1. The Move
The fortunes of the Spurs ownership sort of collapsed in 2012, not into dire straits but into a place where owning a team was suddenly an unaffordable luxury. So, even as their team arrested time for an improbable fifth championship, their owners could talk privately only about what the title would do for the selling price. The celebration was outfitted with the second-best champagnes and rings of 80% gold. And they announced, a couple months after the Riverwalk title strut, that Tim Duncan would not be resigned. Gregg Popovich, still regarded as an elite coach, left with him. The other expiring contracts left as well, leaving the Spurs more or less depleted, at once in rebuilding mode. Most of us thought Tim was going to retire, and the TV networks in the area devoted considerable space to tributes for a few days. Then he and Popovich signed absurd 5-year contracts with the Oklahoma Thunder. It was a period of sadness, but no one in San Antonio could really complain about their lot. It was just something that happened, albeit something strange and unfortunate. So everyone was on good terms when the airship of Duncan and Popovich sailed the Texas land-sea up to Oklahoma on gossamer wings in the clouds. From the windows the two saw banners at the airport they'd left behind, thanking them for all the memories and titles. Of course, they wouldn't see my car until they had landed.
See, at this point I'd been a mop-boy for the Spurs since 2009. Alas, the Spurs were downsizing and mop-boys were as a rule not retained: In a revolution, the mop-boys are always the first to be destroyed. Once I'd heard about Duncan and Popovich, though, I decided immediately that I would follow them to Oklahoma and see if I could parlay my experiences with the Spurs to get a mopping job with the Thunder. So for a solid hour I packed my things into my car and I was off. I was an adult for the first time, so I could and would make my own choices from now on, according to my family. Thus debriefed, I immediately chose the route that seemed most familiar to where I had just been, because that wasn't so bad. That was what I was looking for in the Thunder job. Also, as a basketball journalist, Tim's northern migration was the most interesting story in basketball, and I wanted to be on the ground level for the exclusive story. All the tape recorders and notebooks took up almost my entire car. All my lap was filled with food and toiletries and I went to Oklahoma.
I arrived at the Thunder's practice facility just in time for the airship to descend outside. A large crowd with banners (easily 20,000 strong) was there to greet the landing duo. There were also a large contingent of people on horses and a lot of speaker systems everywhere. Such is Oklahoma. The Thunder's core were signing autographs at separate tables, each player commanding fairly gigantic lines. Kevin Durant, clad in warmups and a tiny backpack (that seemed most suited to house a rabbit than anything else), commanded the largest queue. And there, near the front, was Clay Bennett, the scowling cowboy, obviously still lamenting over the fact that days earlier he had accidentally let his ownership lapse to the local theatre guild and GM Sam Presti, the boy wonder of basketball.
After the airship had landed, the horses ran around in several concentric circles in various directions, while the theatre company at the center performed a selection from Oklahoma!, the naturalistic waltz "Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'" as Presti kept time with his efficient feet. They were competent and all, but I had to admit it was pretty weird having a tenth of the large crowd dressing up like farmers and ranchers, singing merrily about their prospects. But in a way, that was how I felt, on the frontier of basketball journalism. As Duncan and Popovich descended the stairs, the group played the title song "Oklahoma!" All I could do was sigh and memorize every relevant piece of information around me for the advancement of my career.
2. The Interview
I spent the night in a hotel and prepared a ridiculous suitcoat-greatcoat combo that, in its day, had won me every job I'd ever gotten an interview for. I went to the Thunder's office for basketball operations and asked, no, demanded, to speak to Sam Presti. After an hour of half-hearted commitments and office candy, one of the secretaries eventually got me in touch with Presti.
"Give me a job, Sam," I said forcefully, "You need me more than I need you."
"What job would you like, young man?" Presti asked with worried curiosity.
"I would like to be a shooting guard, a backup to Russell Westbrook, who plays 20 minutes a night and tenacious defense."
Presti looked at my shoulders and laughed, "Your trapezius-to-collar ratio is much too high for a shooting guard, and your pituitary development is within one standard deviation of an average person."
"What?"
"In layman's terms, 'No.' You probably aren't even an athlete."
"Fine, Sam, you caught me. I was a mop-boy with the Spurs and I want to be a mop-boy with the Thunder. I'm a big Tim Duncan fan. You caught me, Sam, are we going to have to let this poison our entire working relationship," I said with the utmost rationality.
Sam Presti just cackled in response, "Damn, I love how calculating some of you youngsters are. Reminds me of myself at that age and, to be honest, at this age. I wouldn't be surprised if this whole mop-boy routine is just how you get some sort of access to players for some larger plot."
I didn't know what to say. I just continued to sit down in silence until I thought of something and said, "Well, if I meant any harm, I'm sure you'd be able to ask any of the Spurs from the last three years about it. But," I had to smile, "you're absolutely right, Sam. I'm wearing a tape recorder right now. I'm a journalist. Of basketball," I said, trying to be as measured as possible in the revelation.
Sam smiled and became a bit more businesslike, "Alright, I'm going to hire you. Just don't attend any administrative meetings...John," for that was my name, "and be forthright with everyone about what you're doing. We keep things close to the belt here, just like in San Antonio I'd imagine. But as long as you're obeying basic Thunder and journalistic protocol, we should be fine. You know everything hinges on having a job here, and you know I know that. So I think we're good. You're probably pretty good at mopping by now. So you're probably pretty valuable to me, just purely as a drone."
