Bob Myers tells graduating Harvard Law students that success isn't always immediate - Harvard Law School

As Harvard Law School’s 2025 Class Day speaker, Bob Myers, the former general manager and president of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, had an unusual piece of advice for graduating students.

“Be the tortoise,” urged Myers, who led the Warriors from 2012 to 2023, overseeing four championship victories and the league’s record for most wins in a regular season.

Myers was referring to the old fable by the Greek storyteller Aesop of a slow, plodding tortoise who nonetheless bests a quick yet overconfident hare in a footrace. But how?

Through deliberation, hard work, and humility, suggested Myers, who is currently a studio and in-game analyst for ESPN and ABC and a special advisor for the Washington Commanders football team.

This lesson is even more important in a world obsessed with instant gratification, Myers told the hundreds of Juris Doctor, Master of Laws, and Doctor of Juridical Science graduates and their family and friends gathered on Harvard Law’s Holmes Field under mostly sunny skies.

“As you go through your career, it’s ok to go slow,” he told the students. “As you go through it, be patient. Be thoughtful. Because ultimately, if you do those things and are humble and sacrifice, you’ll get there.”

Myers was invited to deliver his Class Day remarks by Harvard Law’s Class of 2025 Marshals, including Ike Nwankwo ’25 — a graduating student and Myers’s former college basketball teammate and friend of more than three decades. The pair played together on the 1994-95 UCLA Bruins men’s basketball team, which won the National Championship that year.

“Neither of us saw much playing time in those games,” Nwankwo said of their triumphant season. Nonetheless, “Our contributions during [practice sessions] were crucial to winning the title that year — at least, that’s the comforting narrative I like to tell myself 30 years later.”

In his introduction of Myers, Nwankwo described how a friendly comment from his old teammate had been the catalyst for him to finally pursue his longtime dream of attending law school.

“Today, Bob and I find ourselves on a different court, and I couldn’t be prouder to experience this moment with him,” Nwankwo said.

After thanking his friend, Myers began by lamenting the lack of patience caused by today’s fast-paced, highly connected, app-driven world. As one of several examples, he mused about how frustrating it can be when it takes more than a just few seconds to start streaming a two-hour film on a cell phone, gazing at the spinning wheel on the screen while gesticulating in annoyance. By comparison, he recalled growing up in the not-so-long ago era when seeing a film of one’s choice involved driving to a neighborhood video store like Blockbuster in hope that a preferred title — Ghostbusters, perhaps — was still in stock.

“Is that good? I don’t think it is,” he said of Americans’ growing intolerance for delay.

He pointed to Nwankwo’s journey to Harvard Law as an example of successfully playing the long game. “What if Ike was impatient? I don’t know what would have happened in his life,” he said. “Maybe the idea that formed in his head at age 20 [needed time]. Maybe that slow, deliberate pace was the pace that was right for him.”

And now, Nwankwo was preparing to graduate from Harvard Law — an “unbelievable accomplishment,” Myers noted.

Myers highlighted a time in his own career when this principle was tested. As general manager of the Golden State Warriors, he played a key role in rebuilding the team, including the hiring of head coach Steve Kerr in 2014.

Not long after he began, Kerr decided to approach Andre Iguodala — one of the team’s better players, Myers added — and ask if he would agree to “come off the bench.” In other words, Kerr didn’t want Iguodala to be a starter in most games.

“There will be people that cheat, that lie. Don’t do that — not because it won’t get you ahead, because, unfortunately, it might for a little while — but because you’ve got to go to bed at night on that pillow and know that you did that.”

“For anybody that’s played any sport, that’s a demotion,” Myers said. “There’s no way around that.”

Yet after a conversation with his new coach, Iguodala accepted the arrangement. When asked why by a reporter, Myers recalled Iguodala saying that, “This is the best thing for the team.”

“Now, Andre’s individual numbers that year all go down. Minutes, points, rebounds, assists, all of them,” Myers recounted. “But the team does well. So well, that we go to the NBA finals for the first time in 40 years.”

During one of those final round games — with the Warriors trailing in the series — Kerr decided to return Iguodala to the starting lineup. The team ultimately won the game, and the two after that, clinching the series and snagging the franchise’s first championship since 1975.

Kerr named Iguodala the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player. It was a well-deserved honor, Myers said, and not solely because he had played well. Iguodala could have protested his rookie coach’s early request — but he didn’t, and that made all the difference

“Patience,” Myers said. “He waited a whole year, suffered individually for the team. Humility. Knew that the team was best if he came off the bench. All the things that matter in winning and competing.”

Relationships — personal, professional — are ultimately what matter most, Myers suggested. “My definition of success is when those that know you the best, love you the most.”

In an impatient world, it can be tempting to take shortcuts in life, Myers admitted. But he urged students to take the high road. “There will be people that cheat, that lie. Don’t do that — not because it won’t get you ahead, because, unfortunately, it might for a little while — but because you’ve got to go to bed at night on that pillow and know that you did that.”

Myers left the graduates with a few final words of wisdom. Success, he reminded the audience, isn’t always immediate. But through hard work, sacrifice, and fostering good relationships, it will come.

Ultimately, he said, don’t be afraid to be the tortoise. “Because in the end, the tortoise does win the race.”