Other humblings, Pt. 2
A continuation on last week's theme of being humbled, featuring some of your favourite basketball writers and people.
After sending the last newsletter, about being humbled and the things that do it, I remembered how many examples I’d forgot to include. Some light, others heavy, some basketball or not at all. I thought about doing a bullet pointed Part Two.
But the theme was, loosely, around Perseus and the hubris of Greco-Roman myths. How with the help of the gods Perseus was able to become a hero and remain one for most of his life until he was humbled (and killed) by what he’d never let chasten him (a severed head, but more the act of getting there).
Who would make up my Mt. Olympus of humble, then? The extreme opposite of the myth, but to be human is to be humbled again and again. I asked around to friends, I even realized we have our own basketball Chorus (Flagrant, naturally), with some of my own recent examples scattered in. Beyond them saying yes, I’m humbled by the sincerity in their responses. We myth-make so much in what we do that to occasionally level ourselves comes as a necessary recalibration.
Flagrant: Being in Show Biz (print magazines/pods/merch and stuff), we’ve had our fair share of humble-ties (it’s a word, look it up). We are frequently humbled by brands, people, logistics, haters, lovers (ope, um, why did we say that lol??), and people who still don’t quite understand Digital is Dead.
Sabreena Merchant, The Athletic: Nothing humbles me quite like staring down a hill or a big staircase. It’s like my legs forget how to work, all the natural movements I’ve learned over the course of three decades escape my brain, and instead of appendages, there is jelly in their place. I’m frantically grabbing the closest rail or person (god forbid I have multiple bags in my hand atop a ball escalator) to steady myself, to goad my body into remembering that I know how to do this, I can put one foot in front of the other. And yet, every time I find myself back in that situation, jelly.
Having worked through other anxieties over the years, I wonder if the heights are metaphorical, if there’s something about standing at a precipice that causes me to weaken. But wouldn’t that be an upward fear, not a downward one? And yet, even if I were to ascend to the top of the world, all I could think about was the prospect of making it back to my normal perch. Perhaps it’s a useful way to modulate myself; every day out in the world, no matter if things have gone exceptionally well, there’s that staircase and there’s that feeling. I’m reminded that something can always stop me in my tracks, and that’s humbling.
Cutting through St. James Park on the way to talk to Ashley’s class about career trajectory, realize I’m power walking past Toronto Street, where I gave up my first career for my then-dream one and thrilled every day at the luck of it. One of the only times I knew I would get the job the second I walked through the doors, and felt more sure of it each second I sat there going through the idling motions in the lobby, sat across from Marion at a boardroom table — who I still do, just now in her backyard, watching a summer night wash down around us — was toured past the office that would’ve been, was, mine. Dream jobs change. You can have more than one. The job I have now — very humbling, when I think of how to describe it, can’t really? — I did not even see then, as in pathway and in picturing.
I make it to class. Sit talking at the head of a long room and scan best I can, eyes panning over 25 faces, each one of them looking back. It’s humbling, this feeling of arrival after leaving and coming back. Feeling, as I bump up against past versions of myself with tenderness instead of impatience, the friendly touch of recognition as I drift back through the park afterwards. Remembering all the early mornings and late trips home, edging toward strangers who became friends, found curiosity in giants of their field I was warned of who were only warm and who are gone now, meeting Dylan for coffees that got me clipped questions from the bigger office across the hall from mine. The feeling of life revving up.
Luke Bonner, PWRFWD: I recently started coaching two groups of 'biddy basketball' for my kids. For both of them, it's their first time playing basketball. I've realized, the simplest things are often the hardest to explain.
How do you find the correct words to teach a group of five year olds how to dribble a basketball in place when most of them don't even know left from right yet? I may have been a professional basketball player once upon a time, but now I'm navigating the challenge of teaching the most basic first step of the game.
I'm also forced to table my own deep personal experiences and understanding of how far this game can take you. Basketball for children is an activity. It's not a means to anything else. What a gift, to be able to experience the game in its purist form once again.
Coming in from the cold and greeted by the rush of the dogs around my legs. Dropping shopping bags in the kitchen and crouching to run my hands along George’s lean back, finding a bump. Parting the hair and seeing something grey at his skin, puffed up, revulsion rocketing through me as a dutiful sense of what must be done tamps down on it. I recognize this as something I’ve inherited from my mom, (though later when I tell her about it she’ll tell me she dry heaved the same as I did when she found a tick on their dog) and speak calm as I can to George when I yank the buried tick from his back with tweezers, try not to puke when I find another in his ear. Humbled isn’t even the word for it, but I am brought physically low for a week all the times I bend to inspect the dogs’ bodies with surgical precision, pick up with disinfectant wipes a spot on the kitchen tile that turns out to be fluff.
Tyler Parker, The Ringer: I’m humbled when my favorite player misses a game winner. I’m humbled when my favorite player gets crossed up. I’m humbled when I thought my favorite team would win and they lose in embarrassing fashion. I’m humbled when I don’t correctly identify the guy that just scored and get him confused with another guy on the same team. I’m humbled when I trip in public. I’m humbled when I see someone I’ve met before and they say nice to meet you. It has been humbling trying to write this.
Flagrant: We’re humbled when a foul isn’t upgraded to a flagrant. We’re humbled when one of our fave guys misses a dunk. We’re humbled every time we remember NBA rookies are like 12 years old these days. We are humbled every time we tweet something with a typo (it’s a lot). We’re humbled every time A’ja Wilson plays against our fave team bc, like, lol.