I got a little worked-up at this objectification. "True, but I also know that you assume that I'm going to be rational, when I'll actually go to irrational lengths to get to the heart of a story, Sam." Whoops.
Sam got a little bit flustered, and blinked about twice as much as he had. "Um...okay. See you on Monday, then?" He handed me some materials and sent me on my way.
"I was joking?"
"Just...just go, John. Good interview." I did.
3. The first day
Not coincidentally, my first day was also the first day of training camp. I was in the gym and mopping to the beat of a Strauss waltz from my mp3 player. As soon as Duncan arrived, he and Popovich exchanged a glance, and experience taught me that they were going to double-team someone for a talk. I correctly guessed Kevin Durant, star of the franchise. Suddenly my mop gained a life of its own, and I waltzed over to where they were gathered and discreetly turned off my mp3 player. I saw Duncan sigh with a bit of annoyance.
"I think John is ready for this talk, too. He's going to find out, anyway." Tim said, and it wasn't just a compliment for an investigative mind.
"Fine," said Popovich.
I kept mopping in three-quarter time. Tim looked right at me and said, "Stop pretending like you can't hear us, John. We worked with you for three years. Come over here. Sit down. Heh." Tim thought that my pretense was hilariously over-the-top sometimes. Honestly, so did I.
Kevin asked, "Who is he?"
Tim spoke with the irony of an old person not really trying to sound hip, "Oh, he's cool. He worked with us back in our hood in San Antone. Good mop-boy. Should have been elected to the All-Star Game last year. As a mop-boy."
All four of us sat down, kind of groaning at Tim.
"Uh...what is this meeting about, Coach?" I asked politely.
"It's about the future of basketball." Popovich drily noted, "Or maybe it's about the future of an irrelevant superstar that could never turn it on when it really mattered." And he stared at Kevin probingly.
Kevin was a bit taken aback. "But I went to the Western Conference Finals last year, Coach! I think next year is finally going to be the year we break..." I nodded to echo this sentiment, which had to be at least the secondary feeling of most journalists.
Popovich stopped him with a hand gesture, "No, Kevin, that's what everyone thinks. It's what everyone wants to hear, too, so it doesn't seem so bad. But as long as you think it, this will never be your year. It's funny how that works. You go into a season thinking you have the preponderance of talent and heart and then, at the end of the day, you're explaining to a reporter why Game 6 didn't turn out like you'd hoped. Kevin, let me tell you what Tim and I told Sam in order to get those contract terms. You know Sam well, right? He kind of knows his stuff, right?"
Kevin had a look of surprise on his face at this new information. I laughed at the coach's understatement. "Yeah, he kind of does, is my general impression of things. Sam kind of knows his stuff," Kevin deadpanned to move the conversation along.
"Well, he kind of also signed us to 5-year contracts, Kevin."
"He kind of did, Coach. He kind of did. Do you mind telling me what the connection you're making is, here? Do you mind telling me what kind of things you told Sam?"
Popovich was famous in his circles of this kind of gamesmanship, but Kevin was meeting him quip for quip. I smiled, because Kevin Durant was still wearing a child's backpack as he engaged the coach.
"We told him we'd make the Thunder into champions, Kevin. Is that kind of something you'd kind of like to see happen, Kevin?" Popovich continued the volley.
"Of course, Coach. I want that more than anything. It's the only thing that matters."
"More than your arms?" Popovich grinned.
"Fine, I prefer my arms to a title." Kevin admitted, and Popovich continued to chip away.
"How about your friends and family?"
Durant didn't bite, though. "If my friends and family are standing in the way of my title, they aren't my friends and family."
Popovich furled his brow and said, with a little bit of anger, "You don't really think that, do you," and it wasn't much of a question at all. Duncan and I looked at Kevin, who was apparently having some internal conflict about how he felt: His face kept changing back and forth, from joy to anger to joy. As he wavered, his little backpack looked like a rabbit's house and then a possum's house and then a rabbit's house, depending on his mood. Tim half-chuckled a sympathetic "Heh." and quickly regained his ordinary poker face.
A bit defeated, Kevin said, "No, no I don't. But I feel like, on some level, if I don't think that, I'm never going to be a champion. I have to be willing to leave behind everyone and everything except my team if it means reaching that ultimate glory. And I know I can't."
Tim pointed at Kevin and said, "That's exactly what David Robinson said to us when I came into the league." Boy, he made his words count.
Popovich continued the thought, "Yeah, we had this same discussion with David Robinson."
Now I was pretty curious, "What did you say to him?"
Popovich took over. "We told him that all he was saying was bullshit, and that a champion is just a team that wins four best-of-seven rounds against four teams, and nothing else. Sure, you have to earn each of those rounds, each of those games, each of those quarters and possessions. But that's all you have to earn. A man doesn't have to earn a dime more than his standard of living, and a champion doesn't have to earn a dime more than its four rounds. There is no ultimate victory, no definitive answer to the question of who is best. Just four rounds, and four defenses to beat and four offenses to stop. An MVP is just the one that plays the most and does the most to earn it. There's no mystery, no pure competitive situation, no narrative. Just a game, just a series, just a tournament, and, in the end, just a champion."
As a mop-boy that used calculus on my mopping patterns in order to minimize time spent mopping and maximize time spent interviewing, I immediately understood this. If I let an ideal mop-stroke become my fixation, my efficiency would actually suffer. But there was no room in this view for sentiment, and that seemed to bug Kevin, who signaled to speak.
