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Tyrese Haliburton's teammates and coaches have praised him for his leadership all season. And after Haliburton played in Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Thursday with a strained right calf, teammate Pascal Siakam told The Athletic’s Shakeia Taylor: “It just shows he’s one of our leaders on the team and he’s doing everything he can to be out there for us, and we appreciate that.”  We wanted to learn more about why Haliburton’s presence is so impactful to those around him. So, we caught up with Steve Prohm, Haliburton’s college coach at Iowa State University.

Trouble sleeping? A neurologist and sleep medicine specialist for several professional sports teams, including the Oklahoma City Thunder, has advice.

Read this week’s edition of The Athletic Peak Newsletter for some takeaways on our favorite leadership, culture, development and success stories we saw in the sports world this week:

This was the most read story on The Athletic last week: https://lnkd.in/gjeJ_hQZ The Athletic’s Rustin Dodd examined Roger Federer’s viral commencement speech at Dartmouth College, and why it resonated with people from all walks of life. Read it ⤵️

J.J. Spaun started his final round at the U.S. Open with a disastrous front nine, including five bogeys on the first six holes. But he reset during a rain delay and battled all the way back against the brutal weather conditions and an extremely tough leaderboard to win his first major title. “That break was actually the key for me to winning this tournament,” Spaun said in his press conference. He said he shifted his mindset during that break. And soon enough, he was the only player under par at Oakmont, a course often referred to as the toughest major championship venue in the world. But it's been a long time coming for Spaun, who was a college walk-on at San Diego State University before spending several years playing on minor circuits and eventually making his major debut in 2018. “I tried to continue to dig deep,” he said to reporters following his win on Sunday. “I mean I’ve been doing it my whole life. “I’m not trying to shy away from the moment.” Spaun's performance on Sunday was one of the most resilient by a major champion in the history of the sport.

What is more important: Relying heavily on your star players, or specialists, so that your team can consistently win? Or incorporating your hybrid players with different skillsets, so your team has a bigger expertise toolkit? After the New York Knicks fired Tom Thibodeau, the franchise’s most successful coach in years, Spencer Harrison weighed in. Harrison studies the cultures of businesses and organizations, and is a professor at INSEAD. He noted Thibodeau is well known for giving his starters heavy minutes during the season while limiting his bench players. But Thibodeau has won doing things his way. Would being more flexible within his system and using people with different skillsets have benefitted more though?

This week's The Athletic Peak Newsletter looks at why Pete Carroll’s team meetings are wild, but filled with lessons for anyone to learn. Read more ⬇️

Amazing challenge this week in The Athletic's sports business newsletter: To try to distill the past five days of seismic changes to the college sports business landscape, then preview what comes next. Lucky timing to get to focus on NIL Go, the new platform powered by College Sports Commission and Deloitte to track and approve all NIL deals worth more than $600. The upshot is: It's going to be really complicated (but I try to keep the explanation simple.) Also name-dropped in today's column: Bryan Seeley, Justin Ishbia, Kara Nortman, Ryan Reynolds, Andrew Marchand, Asli Pelit Basker, Guenther Steiner, Sue Bird, David Zaslav and many more folks who are on the sports-business radar right now. As always, reach out and let me know if there are any upcoming sports-business storylines you think are interesting. https://lnkd.in/eUYmgs5v

Happy “one year to go to the men’s World Cup” day! ⚽️ This will be bigger than anything we’ve done before at The Athletic and we’re plotting away to make sure we tell readers, listeners and viewers (old and new!) everything they need to know - and have some fun with it, too. In fact, here’s the lovely Phil Hay telling you just that about the 2026 World Cup in our football/soccer newsletter, The Athletic FC. Why not sign up? https://lnkd.in/eB2a-NHB

One year ago, Roger Federer gave this speech at the commencement ceremony for Dartmouth College. He told a story about failure, and his message struck a chord with people from all walks of life. Federer, one of the greatest tennis players who ever lived, played 1,526 singles matches in his career. But he won only 54 percent of points in those matches, even though he won 80 percent of his matches. “When you lose every second point, on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot,” he told the crowd. When you’re playing a point, it has to be the most important thing in the world, and it is. But when it’s behind you, it’s behind you. This mindset is really crucial, because it frees you to fully commit to the next point and the next point after that, with intensity, clarity and focus.” https://lnkd.in/ewnHi59K