I am because we are. This is what the African philosophy of Ubuntu tells us. Doc Rivers made the concept famous in the world of sports, having used it as the mantra of his 2008 Boston Celtics championship-winning team. Most recently, it was featured in Netflix’s The Coach’s Playbook. If you haven’t already, I highly suggest giving it a watch. Each episode goes into the strategies behind highly successful coaches, and they’re all eye-opening.

Nelson Mandela said that Ubuntu doesn’t have just one meaning. Instead, it’s a word that represents respect, unselfishness, sharing, and community. That is a sort of unspoken bond between humans. It makes sense, then, that this would translate into the wide world of sports.

That 2008 Celtics team was something else. I am not a Celtics fan by any means, but the fact that Doc was able to get his entire team to buy into a concept of equality and unselfishness is really impressive. You might be thinking that any coach should be able to get their players to play for each other and be unselfish. What we have to realize is that he had some big names on his 2008 team—Guys like Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Rajon Rondo.

What is so cool is how Doc got all his guys to take Ubuntu and run with it. He decided to get the rookies to explain the concept to the team. They explained why it was important and how it related to each and every one of them. It worked, and it worked well. Doc didn’t just get a few of those guys to buy-in. He got them all to embrace the idea of Ubuntu. So, it’s not surprising that they ended up winning the NBA Finals in 2008.

We see it so often; it’s almost becoming normalized- players getting upset when they think they should be “the guy” on their team. This didn’t happen to them. Even with the star talent the Celtics had, they stayed on the path and kept working with and for each other. Paul Pierce talked about how his coach sat everyone down and told them it has to be about the team; that’s what matters. That you can’t do it by yourself, it doesn’t matter who you are and who your team is, you’re not winning the Finals with only one guy.

This is something we can use with our own teams and friends. There is so much competition in the world that sometimes I think we forget to be happy for our peers. We constantly compare ourselves to others that we don’t always congratulate someone when they accomplish something. As ridiculous as that sounds, we all know someone like that. It’s not too late, though. Think about Ubuntu. Think about how you can start to act with more compassion and realize there’s more to it than just being a good player. What makes a team great is a group of players who act unselfishly and do so willingly.

So, with the NBA Finals starting to get interesting, have the concept of Ubuntu in the back of your mind. Look for the team that seems to be more connected, those players who stick together even when they’re down 20 points. They might just win the series, just don’t bet the house away.