"That's all well and good," Kevin started, "but what about those famous highlights we remember? What about all those great Cinderella stories, those legendary teams, those displays of total dominance we remember and try to emulate? Nobody goes in thinking about winning four rounds. They think about hoisting the trophy, shooting over Bryon Russell and stealing from Karl Malone, or being Bill Russell or Mo Malone. They think about having a 16-point fourth quarter, a quadruple double, a 50 point game on 10 shots. They think about the total dominance of the team concept striving over selfishness. They think about something. It's not just about the victories, it's about the class and determination and attitude and the work ethic. And teamwork. I don't want to win without any of those things. I want to win so hard that they'll say we won five rounds, and I want to do it the right way."
And Kevin too had a point. I started to wonder if maybe I had sacrificed something in mopping so efficiently. After all, as much as we all laugh at people who have absurd wells of idealism and sentiment, these people seem to be pretty happy (at least as much as anyone), and not at all dumb or unsuccessful. Kevin Durant sitting before us was a perfect example. He would not while away his days mopping; he might even revolutionize the field.
But Popovich answered, "Let’s talk about teamwork. Good idea, right?” Kevin nodded, “But let's face it: at times you've simply taken over games, Kevin, just like Tim back in the day. If you yourself could win without teamwork all the time, then you should, every single time, because you would still be held up by everyone that matters as a great teammate and a great person. And you would never need to sacrifice anything. In fact, you would be praised for being able to win games by yourself and still managing to stay humble. I mean, do you think anyone holds it against Tim that sometimes, for entire rotations in his prime, we just fed him in the post and did almost nothing to support him? Of course not. He still respected his teammates deeply, and when we couldn't go to him every possession, whether in his prime or not, he deferred instantly. Teamwork, if you chase after it too far, can be an arbitrary barrier to team success, especially in basketball. What you should really be after is judgement: knowing when to take over and when to defer.”
“What about class, coach?”
“Class? Sure, it's important...to how you’re treated. People remember the cheap shots and the missed handshakes for a long time. And they ought to. But it has hardly anything to do with the title. Tell me with a straight face that untouchable class had any relation to championship quality the last 50 years. It never has and it never will.”
“What about dedication and a positive attitude?”
“99% of the time class, determination, attitude, and so on, have nothing to do with winning. They’re just ornaments on a player as far as I’m concerned, at least as a coach. Attitude does not matter to Sam Presti, and I consider that a basic requirement for a general manager. My favorite general managers were those that didn't feel this way, because I would beat them in trades every time,” He smiled, "It's a lot harder to have a positive attitude when you aren't winning 55 games. You know this as well as I do, Kevin."
Kevin deployed the final virtue, his trump card. “What about the work ethic that got me here, coach? Is my work ethic just an ornament to you?”
“By itself, yeah. Work ethic is just an ornament by itself, even though I see trading for work ethic in elite players as trading up. Look, Kevin, you already have a fantastic work ethic, and still, the only things that matter about it are the things you’ve applied it to. Those are what matter. Your attention to detail, your ability to work through things to their last detail, the development you’re willing to put in on your defense and even your iso and post moves. It’s impressive, but if you’d gotten it without the work ethic, I’d be just as happy to have you start for my team. I wouldn’t compliment you after the games as much, for sure, but I wouldn’t exactly be unhappy. Do you think Phil Jackson is really unhappy with Shaq’s production in the threepeat? Work doesn’t matter as far as coaching goes.. It’s all in the results. A work ethic is a tool to help the results, but if you had a work ethic and had worked on all the wrong things, I would feel horrible for you. I’d like you as a person, but I don’t know that I’d want to have you as a player. Players that have longer careers because of their work ethic are indistinguishable to a coach from naturally durable, adaptable players. Sorry. I like the first group a lot more, if it's any consolation."
I hadn’t fully considered this logic. After all, how many times had I worked overtime just because I thought I was a better person for having more of a work ethic? How many times had I submitted myself to the will of others in zero-sum interactions, because I had arbitrarily favored the ideal of charity over fulfillment? No, I didn't need to work overtime if it wasn't going to satisfy any of my goals. Sam Presti was just a person who had some things I wanted, and I would help him exactly as far as I needed to help myself, and if I needed or wanted more, I would help him more. There was no inherent virtue in hard work, except to the extent that that hard work led to outcomes I truly valued. There was no virtue in learning, in justice, in anything, if you sacrifice the things and people that are most important to you to attain them. The ends of a healthy person were not ideal love or ideal dominance or ideal wealth; they were a certain person, a certain objective standard of attainment, a certain financial standard and the certain ends to which this money is deployed. I didn’t need to prove that I was better than anyone else, even to myself. I didn’t even need to prove I was good. I just needed to make realistic goals that were within my grasp and to take appropriate measures to attain them, whether those goals were general or specific. Ascetics, mystics, also-rans, martyrs? They can be kings of infinite space for all I care. I decided I was moving on with my life, in a nutshell if need be. No, I thought, I would never go to work just because I’m supposed to, but only because the work supports the concrete things I truly value. But I would go to work. I would buy in to something. I would learn to value something new and add to the things I already valued. And ironically, in so doing, I would want to work harder. I would want to take on burdens, because the value in people and things that could come from these burdens would be ever clearer to me. I have been crafty and I have been intelligent in my day, but without a good end to both, I was no better than an idiot rambling. That’s what the Spurs had been trying to teach me, I had just been too busy with my tape recorder to sit back and listen. But I guess it’s harder to pick up Thunder on a tape recorder, isn’t it. I had my story. I just needed a conclusion. I sat back and listened to the conversation. I was a journalist.
