Steve Kerr, head coach of the Golden State Warriors, was asked the reason his team defeated LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers for the 2017 NBA championship. He answered in one word: “Unselfish.”

The NBA Finals were a feast for basketball junkies like me. The excitement extended far beyond the games themselves. The players put on an exhibition that demonstrated the importance of sharing the glory.

When you have a championship-caliber team and then you add another superstar like Kevin Durant to the mix, you can either implode or you can win a championship. With all those NBA All-Stars on the court, there often aren’t enough basketballs to go around.

But there are for the Warriors. The team embraced its star newcomer with no jealousy. The team’s sole goal was to win a championship, which it did by sharing the ball.

It doesn’t hurt to have a winner like Steve Kerr leading you. As a college player, Kerr took his basketball team, the University of Arizona, to the NCAA Final Four. He won five NBA championships as a player, three with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls and two with the San Antonio Spurs. Now he’s won two more as a coach.

As the old saying says so well: “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

Being unselfish is also important in business. It’s one of the cornerstones of leadership -- the willingness to sacrifice for others. It’s putting the interests of the team ahead of your own personal needs and desires. Whether your business is basketball or ball bearings, the organizations that want to stay in business recognize that everyone has a role to play.

Steve Kerr is a master of this. He stood in the background as his players celebrated. He put his team first.

How many of us have worked with people who do a little of the work and want all the credit? But when there is a problem, they are the first to blame others.

Being unselfish runs counter to what many people think is important to getting ahead in business. You want to be noticed for your successes, even if others contributed to them. You don’t want your superstar image to be diminished by sharing the glory. But that is not a winning strategy. People much prefer to work with and for team players.

Charles William Eliot, who served as Harvard University president for 40 years, offered this wisdom: “Be unselfish. That is the first and final commandment for those who would be useful and happy in their usefulness. If you think of yourself only, you cannot develop because you are choking the source of development, which is spiritual expansion through thought for others.”

If you want to follow his advice, consider these traits of truly unselfish people:

-- They share the credit. In giving others recognition, they acknowledge the contributions made by co-workers and set the stage for future cooperation. They realize that setting a good example encourages others to appreciate the importance of teamwork.

-- They truly help others. When there are problems or setbacks, they look for ways to solve them rather than assessing blame. They are willing to share knowledge that will be useful down the road.

-- They have others’ best interests in mind. They see the benefits of making everyone on their team successful, and then do their best to help their co-workers improve. They understand that everyone is trying to get ahead and support their efforts.

-- They are trusted. They keep their word. They do what they say they will do. People working with them can trust not to be thrown under the bus when a project goes awry. Co-workers know they will be treated respectfully even when they disagree.

-- They are resilient. They can accept setbacks gracefully, and understand that sometimes the biggest failures can lead to the biggest successes. They don’t point fingers, instead pointing their colleagues back on track.

-- They welcome ideas and input from others. They realize that there is often more than one way to solve a problem, and that they do not always have all the answers. They aren’t threatened by other viewpoints. They keep their focus on achieving the goal, not on being right all the time.

Give these ideas some serious thought -- and you will be a champion in your own right.

Mackay’s Moral: It doesn’t take great people to do great things, just unselfish ones.

J.C. Penney, founder of the retail giant that bears his name, once evaluated one of his young clerks, stating he “wasn’t thorough and wouldn’t have much of a future in the retail business.” The employee? Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart.

Despite Penney’s bleak prediction, Sam Walton built the largest retail empire in the world. The opinions of honest, well-intentioned people can sometimes be off the mark. Don’t let misguided judgments keep you from pursuing your dreams.

I love to read about people throughout history who were told they couldn’t do something or wouldn’t amount to anything and then achieved great success. Never give up your dreams just because someone said something negative about you. It doesn’t matter what anyone says; the only thing that matters is what you say and do and think about your ability.

Throughout my life I’ve taken it to heart when someone doubts me or says I can’t really do something. First, I examine myself and evaluate if I think they are right or wrong. And if I think they are wrong, I grow determined to prove them so.

When I thought about running my first marathon at age 56, many of my friends thought I was crazy. I’ve completed 10 marathons to date, and two half-marathons during the last two years.

Naysayers said I couldn’t buy a struggling, tiny, run-down envelope manufacturing company and turn it into anything. Dozens of years later. we’re not just still in business, we’re thriving.

If you have a dream that is reachable and you deeply want something and are willing to work to achieve it, the sky is the limit. History has shown us this many times.

At 15, Michael Jordan didn't make varsity on his high school basketball team.

One of Mark Cuban's first jobs out of college was as a salesman at a computer store. However, he was more interested in cultivating new business than running a cash register. After he failed to open the store one day because he was busy with a potential client, his managers cut him loose. That was the last time he ever worked for someone else.

Lucille Ball was told by the head instructor of the John Murray Anderson Drama School: “Try another profession. Any other.”

