Great post… just disagree. Giannis articulated it best… No failure in sports. Steps to success!
Giannis is conflating 2 different things: personal growth and team goals. And it's probably not fair to ask him in the moment to be completely humble and honest with himself. Personal reflection is a process that takes months.
The interviewer asked whether failing to win a particular game/series meant "the season" was a failure--which by definition it was. In that sense, the interviewer wasn't asking the literal question of,
'did you lose today.' The interviewer is implying something more and Giannis misses the point.
A more honest response would've been,
'we did fall short and that realization hurts. We thought we were good enough but we were humbled. That's painful but it will motivate us and we will come back stronger through the lessons we learned and through growth we must push ourselves and our team towards.'
But that kind of honesty you don't get from athletes with egos, especially not publicly and almost never in the moment. You get it from older people--coaches mostly. In most sports you're not allowed to say you're emotionally crushed. You can shed tears. You can bury your head in your hands sitting on the bench after the game. But you can't openly say it. Athletes generally don't like reliving the pain of having their glory taken by another. You congratulate the opponent and say something like,
'We didn't do enough today. We didn't play our game.'
In a world where you repeat the same year-long process (what we call a "season") in an attempt to try and win a Championship, falling short is by definition a "failure" if you're good enough to have that type of goal. Obviously a rebuilding team isn't in position to make that kind of run.
But Miami was and they:
...failed to win the AFC East.
...failed to garner a home Playoff game.
...failed to end their Playoff drought.
...failed to win the Super Bowl.
Those were all goals they openly stated they had. They fell short. That's failing. The worst thing the team could do is lie to themselves about it. The best athletes use failure as motivation--whether it's actual failure or just the fear of being caught.
We can talk about evolving your game and personal growth all we want. It doesn't go back and in time and change the score.
Moving this topic back to Tua, there's a public perception that he loses the big game. That's come from numerous examples of him doing that in Primetime. He didn't look good in the CFB Playoffs. He didn't look good in Primetime under Flores. He hasn't faired well in Primetime under McDaniel. And in his 1 Playoff game (also primetime) he lost badly.
If the public is to be convinced they must be shown what they have not since that 1/2 against Georgia when he emerged. There is no being on one side or the other of this truth. It must happen if the public are to change their minds.