But there was no conversation to listen to. The other three were silent in thought. Kevin finally broke the silence. "Whoa, John," He was staring at me. "That was great."
“What is it, Kevin?”
“What are you talking about? Don't you remember what you just said? You said it yourself - 'I am a journalist'. You spoke for like 10 minutes. That was inspirational. It was pretty weird that you just said all of that, straight-up and in a line, with your eyes closed and without any sort of continuation to the conversation. But you know what, John? I agreed with it. I mean, that was pretty convincing. Good job. I can see why you’d be in the All-Star Game as a mop-boy. There’s a kind of philosophy to being a mop-boy, you know, and some mop-boys can never grasp it. Never totally rational, never totally charitable. A mop for all seasons. We're glad to have you.”
How embarrassing, I thought. I would take care never to let this uninhibited personal expression happen in the future. “I hope I don’t have like narcolepsy or anything.”
"This was a fun conversation with David, too," Tim finally interjected, "Heh."
"You did well, Tim," Popovich grinned, "Do you think we should tell Kevin there’s no God next Monday?"
Popovich turned back to us and said with seriousness, "We both have a lot of faith, in our own ways, Kevin. We really do. Just not in the Basketball Gods. I just don't believe there's any attitude of life that can make someone any better at basketball, Kevin, except some basic psychological approaches to keep your attention span high and your stress level right where it needs to be. But you already have all of that."
Tim was filled with the glee of anticipation, "You wanna know what we told Sam to get five-year contracts?"
Kevin, still in shock from the hour-long basketball equivalent of Nietzsche, practically begged for the dulcet tones of the basketball equivalent of Greg Maddux, and stammered out a "Sure, TIm."
Tim spoke with unremarkable dryness. "We told Sam that I'm going to be a 55% three-point shooter who can still work the post without turning the ball over, averaging 20 mpg over 5 years. We told him that Pop has already developed some great offensive schemes for you, Russell, me, Harden, Perkins, and Collison, and that our frontcourt, even in my declining physical state, would still be unrivaled in the entire league, enough to give us a trump card against Miami's team defense. We told him that Pop and I had developed countless defensively limited players into defensive powerhouses. All of this is true, and we demonstrated what it was possible to demonstrate. That was enough for Sam," Tim caught his breath, having spoken fewer words in the last eighteen months. "That's all we said. Heh."
"Wait, what about that whole speech Pop gave? Did you mention that?" I asked Tim as Kevin furrowed his brow with befuddlement.
"We never even mentioned it." Tim was half-chuckling half-controllably for almost a minute. "Heh. Heh. Heh. Heh. Heh." Half-chuckling more than I’d ever seen him before. He must have something very funny in mind, I thought.
"Wait, you didn’t tell Sam about that entire lecture? Then why did you say-" Kevin started.
And Tim, with a devious smile, had a punchline in mind. Right on cue, he announced, "Because, like Pop said, it doesn’t even matter." and continued half-chuckling endlessly.
I was pretty sure this was Tim’s idea of a joke. But the attempt was so sincere, so dry, so absurd in its attempt, that Tim’s half-chuckle did the unintentional humor no justice. The set-up and punchline fused with the comedian, and the already specious joke became a Gordian knot of misconceptions about humor - you could unwind for hours and still not find the end of it. All three of us started cracking up at Tim, and I was trying my best to stop from ruining my tape recorder as I doubled over. Kevin's face didn't look like a frown to anyone except himself. As I was laughing, I started to understand the joke a little bit, hoping there was something more than the surface and the build-up. I finally decided that I had just heard the lamest, most sincere attempt at a joke that I ever would, and said so between spasms. Tim’s joke was somehow worse – and in a real sense, more shameful to all parties – than an awful pun could ever be. And, as I looked up, he was still smiling, in perfect control of himself. He had made everyone else feel embarrassed at themselves, and he knew it. Much like his games, like his unending career, his jokes could never make any sense until the final tally. But he stood up, and the meeting was essentially over. I still had a few more laughs in me, to my great chagrin. We were all in Oklahoma now, but when you're the sort of person Tim is, you can make any place feel like San Antonio. I had an insatiable craving for family restaurants and video arcades, for home-baked bread and an empty endless basement all to myself, for infinitely complex jokes that slowly unwound back into straightforward language after thousands of uses with friends. I had all the purpose of an adult in Oklahoma and all the freedom of a youth in San Antonio. I wasn't laughing any more, but with my smiles, I might have been. Life seemed to be unfolding as it should be, and I was finally ready to let it happen to me.
Finally, I gathered myself and asked if I could publish this, considering that I'd obviously had a tape recorder on the entire time. For a second, Tim fully chuckled at the suggestion. He had the last laugh after all.
"Yes, but wait to publish it, John... until," Popovich said as he smiled and glanced at his watch, "until June," I looked at my own watch; exactly 10:00 AM. I quickly got back to mopping, and as I did, Sam Presti and the theatre troupe came into the gym, singing "June is Bustin' Out All Over" from Carousel and I silently hoped the theatre company wouldn't be here every day. I would be perpetually disappointed. At least they weren’t Clay Bennett, I thought, and forever mopped the first beats of the waltzes I heard with an extra staccato.
