While reason is important for basketball, emotion is equally important to provide motivation and passion to play. Without emotion, a player will lack drive and hesitate in decision making, hindering effectiveness. Emotion helps players react quickly based on intuition and practice. If channeled properly, emotion can empower players to outperform less passionate opponents. The author's best performances came from maintaining controlled but strong emotions.

1. Although reason is important in basketball, emotion is also just as important in order to
be successful. A player may have all of the reason in the world but if he does not have
emotion he will have no motivation or passion to play the game. He will have no reason
why to play the game. Plus, if someone relies too much on reason then he will hesitate
before he makes any decisions. This is a problem in basketball because in order to be
effective you must be able to make decisions in a split of a second. Indecisiveness usually
results in a turnover, bad passes, or a bad decision. This is where emotion comes in to
play. Emotion helps a basketball player to react quickly. Using intuition and hours of
practice a player learns to act naturally or instinctively when certain situations present
themselves. If a player can channel his emotions he can use the energy he gains from
them to overpower less passionate opponents. Controlled passion is one aspect that
allows people to play at their highest level. I can tell when I am really passionate about a
game but am still under control. I play better. In fact, my best performances have come
when I have controlled but very strong emotions. However, I have to agree with the
James Lange Theory. When I am having a good shooting night and make 2 or 3 threes in
a row then my emotions become very strong and I continue to play well. However the
physical effects come first and then the emotions follow as a result of the physical action
of shooting very well, which is exactly what James Lange said. Emotion is very pertinent
if a player wants to play at a high level.