it was possible to use this structure and win. A defining moment for them was in a game against the Chicago Bulls, where they strategized their defense as team around Michael Jordan and ended up winning, this strategy referred to in the Bad Boys documentary (a must watch if you are interested in basketball or the intersectionality of sports) as "The Jordan Rules". 

    The whole concept of a sport that comes with a very specific structure of rules and necessary knowledge also having room for creativity seems very impractical, and yet, it persists in other contexts as well. In the book The Code Breaker, the idea of scientific creativity is discussed, which I think has unseen similarities to the world of athletics. The concept of scientific discovery is considered creative because scientists take the confines of the information we know and use it in innovative ways to learn something new. This is the same in professional athletics. Similarly, in the story told about Jennifer Doudna's lab, it is discussed how she structured her lab meticulously to research CRISPR and several different people played a role in the discoveries. This also persists in professional sports, as team owners, managers, coaches, assistants, and several others have direct impact in not only how they choose to structure their team, but what that team does on the court; in example in this Pistons program being Jack McCloskey (general manager), Chuck Daly (head coach), and Isaiah Thomas (starting point guard) working together to structure the 1990 team starting lineup. 

    Generally, there are unseen forms of creativity in almost every field, that it may sometimes take a trained eye to find. This creativity can also present it from several different places within a lab or a program because creative collaboration is a strategy for success. I think it is important to keep an eye out for creativity in every place, but especially those with more structure because it might  present itself in ways that change the scientific field or sport entirely. 

    If you are interested in knowing more about the Bad Boys documentary, it is available on Disney Plus and the link is presented below: 

Bad Boys - Disney+