The fortunes of the Spurs ownership sort of collapsed in 2012, not into dire straits but into a place where owning a team was suddenly an unaffordable luxury. So, even as their team arrested time for an improbable fifth championship, their owners could talk privately only about what the title would do for the selling price. The celebration was outfitted with the second-best champagnes and rings of 80% gold. And they announced, a couple months after the Riverwalk title strut, that Tim Duncan would not be resigned. Gregg Popovich, still regarded as an elite coach, left with him. The other expiring contracts left as well, leaving the Spurs more or less depleted, at once in rebuilding mode. Most of us thought Tim was going to retire, and the TV networks in the area devoted considerable space to tributes for a few days. Then he and Popovich signed absurd 5-year contracts with the Oklahoma Thunder. It was a period of sadness, but no one in San Antonio could really complain about their lot. It was just something that happened, albeit something strange and unfortunate. So everyone was on good terms when the airship of Duncan and Popovich sailed the Texas land-sea up to Oklahoma on gossamer wings in the clouds. From the windows the two saw banners at the airport they'd left behind, thanking them for all the memories and titles. Of course, they wouldn't see my car until they had landed.
See, at this point I'd been a mop-boy for the Spurs since 2009. Alas, the Spurs were downsizing and mop-boys were as a rule not retained: In a revolution, the mop-boys are always the first to be destroyed. Once I'd heard about Duncan and Popovich, though, I decided immediately that I would follow them to Oklahoma and see if I could parlay my experiences with the Spurs to get a mopping job with the Thunder. So for a solid hour I packed my things into my car and I was off. I was an adult for the first time, so I could and would make my own choices from now on, according to my family. Thus debriefed, I immediately chose the route that seemed most familiar to where I had just been, because that wasn't so bad. That was what I was looking for in the Thunder job. Also, as a basketball journalist, Tim's northern migration was the most interesting story in basketball, and I wanted to be on the ground level for the exclusive story. All the tape recorders and notebooks took up almost my entire car. All my lap was filled with food and toiletries and I went to Oklahoma.
I arrived at the Thunder's practice facility just in time for the airship to descend outside. A large crowd with banners (easily 20,000 strong) was there to greet the landing duo. There were also a large contingent of people on horses and a lot of speaker systems everywhere. Such is Oklahoma. The Thunder's core were signing autographs at separate tables, each player commanding fairly gigantic lines. Kevin Durant, clad in warmups and a tiny backpack (that seemed most suited to house a rabbit than anything else), commanded the largest queue. And there, near the front, was Clay Bennett, the scowling cowboy, obviously still lamenting over the fact that days earlier he had accidentally let his ownership lapse to the local theatre guild and GM Sam Presti, the boy wonder of basketball.
After the airship had landed, the horses ran around in several concentric circles in various directions, while the theatre company at the center performed a selection from Oklahoma!, the naturalistic waltz "Oh What a Beautiful Mornin'" as Presti kept time with his efficient feet. They were competent and all, but I had to admit it was pretty weird having a tenth of the large crowd dressing up like farmers and ranchers, singing merrily about their prospects. But in a way, that was how I felt, on the frontier of basketball journalism. As Duncan and Popovich descended the stairs, the group played the title song "Oklahoma!" All I could do was sigh and memorize every relevant piece of information around me for the advancement of my career.
2. The Interview
I spent the night in a hotel and prepared a ridiculous suitcoat-greatcoat combo that, in its day, had won me every job I'd ever gotten an interview for. I went to the Thunder's office for basketball operations and asked, no, demanded, to speak to Sam Presti. After an hour of half-hearted commitments and office candy, one of the secretaries eventually got me in touch with Presti.
"Give me a job, Sam," I said forcefully, "You need me more than I need you."
"What job would you like, young man?" Presti asked with worried curiosity.
"I would like to be a shooting guard, a backup to Russell Westbrook, who plays 20 minutes a night and tenacious defense."
Presti looked at my shoulders and laughed, "Your trapezius-to-collar ratio is much too high for a shooting guard, and your pituitary development is within one standard deviation of an average person."
"What?"
"In layman's terms, 'No.' You probably aren't even an athlete."
"Fine, Sam, you caught me. I was a mop-boy with the Spurs and I want to be a mop-boy with the Thunder. I'm a big Tim Duncan fan. You caught me, Sam, are we going to have to let this poison our entire working relationship," I said with the utmost rationality.
Sam Presti just cackled in response, "Damn, I love how calculating some of you youngsters are. Reminds me of myself at that age and, to be honest, at this age. I wouldn't be surprised if this whole mop-boy routine is just how you get some sort of access to players for some larger plot."
I didn't know what to say. I just continued to sit down in silence until I thought of something and said, "Well, if I meant any harm, I'm sure you'd be able to ask any of the Spurs from the last three years about it. But," I had to smile, "you're absolutely right, Sam. I'm wearing a tape recorder right now. I'm a journalist. Of basketball," I said, trying to be as measured as possible in the revelation.
Sam smiled and became a bit more businesslike, "Alright, I'm going to hire you. Just don't attend any administrative meetings...John," for that was my name, "and be forthright with everyone about what you're doing. We keep things close to the belt here, just like in San Antonio I'd imagine. But as long as you're obeying basic Thunder and journalistic protocol, we should be fine. You know everything hinges on having a job here, and you know I know that. So I think we're good. You're probably pretty good at mopping by now. So you're probably pretty valuable to me, just purely as a drone."
