The Peter principle on basketball players

The Peter Principle

The Peter principle states that a person who is competent at their job will earn a promotion to a position that requires different skills or different level of performance. If the promoted person lacks the skills required for the new role, they will be incompetent at the new level, and will not be promoted again.

If the person is competent in the new role, they will be promoted again and will continue to be promoted until reaching a level at which they are incompetent.

Being incompetent, the individual will not qualify for promotion again, and so will remain stuck at this “Final Placement” or “Peter’s Plateau.”

Basketball player’s ceiling

Everybody reach its level of incompetence, but the difference of the majority of the jobs with regards the basketball players is that this is done in public. The professional basketball is performed in front of thousand of people, and is recorded by cameras and then sent to millions of people. Any failure or indication that there is a maximum, a limit in the performance or progression of a player will be pointed and usually it will be analyzed and see as a weakness and as a competitive advantage for the opponents.

This is very tough situation for the players, for their ego, for their mental equilibrium.

The reaction of the player at this situation depends on how mature s/he is and how much confidence s/he has to accept that situation and learn from it.

There are different derivates and effects that are summarized below: