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“This isn’t just a basketball team; this is a lifestyle,” says Jackie Moon (Will Ferrell) the owner/coach/star player of the American Basketball Association’s Flint, Michigan Tropics.

And as the movie Semi-Pro opens, that lifestyle is what we see. Jackie and his team are all about living the life of basketball stars. At each game, they enter the arena like they own the world. They have their own commentators and a weekly show on a local TV station. They are the toast of the town and the life of all the clubs. And when it comes to style, let’s just say that John Travolta wasn’t the only one who had it all going on in the ’70s.

Then the word arrives that the four best ABA teams are to be absorbed into the NBA. The rest of the ABA will cease to exist. And unfortunately for the Flint Tropics, the problem becomes that, as much as basketball may be their lifestyle, on the court they barely have anything at all.

As far as I can tell, The Tropics never win. Most of them don’t even know how to play the game. And at any given time, they could probably count the number of fans sitting in their stands on two hands. But with Jackie’s money keeping the team on the court year after year, none of the players seem to even notice how bad they are. As long as they keep playing, they all believe in the value of themselves and their team. But when they are told they might have to stop, the thin string on which that sense of value has been hanging for so long snaps.

Both before and after the announcement of the ABA/NBA merger, much of the movie and its humor comes packaged in the form of insults. They are pure Will Ferrell, and most of them are pretty funny. As I understand it, crass insults are a part of male bonding. 90% of the time, they aren’t meant to taken seriously. But when that’s all that you have, it’s hard not to. And when The Tropics’ players are robbed of the one thing that told them they were actually worth anything and left with nothing but their insults, their floundering struggle to find meaning in themselves and their lives couldn’t be any clearer.

When washed up basketball legend Monix (Woody Harrelson) joins the team, the insults that quickly begin to fly around him tell a story we all know too well. To The Tropics, Monix is a man who achieved all they have ever wanted and all it now seems they will never be able to reach. So they tear down everything he ever achieved and everything he ever was. And by devaluing the level he reached, it is almost as if they are all simply trying to convince themselves that what they are reaching for isn’t worth it anyway.

The problem for Monix is that each and every one of the insults rings true. He may have made it much further than all of The Tropics’ players, but as he looks back at his career, all he can see is the player who did nothing but sit on the bench during his team’s entire championship season. As his former flame Lynn (Maura Tierney) tells him, “You hate yourself so much, it’s impossible to love you.” Translated into his life as a basketball player, “You believe so little in your skills, it’s impossible for them to come alive.”

Which is the same struggle that even Jackie Moon himself faces. “I’m nothing but big phony,” Jackie cries out. He may be rich and famous. But the song that made him so, he stole from his dead mother. He may be the coach of his very own basketball team. But all he knows to teach them is pre-game entertainment routines. And when it comes to actually possessing the skills/money/corndogs to live up to the promises he makes, let’s just say he always comes up a bit short.

But luckily for The Tropics, the winds begin to shift. With a single insult traded for a compliment, players start to believe in themselves and their capacity to win. Although they recognize their weaknesses, they also acknowledge their ability to overcome them and reach out to the person they know can help them. As they open themselves up to actually learning how to play basketball, they also learn to see themselves and their team members as talented individuals worthy of victory and success. And in the end, even though they still want to win, the greatest meaning in the victory they seek becomes not as much the actual win, but instead the celebration and recognition of the abilities and people who enable them to get there.

In this life, there are many games we will play, many races we will run, and many accomplishments we will seek. Sometimes we will succeed and sometimes we will fail. Sometime that finish line will be one we are meant to cross. And other times we may be meant to pursue a different one. But as we seek to run this race called life, Jackie Moon and The Tropics remind us that the race only becomes worth running when we allow ourselves to believe in what we have to offer and actually give the race all we have. They push us to see that recognizing our weaknesses and seeking the help of others is not giving into failure but rather taking a step towards success. They show us that when it comes to winning the game, the greatest rewards begin long before the buzzer has even sounded. And in a world where team sports are the rule rather than the exception, they goofily demonstrate just how much a single cheer, a pat on the back, or a ready assist can mean to us all.

The question for us is: when it comes to the races we are running today and the games we are playing tomorrow, what kind of athlete are we going to be?