I got a little worked-up at this objectification. "True, but I also know that you assume that I'm going to be rational, when I'll actually go to irrational lengths to get to the heart of a story, Sam." Whoops.
Sam got a little bit flustered, and blinked about twice as much as he had. "Um...okay. See you on Monday, then?" He handed me some materials and sent me on my way.
"I was joking?"
"Just...just go, John. Good interview." I did.
3. The first day
Not coincidentally, my first day was also the first day of training camp. I was in the gym and mopping to the beat of a Strauss waltz from my mp3 player. As soon as Duncan arrived, he and Popovich exchanged a glance, and experience taught me that they were going to double-team someone for a talk. I correctly guessed Kevin Durant, star of the franchise. Suddenly my mop gained a life of its own, and I waltzed over to where they were gathered and discreetly turned off my mp3 player. I saw Duncan sigh with a bit of annoyance.
"I think John is ready for this talk, too. He's going to find out, anyway." Tim said, and it wasn't just a compliment for an investigative mind.
"Fine," said Popovich.
I kept mopping in three-quarter time. Tim looked right at me and said, "Stop pretending like you can't hear us, John. We worked with you for three years. Come over here. Sit down. Heh." Tim thought that my pretense was hilariously over-the-top sometimes. Honestly, so did I.
Kevin asked, "Who is he?"
Tim spoke with the irony of an old person not really trying to sound hip, "Oh, he's cool. He worked with us back in our hood in San Antone. Good mop-boy. Should have been elected to the All-Star Game last year. As a mop-boy."
All four of us sat down, kind of groaning at Tim.
"Uh...what is this meeting about, Coach?" I asked politely.
"It's about the future of basketball." Popovich drily noted, "Or maybe it's about the future of an irrelevant superstar that could never turn it on when it really mattered." And he stared at Kevin probingly.
Kevin was a bit taken aback. "But I went to the Western Conference Finals last year, Coach! I think next year is finally going to be the year we break..." I nodded to echo this sentiment, which had to be at least the secondary feeling of most journalists.
Popovich stopped him with a hand gesture, "No, Kevin, that's what everyone thinks. It's what everyone wants to hear, too, so it doesn't seem so bad. But as long as you think it, this will never be your year. It's funny how that works. You go into a season thinking you have the preponderance of talent and heart and then, at the end of the day, you're explaining to a reporter why Game 6 didn't turn out like you'd hoped. Kevin, let me tell you what Tim and I told Sam in order to get those contract terms. You know Sam well, right? He kind of knows his stuff, right?"
Kevin had a look of surprise on his face at this new information. I laughed at the coach's understatement. "Yeah, he kind of does, is my general impression of things. Sam kind of knows his stuff," Kevin deadpanned to move the conversation along.
"Well, he kind of also signed us to 5-year contracts, Kevin."
"He kind of did, Coach. He kind of did. Do you mind telling me what the connection you're making is, here? Do you mind telling me what kind of things you told Sam?"
Popovich was famous in his circles of this kind of gamesmanship, but Kevin was meeting him quip for quip. I smiled, because Kevin Durant was still wearing a child's backpack as he engaged the coach.
"We told him we'd make the Thunder into champions, Kevin. Is that kind of something you'd kind of like to see happen, Kevin?" Popovich continued the volley.
"Of course, Coach. I want that more than anything. It's the only thing that matters."
"More than your arms?" Popovich grinned.
"Fine, I prefer my arms to a title." Kevin admitted, and Popovich continued to chip away.
"How about your friends and family?"
Durant didn't bite, though. "If my friends and family are standing in the way of my title, they aren't my friends and family."
Popovich furled his brow and said, with a little bit of anger, "You don't really think that, do you," and it wasn't much of a question at all. Duncan and I looked at Kevin, who was apparently having some internal conflict about how he felt: His face kept changing back and forth, from joy to anger to joy. As he wavered, his little backpack looked like a rabbit's house and then a possum's house and then a rabbit's house, depending on his mood. Tim half-chuckled a sympathetic "Heh." and quickly regained his ordinary poker face.
A bit defeated, Kevin said, "No, no I don't. But I feel like, on some level, if I don't think that, I'm never going to be a champion. I have to be willing to leave behind everyone and everything except my team if it means reaching that ultimate glory. And I know I can't."
Tim pointed at Kevin and said, "That's exactly what David Robinson said to us when I came into the league." Boy, he made his words count.
Popovich continued the thought, "Yeah, we had this same discussion with David Robinson."
Now I was pretty curious, "What did you say to him?"
Popovich took over. "We told him that all he was saying was bullshit, and that a champion is just a team that wins four best-of-seven rounds against four teams, and nothing else. Sure, you have to earn each of those rounds, each of those games, each of those quarters and possessions. But that's all you have to earn. A man doesn't have to earn a dime more than his standard of living, and a champion doesn't have to earn a dime more than its four rounds. There is no ultimate victory, no definitive answer to the question of who is best. Just four rounds, and four defenses to beat and four offenses to stop. An MVP is just the one that plays the most and does the most to earn it. There's no mystery, no pure competitive situation, no narrative. Just a game, just a series, just a tournament, and, in the end, just a champion."
As a mop-boy that used calculus on my mopping patterns in order to minimize time spent mopping and maximize time spent interviewing, I immediately understood this. If I let an ideal mop-stroke become my fixation, my efficiency would actually suffer. But there was no room in this view for sentiment, and that seemed to bug Kevin, who signaled to speak.
