... wins and losses don't always come down to just hard work and talent... It could come down to one instance where neither talent nor hard work have the slightest impact on the result.
When two equally matched teams go head to head for forty minutes it’s usually the team with the stronger will/’belief’ that bags the ‘W’. That’s why the home team wins so many of those close games. They ‘believe’ (and so does the home crowd) that they ‘should’ win and so they do (think ‘Indiana’ game and so many others).
Some say that 'bad calls' are bad luck. I don’t classify bad calls as bad luck but a lack of (proper) execution by the Ref. Yes you are negatively impacted by that. But ‘luck’ would be the Ref didn’t know what to call and just flipped a coin to decide. In this case, he just was not competent in making the right call. I guess it’s just a matter of viewing this same game event from differing angles... one calling it bad execution and another calling that luck.
We know that ‘randomness’ (‘luck’?) is an inseparable feature of all sports. But settling for ‘randomness’ or ‘luck’ as a determining factor is putting the outcome outside of one’s control when your team had 39 minutes (or more) to seize control and did not and let things come down to one or two plays.
I would like to hear more about, ‘where neither talent nor hard work have the slightest impact on the result.’ Every instance I can think of right now still has an element of talent or work (not just ‘raw’ physical talent but ‘court-thinking’ awareness talent) to every situation on the floor.
Maybe slipping on the court on a wet spot that wasn’t cleaned and making a turnover? That would be bad luck? Or was that not using your ‘thinking talent’ to know to avoid that spot on the floor? Or not paying attention to the condition of the floor?
Every Coach, player, and fan is going to see and frame what happens differently.