Five solid years of improvement

The half-decade of hard work that makes an NBA MVP

BY HENRY ABBOTT

After the gray frigid winter, nature’s shiny hood ornaments are re-emerging. I’m no tree expert, but I think that one on the left is a flowering cherry—one of the earliest and showiest bloomers. The one on the right is a little more subtle. We’ll get to that. ANETTEANDERSEN, BAILEYSTOCK/GETTY IMAGES

Packed with flowers and super flashy, an ornamental cherry is impossible to ignore. When it’s blooming like that, nobody wonders why you have it in your yard. 

Then there’s that simple guy on the right, who doesn’t start conversation.

Here’s the thing: the cherry tree grows about a foot a year until it reaches 25-feet tall at best, and then it’ll die after about 25 years. But that little green fellow is a giant redwood—not just one of nature’s fastest growers, but also one that will ascend aggressively for a century, and then more slowly for perhaps …