"That's all well and good," Kevin started, "but what about those famous highlights we remember? What about all those great Cinderella stories, those legendary teams, those displays of total dominance we remember and try to emulate? Nobody goes in thinking about winning four rounds. They think about hoisting the trophy, shooting over Bryon Russell and stealing from Karl Malone, or being Bill Russell or Mo Malone. They think about having a 16-point fourth quarter, a quadruple double, a 50 point game on 10 shots. They think about the total dominance of the team concept striving over selfishness. They think about something. It's not just about the victories, it's about the class and determination and attitude and the work ethic. And teamwork. I don't want to win without any of those things. I want to win so hard that they'll say we won five rounds, and I want to do it the right way."
And Kevin too had a point. I started to wonder if maybe I had sacrificed something in mopping so efficiently. After all, as much as we all laugh at people who have absurd wells of idealism and sentiment, these people seem to be pretty happy (at least as much as anyone), and not at all dumb or unsuccessful. Kevin Durant sitting before us was a perfect example. He would not while away his days mopping; he might even revolutionize the field.
But Popovich answered, "Let’s talk about teamwork. Good idea, right?” Kevin nodded, “But let's face it: at times you've simply taken over games, Kevin, just like Tim back in the day. If you yourself could win without teamwork all the time, then you should, every single time, because you would still be held up by everyone that matters as a great teammate and a great person. And you would never need to sacrifice anything. In fact, you would be praised for being able to win games by yourself and still managing to stay humble. I mean, do you think anyone holds it against Tim that sometimes, for entire rotations in his prime, we just fed him in the post and did almost nothing to support him? Of course not. He still respected his teammates deeply, and when we couldn't go to him every possession, whether in his prime or not, he deferred instantly. Teamwork, if you chase after it too far, can be an arbitrary barrier to team success, especially in basketball. What you should really be after is judgement: knowing when to take over and when to defer.”
“What about class, coach?”
“Class? Sure, it's important...to how you’re treated. People remember the cheap shots and the missed handshakes for a long time. And they ought to. But it has hardly anything to do with the title. Tell me with a straight face that untouchable class had any relation to championship quality the last 50 years. It never has and it never will.”
“What about dedication and a positive attitude?”
“99% of the time class, determination, attitude, and so on, have nothing to do with winning. They’re just ornaments on a player as far as I’m concerned, at least as a coach. Attitude does not matter to Sam Presti, and I consider that a basic requirement for a general manager. My favorite general managers were those that didn't feel this way, because I would beat them in trades every time,” He smiled, "It's a lot harder to have a positive attitude when you aren't winning 55 games. You know this as well as I do, Kevin."
Kevin deployed the final virtue, his trump card. “What about the work ethic that got me here, coach? Is my work ethic just an ornament to you?”
“By itself, yeah. Work ethic is just an ornament by itself, even though I see trading for work ethic in elite players as trading up. Look, Kevin, you already have a fantastic work ethic, and still, the only things that matter about it are the things you’ve applied it to. Those are what matter. Your attention to detail, your ability to work through things to their last detail, the development you’re willing to put in on your defense and even your iso and post moves. It’s impressive, but if you’d gotten it without the work ethic, I’d be just as happy to have you start for my team. I wouldn’t compliment you after the games as much, for sure, but I wouldn’t exactly be unhappy. Do you think Phil Jackson is really unhappy with Shaq’s production in the threepeat? Work doesn’t matter as far as coaching goes.. It’s all in the results. A work ethic is a tool to help the results, but if you had a work ethic and had worked on all the wrong things, I would feel horrible for you. I’d like you as a person, but I don’t know that I’d want to have you as a player. Players that have longer careers because of their work ethic are indistinguishable to a coach from naturally durable, adaptable players. Sorry. I like the first group a lot more, if it's any consolation."
I hadn’t fully considered this logic. After all, how many times had I worked overtime just because I thought I was a better person for having more of a work ethic? How many times had I submitted myself to the will of others in zero-sum interactions, because I had arbitrarily favored the ideal of charity over fulfillment? No, I didn't need to work overtime if it wasn't going to satisfy any of my goals. Sam Presti was just a person who had some things I wanted, and I would help him exactly as far as I needed to help myself, and if I needed or wanted more, I would help him more. There was no inherent virtue in hard work, except to the extent that that hard work led to outcomes I truly valued. There was no virtue in learning, in justice, in anything, if you sacrifice the things and people that are most important to you to attain them. The ends of a healthy person were not ideal love or ideal dominance or ideal wealth; they were a certain person, a certain objective standard of attainment, a certain financial standard and the certain ends to which this money is deployed. I didn’t need to prove that I was better than anyone else, even to myself. I didn’t even need to prove I was good. I just needed to make realistic goals that were within my grasp and to take appropriate measures to attain them, whether those goals were general or specific. Ascetics, mystics, also-rans, martyrs? They can be kings of infinite space for all I care. I decided I was moving on with my life, in a nutshell if need be. No, I thought, I would never go to work just because I’m supposed to, but only because the work supports the concrete things I truly value. But I would go to work. I would buy in to something. I would learn to value something new and add to the things I already valued. And ironically, in so doing, I would want to work harder. I would want to take on burdens, because the value in people and things that could come from these burdens would be ever clearer to me. I have been crafty and I have been intelligent in my day, but without a good end to both, I was no better than an idiot rambling. That’s what the Spurs had been trying to teach me, I had just been too busy with my tape recorder to sit back and listen. But I guess it’s harder to pick up Thunder on a tape recorder, isn’t it. I had my story. I just needed a conclusion. I sat back and listened to the conversation. I was a journalist.
