"Being selected Most Improved was a special individual award because when I speak to young people I always try to tell them the importance about it's not where you start but where you end up"
About this Quote
Most Improved is the sports world’s most polite flex: it praises growth without crowning you the best. Kevin Johnson leans into that paradox and turns it into a usable life lesson. He’s not talking about a trophy as much as he’s talking about permission - permission to be unfinished, to be underestimated, to have an awkward first draft of a career and still arrive somewhere impressive.
The line works because it reframes status. “Special individual award” is doing quiet rhetorical labor: improvement is personal, not comparative. In a league that measures you against everyone else, he’s carving out a category where the opponent is your earlier self. That’s why it lands with young people. The subtext isn’t just “work hard”; it’s “your current circumstances aren’t destiny.” For kids who feel trapped by geography, money, school labels, or late-bloomer anxiety, that’s oxygen.
Context matters: Johnson came up in the NBA when point guards were expected to run the show, take hits, and get better publicly. Being “Most Improved” implies there was a visible before-and-after - a narrative the league could broadcast. He repurposes that broadcast logic into mentorship: if improvement can be seen, it can be pursued, tracked, and repeated.
There’s also a quiet pushback against talent mythology. He doesn’t say “I was always great.” He says the ending can outvote the starting line, and that’s a more democratic story than sports usually tells.
The line works because it reframes status. “Special individual award” is doing quiet rhetorical labor: improvement is personal, not comparative. In a league that measures you against everyone else, he’s carving out a category where the opponent is your earlier self. That’s why it lands with young people. The subtext isn’t just “work hard”; it’s “your current circumstances aren’t destiny.” For kids who feel trapped by geography, money, school labels, or late-bloomer anxiety, that’s oxygen.
Context matters: Johnson came up in the NBA when point guards were expected to run the show, take hits, and get better publicly. Being “Most Improved” implies there was a visible before-and-after - a narrative the league could broadcast. He repurposes that broadcast logic into mentorship: if improvement can be seen, it can be pursued, tracked, and repeated.
There’s also a quiet pushback against talent mythology. He doesn’t say “I was always great.” He says the ending can outvote the starting line, and that’s a more democratic story than sports usually tells.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Improvement |
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