The way I’ve been late to everything since moving. No second-hand understanding yet of how to get from home to everywhere I’m going. Friends have been patient but it’s another thing to slip into a pregame scrum already underway. See the eyes of the room, coach included, slide over me in unison as I pick around seats and snaked camera cords on the ground, overheat standing in the back with my coat and bag on.
Jerome Cheng, No Dunks: The unpredictably of t-shirt sizing. The pandemic pounds have manifested and whether it’s wearing an old shirt or trying on something new to find that it’s tighter than I remember, it’s a wake up call and humbling moment.
LeBron James, but specifically because we’re both born in 1984. It was one thing to watch maybe the peak in physical capability for someone born the same year as me, but especially now as he appears to be slowing down? If LeBron friggin’ James is slowing down, what does that mean for me?
Realizing your reference point is older than most of the people you’re with. For example, choosing a Backstreet Boys song at karaoke and nobody knows it because it’s from an earlier album. I feel that I’m generally very comfortable with my age, but referencing something that people would never heard of because they were too young or not even born yet is a humbling moment.
Flagrant: Mostly, we’re humbled by Klay Thompson not being “back, baby.” We’re humbled by officials when we emphatically declare that “wasn’t an offensive foul” when they play it back and it “actually definitely was an offensive foul.” We’re humbled by the fact that CJ and Dame couldn’t win it all together. We’re humbled by the fact that the Sky fell apart in the playoffs. We’re humbled by Russell Westbrook having a few stinky poopoo seasons.
The volleying, whiplash lead changes in the last stretch for the Heat and the Suns, Devin Booker getting denied again and again by Jimmy Butler, ball stuffed back down to earth by him a split second after it left Booker’s hands, Booker taking back his own blocked shot and using all the force he can muster to try and spin out of Butler’s orbit, getting the shot off on a fadeaway but the power of it — squelched. Watching Anfernee Simons, bounding hare as he can be, set upon in the wilds of the offensive lane by Tim Hardaway Jr. and Dorian Finney-Smith, Simons pressured pass swatted easily away.
And then there’s SGA in D.C., toying with the Wizards. How happy he is to let their hopes rise, to even out the score with every possession, and cool as his teammates fumble in their attempts to bring the game back. Cool right into the last 2.9 seconds of the game as he steps out for the shot, leaves his arm up as if to point to where it was all the hopes for that night were simultaneously snuffed from the arena.
Haley O’Shaughnessy, writer: When considering the various occasions I have been humbled, it feels appropriate to begin with the first time I read something Katie Heindl wrote — I know how this comes across, sort of obligatory in nature, this being her newsletter and all, somewhat like overly praising the entree prepared by the host of the dinner party you’re attending, oh my god Claire, the roast is so perfect, let’s re-cancel Alison Roman and prove who the real queen of New York apartment dining is, but if you subscribe to this newsletter then you also know that my praise is sincere; Katie’s writing is something new and exciting; reading her pieces feels similar (I imagine) to the first time someone thought to add pomegranate seeds to a salad — and the second humbling that comes to mind is when an editor told me that my sentences tend to run on quite unnecessarily.
Other humblings: Missing the cue after an instrumental break in karaoke. Always having to check if it’s spelled cue or que. Hangovers. Each time I’ve tripped in public or private. When I fail to use the spinach that I bought last Tuesday and bits of it turn dark green and begin to smell earthy and prehistoric. Watching the vertical jump at the combine. Reading anything by Mavis Gallant or Alice Munro or Elena Ferrante. Cowardly adding the word “that” in sentences where it’s not necessary for fear the sentence won’t make sense without it. Throwing out my back at age 28. Writing this right now on a phone and not a laptop, because the company which issued me a laptop demanded it back after I quit unceremoniously based off of nothing but slight concern that I was wasting my life pursuing something that was once my “dream career” that’s been running on expired, unrevivable motivation for quite some time. Knowing that this last sentence was structured badly.
The secondhand embarrassment of the Rockets missing 27 straight 3s. The secondhand heaviness of a player missing a deciding free throw. Re-reading any of my short stories. (Realizing I’ll never make money from that particular hobby, though sometimes that realization turns into the nice kind of humbling, the kind where you realize what you might want out of a hobby is not what you need to make a hobby worthwhile.) Listening to people talk who don’t say “like” between every thought. Each time I use synonyms dot com. Not being able to remember important dates (when WW1 started), important stats (had to Google how many 3s the Rockets missed just to be sure), or important names (Jordan [Ligons] and I once spent an entire dinner in Vegas trying to remember “Nicole Kidman”). Seeing how far the Suns came so quickly. Being wrong about a player (Deandre Ayton). Being right about a player (Aaron Gordon). Mutuals on Twitter who wanted to become friends as eagerly as I wanted the same. Succumbing to the use of dumbass terms like “mutuals.” Ja Morant. How bad I sometimes feel at writing. How oddly self-conscious I feel when something I wrote might actually be good. When the people that I love most in this world sing happy birthday to me and I’m not sure what to do with my face or my hands but I’m mostly overwhelmed with the assurance in that moment that they love me back.
Flagrant: Personally, we’re humbled by the length of pants. Four of us have issues finding pants that we aren’t drowning in, while the fifth is always ready for a flood. And, we are all humbled any time we attempt a jump shot.