But there was no conversation to listen to. The other three were silent in thought. Kevin finally broke the silence. "Whoa, John," He was staring at me. "That was great."
“What is it, Kevin?”
“What are you talking about? Don't you remember what you just said? You said it yourself - 'I am a journalist'. You spoke for like 10 minutes. That was inspirational. It was pretty weird that you just said all of that, straight-up and in a line, with your eyes closed and without any sort of continuation to the conversation. But you know what, John? I agreed with it. I mean, that was pretty convincing. Good job. I can see why you’d be in the All-Star Game as a mop-boy. There’s a kind of philosophy to being a mop-boy, you know, and some mop-boys can never grasp it. Never totally rational, never totally charitable. A mop for all seasons. We're glad to have you.”
How embarrassing, I thought. I would take care never to let this uninhibited personal expression happen in the future. “I hope I don’t have like narcolepsy or anything.”
"This was a fun conversation with David, too," Tim finally interjected, "Heh."
"You did well, Tim," Popovich grinned, "Do you think we should tell Kevin there’s no God next Monday?"
Popovich turned back to us and said with seriousness, "We both have a lot of faith, in our own ways, Kevin. We really do. Just not in the Basketball Gods. I just don't believe there's any attitude of life that can make someone any better at basketball, Kevin, except some basic psychological approaches to keep your attention span high and your stress level right where it needs to be. But you already have all of that."
Tim was filled with the glee of anticipation, "You wanna know what we told Sam to get five-year contracts?"
Kevin, still in shock from the hour-long basketball equivalent of Nietzsche, practically begged for the dulcet tones of the basketball equivalent of Greg Maddux, and stammered out a "Sure, TIm."
Tim spoke with unremarkable dryness. "We told Sam that I'm going to be a 55% three-point shooter who can still work the post without turning the ball over, averaging 20 mpg over 5 years. We told him that Pop has already developed some great offensive schemes for you, Russell, me, Harden, Perkins, and Collison, and that our frontcourt, even in my declining physical state, would still be unrivaled in the entire league, enough to give us a trump card against Miami's team defense. We told him that Pop and I had developed countless defensively limited players into defensive powerhouses. All of this is true, and we demonstrated what it was possible to demonstrate. That was enough for Sam," Tim caught his breath, having spoken fewer words in the last eighteen months. "That's all we said. Heh."
"Wait, what about that whole speech Pop gave? Did you mention that?" I asked Tim as Kevin furrowed his brow with befuddlement.
"We never even mentioned it." Tim was half-chuckling half-controllably for almost a minute. "Heh. Heh. Heh. Heh. Heh." Half-chuckling more than I’d ever seen him before. He must have something very funny in mind, I thought.
"Wait, you didn’t tell Sam about that entire lecture? Then why did you say-" Kevin started.
And Tim, with a devious smile, had a punchline in mind. Right on cue, he announced, "Because, like Pop said, it doesn’t even matter." and continued half-chuckling endlessly.
I was pretty sure this was Tim’s idea of a joke. But the attempt was so sincere, so dry, so absurd in its attempt, that Tim’s half-chuckle did the unintentional humor no justice. The set-up and punchline fused with the comedian, and the already specious joke became a Gordian knot of misconceptions about humor - you could unwind for hours and still not find the end of it. All three of us started cracking up at Tim, and I was trying my best to stop from ruining my tape recorder as I doubled over. Kevin's face didn't look like a frown to anyone except himself. As I was laughing, I started to understand the joke a little bit, hoping there was something more than the surface and the build-up. I finally decided that I had just heard the lamest, most sincere attempt at a joke that I ever would, and said so between spasms. Tim’s joke was somehow worse – and in a real sense, more shameful to all parties – than an awful pun could ever be. And, as I looked up, he was still smiling, in perfect control of himself. He had made everyone else feel embarrassed at themselves, and he knew it. Much like his games, like his unending career, his jokes could never make any sense until the final tally. But he stood up, and the meeting was essentially over. I still had a few more laughs in me, to my great chagrin. We were all in Oklahoma now, but when you're the sort of person Tim is, you can make any place feel like San Antonio. I had an insatiable craving for family restaurants and video arcades, for home-baked bread and an empty endless basement all to myself, for infinitely complex jokes that slowly unwound back into straightforward language after thousands of uses with friends. I had all the purpose of an adult in Oklahoma and all the freedom of a youth in San Antonio. I wasn't laughing any more, but with my smiles, I might have been. Life seemed to be unfolding as it should be, and I was finally ready to let it happen to me.
Finally, I gathered myself and asked if I could publish this, considering that I'd obviously had a tape recorder on the entire time. For a second, Tim fully chuckled at the suggestion. He had the last laugh after all.
"Yes, but wait to publish it, John... until," Popovich said as he smiled and glanced at his watch, "until June," I looked at my own watch; exactly 10:00 AM. I quickly got back to mopping, and as I did, Sam Presti and the theatre troupe came into the gym, singing "June is Bustin' Out All Over" from Carousel and I silently hoped the theatre company wouldn't be here every day. I would be perpetually disappointed. At least they weren’t Clay Bennett, I thought, and forever mopped the first beats of the waltzes I heard with an extra staccato.
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