Awesome article, Katie :) I love the audio clip at the top of the page. I feel the same way. I enjoy getting lost in your articles, especially with the vivid details and the emotions that you evoke through your writing. It's so immersive and great.
I haven't been able to keep up much with NBA basketball but I try to read up and watch some games here and there. I did hear about Brooks and his reputation. I heard about his feud with LeBron and I remember feeling annoyed by what I had read and seen.
But you do a great job in going deeper and well below the surface level. Human beings are incredibly complex. It's easy to be judgmental and to simplify, to see someone as one-dimensional. But, the older I get and the more I learn about people, the more I see how complex people are and how so many factors shape who someone is and the layers we all have.
"“He’s great competitor — a great guy,” Gilgeous-Alexander said, the “great guy” emphatic, each word staccato. “No matter what people say about him. All that villain stuff doesn’t phase me, I know exactly who Dillon is.”"
:) I love this quote from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander :). To spend much time with someone, you can get to know them well. And I can see how he's gotten to know Brooks very well and understand him (and much more so than fans). You've captured it well here:
"Coveting comes from one sense — the eyes, and their limited scope. Neither is wrong, really, in a basketball sense. You could say it’s a team owner’s job to covet, and to spend money in generous response to that impulse. But I feel myself leaning into the rote days behind what Gilgeous-Alexander hints at, their pattern and rhythm. The dull gift of being stuck in the slipstream of time alongside somebody."
I also love your vivid descriptions of East Preston. I feel like I can picture it in my mind's eye. I also appreciate the history you shared of it and Brooks' connection to, and roots in the community.
"Piled into a friend’s car we were doing donuts on a wide strip of empty beach less than 10 minutes into the drive, flashing clouds of mottled, tiny and trilling piping plovers trailing us to peck up anything the tires kicked up. The Maritimes are deceptive in that you think you’re well-tucked into their forested, green cores, only to make a turn and find the view in front of you suddenly sheared away, replaced with nothing but a wide, flashing plane of blue. Living blue. The Atlantic never stops churning. " This is so beautiful. I'd love to visit :).
" Brooks isn’t some malevolent seer, able to see deep into a person’s secret and individual nature. He is, however, adept at understanding the through-line of soft spots we all share, probing them — family, ego, belonging — until one stings. Once he does that the doubt settles, thick as fog.
It takes a great deal of intuition, to become so skilled at something that it makes people think of you as one-dimensional. "
That's an excellent point. That definitely takes a lot of understanding of psychology and humanity, and, as you wrote, much intuition.
This also reminds me of how different trash talkers are seen. Some are seen quite positively (like Michael Jordan and Larry Bird and Kevin Garnett). Others, like Brooks, are seen as one-dimensional.
Yet, as you showed, he's definitely not one-diemsional. I need to read his article as well.
"luminous plum coat" and "immense youth" are on deadass opposite sides of the poetry spectrum.
i really love your work so so much 🙏
We (Mat Ishbia and I?) do what we can! Thank you!
Awesome article, Katie :) I love the audio clip at the top of the page. I feel the same way. I enjoy getting lost in your articles, especially with the vivid details and the emotions that you evoke through your writing. It's so immersive and great.
I haven't been able to keep up much with NBA basketball but I try to read up and watch some games here and there. I did hear about Brooks and his reputation. I heard about his feud with LeBron and I remember feeling annoyed by what I had read and seen.
But you do a great job in going deeper and well below the surface level. Human beings are incredibly complex. It's easy to be judgmental and to simplify, to see someone as one-dimensional. But, the older I get and the more I learn about people, the more I see how complex people are and how so many factors shape who someone is and the layers we all have.
"“He’s great competitor — a great guy,” Gilgeous-Alexander said, the “great guy” emphatic, each word staccato. “No matter what people say about him. All that villain stuff doesn’t phase me, I know exactly who Dillon is.”"
:) I love this quote from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander :). To spend much time with someone, you can get to know them well. And I can see how he's gotten to know Brooks very well and understand him (and much more so than fans). You've captured it well here:
"Coveting comes from one sense — the eyes, and their limited scope. Neither is wrong, really, in a basketball sense. You could say it’s a team owner’s job to covet, and to spend money in generous response to that impulse. But I feel myself leaning into the rote days behind what Gilgeous-Alexander hints at, their pattern and rhythm. The dull gift of being stuck in the slipstream of time alongside somebody."
I also love your vivid descriptions of East Preston. I feel like I can picture it in my mind's eye. I also appreciate the history you shared of it and Brooks' connection to, and roots in the community.
"Piled into a friend’s car we were doing donuts on a wide strip of empty beach less than 10 minutes into the drive, flashing clouds of mottled, tiny and trilling piping plovers trailing us to peck up anything the tires kicked up. The Maritimes are deceptive in that you think you’re well-tucked into their forested, green cores, only to make a turn and find the view in front of you suddenly sheared away, replaced with nothing but a wide, flashing plane of blue. Living blue. The Atlantic never stops churning. " This is so beautiful. I'd love to visit :).
" Brooks isn’t some malevolent seer, able to see deep into a person’s secret and individual nature. He is, however, adept at understanding the through-line of soft spots we all share, probing them — family, ego, belonging — until one stings. Once he does that the doubt settles, thick as fog.
It takes a great deal of intuition, to become so skilled at something that it makes people think of you as one-dimensional. "
That's an excellent point. That definitely takes a lot of understanding of psychology and humanity, and, as you wrote, much intuition.
This also reminds me of how different trash talkers are seen. Some are seen quite positively (like Michael Jordan and Larry Bird and Kevin Garnett). Others, like Brooks, are seen as one-dimensional.
Yet, as you showed, he's definitely not one-diemsional. I need to read his article as well.
Great article, Katie. Hope you have a great day!