John F. Kennedy lost the election to be president of his freshman class at Harvard.

Steven Spielberg’s mediocre grades prevented him from getting accepted to UCLA film school.

Barbara Walters was told to “stay out of television” in 1957 by a prominent producer.

Bob Dylan was booed off the stage at his high school talent show.

Randy Travis was rejected by every major record label, sometimes twice.

Michael Bloomberg was fired as a partner at Salomon Brothers, which eventually became Citigroup, and used his hefty severance check to start Bloomberg Communications, one of the country’s greatest companies.

Julia Child and two collaborators signed a publishing contract in 1953 to produce a book tentatively titled "French Cooking for the American Kitchen." They worked on the book for five years. The publisher rejected the 850-page manuscript. Child and her partners worked for another year, totally revising the manuscript, only to be rejected again. She and her collaborators went back to work, found a new publisher, and in 1961 they published “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” which has sold more than 1 million copies.

Social media has provided seemingly unlimited opportunities for testing your dreams. Musicians and performers credit YouTube for launching careers. Writers self-publish and promote their works through a variety of platforms. Start-up companies have Facebook connections that broadcast their messages to audiences they could never have imagined reaching.

In short, technology has become a productive partner in dreaming.

The only thing stopping you from living out your dreams is you. It takes determination, motivation, confidence, desire, patience, perseverance and hard work. If you can muster all those elements, you will be unstoppable.

Mackay’s Moral: You must be wide awake to make your dreams come true.

Two friends were walking through a dense jungle. Knowing the dangers, they promised to stick together whatever happened.

Suddenly, a tiger appeared in the bushes. One friend immediately turned and ran, climbing up a tree and leaving his companion behind. He watched as his friend dropped to the ground and played dead.

The tiger approached, sniffed around and leaned down, seemingly whispering something in the man’s ear. It roared once, then stalked away.

Feeling ashamed, the other man climbed back down the tree. “What did the tiger say to you?”

The man looked up. “He said, ‘Never trust a false friend.’”

Some days, you just need to know you have a friend. You need to feel that someone “gets” you and is in your corner. With all the push, pull and tug that can go on in the workplace (and it happens everywhere, folks, even at the good places), you must develop your own support systems -- and friends can be invaluable. Good ones are like rocks; they keep us anchored during our personal storms.

You probably spend most of your waking hours at work, so friendships are natural. Working together can easily turn co-workers into best friends, making jobs more enjoyable and the workplace a home away from home instead of just a way to make a living.

But friendships need to be managed appropriately, just like every other workplace relationship. Follow these simple guidelines so neither your friendships nor your job is at risk.

-- Limit social chatter. Everyone chats a little at work, but don’t let your friendly conversations overshadow your responsibilities. Stay focused on your job.

-- Keep private issues private. When you have problems to discuss, do it over lunch or after work.

-- Avoid gossip. Most of us love to talk about other people, but keep your natural inclination to share rumors about co-workers or managers in check. If colleagues realize you’re gossiping about them, the backlash could be unpleasant.

-- Don’t do each other’s jobs. Pitching in to help a friend in a crunch is admirable, but keep it to a reasonable limit. Your manager is in charge of assignments and responsibilities, not you. Don’t spend so much time helping a friend do his or her job that you neglect your own.

-- Include, don’t exclude. You may prefer the company of your friend, but don’t ignore the rest of your co-workers. Invite other co-workers to lunch, and include them in your conversations so they don’t feel left out. You may even make new friends by expanding your circle at work.

Being there for another person can offer you huge rewards psychologically as well. After all, part of the joy of a good friendship is being there for the other person when life gets rough -- and it does get rough at times for everyone.

Keep in mind the words of Abraham Lincoln -- someone who often needed friends along the difficult path of his presidency: “The better part of one’s life consists of one’s friendships.”

What is a friend? The following description of friendship was spotted on the wall of a doctor’s office by a reader of Bits and Pieces magazine, where it was published some years ago. It was attributed to C. Raymond Beran, about whom little is known.

“Friends are people with whom you care to be yourself. Your soul can be naked with them. They ask you to put on nothing, only to be what you are. They do not want you to be better or worse. When you are with them, you feel like a prisoner feels who has been declared innocent. You do not have to be on your guard. You can say what you think, as long as it is genuinely you.

Friends understand those contradictions in your nature that lead others to misjudge you. With them you breathe freely. You can avow your little vanities and envies and hates and vicious sparks, your meannesses and absurdities, and in opening them up to friends, they are lost, dissolved on the white ocean of their loyalty.

"They understand. You do not have to be careful. You can abuse them, neglect them, tolerate them. Best of all, you can keep still with them. It does not matter. They like you. They understand. You can weep with them, sing with them, laugh with them, pray with them.

"Through it all -- and underneath -- they see, know, and love you.

"What is a friend? Just one, I repeat, with whom you dare to be yourself.”

Mackay’s Moral: The friendships you cultivate will help you grow.