Chasing Perfection: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the High-Stakes Game of Creating an NBA Champion

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No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art." Being perfect is overrated; Being better is what counts, especially if you do that everyday! ― Unknown The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty..."

Even when we strive for perfection, life is nothing more than an attempt to achieve it through a series of greater or smaller imperfections.”– Peter Prange in “The Philosopher’s Kiss” Altemose, N. et al. Complete genomic and epigenetic maps of human centromeres. Science 376, eabl4178 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abl4178 (2022). I find parallels in nature to be a beautiful reflection of grand orchestration. One of these parallels is of snowflakes and us. We, too, are all headed in the same direction. We are being driven by a universal force to the same destination. We are all individuals taking different journeys and along our journey, we sometimes bump into each other, we cross paths, we become altered... we take different physical forms. But at all times we too are 100% perfectly imperfect. At every given moment we are absolutely perfect for what is required for our journey. I’m not perfect for your journey and you’re not perfect for my journey, but I’m perfect for my journey and you’re perfect for your journey. We’re heading to the same place, we’re taking different routes, but we’re both exactly perfect the way we are. The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form. ― Stanley J. Randall When a man says that he is perfect already, there is only one of two places for him, and that is heaven or the lunatic asylum."Wenger, A. M. et al. Accurate circular consensus long-read sequencing improves variant detection and assembly of a human genome. Nat. Biotechnol. 37, 1155–1162 (2019). Nurk, S. et al. The complete sequence of a human genome. Science 376, eabj6987 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abj6987 (2022). One older study, for example, found that over half of people who died by suicide were described by their loved ones as “perfectionists.” Another study found that more than 70 percent of young people who died by suicide were in the habit of creating “exceedingly high” expectations of themselves. The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple."

Two beautiful wings is perfection. There is a generation of people who idealize perfection as the existence of only one of these wings every time. But I see that a bird with one wing is imperfect. An angel with one wing is imperfect. A butterfly with one wing is dead. So this generation of people strive to always cut off the other wing in the hopes of embodying their ideal of perfection, and in doing so, have created a crippled race." Olson, N. D. et al. precisionFDA Truth Challenge V2: calling variants from short- and long-reads in difficult-to-map regions. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.13.380741 (2021).

However, it is only theoretically possible to attain perfection because it is an illusion that may be detrimental in day-to-day life. To find perfection in realistic imperfection is the way to lead the "perfect" life that you have envisioned for yourself. Evidence of all the adventures and sleepless nights, and practical jokes, and heartbreaks that had made them who they are.”– Katherine Center Kolmogorov, M., Yuan, J., Lin, Y. & Pevzner, P. A. Assembly of long, error-prone reads using repeat graphs. Nat. Biotechnol. 37, 540–546 (2019). Logsdon, G. A., Vollger, M. R. & Eichler, E. E. Long-read human genome sequencing and its applications. Nat. Rev. Genet. 21, 597–614 (2020).