With the 13th pick in the Basketball Feelings Feelings Draft, Michael Pina selects... CALM

I met Michael Pina shortly after the Nets decimated the Raptors (in overtime) December 2018 at a bar a few blocks from Barclay. He and James Herbert waded over people sitting on tables, people sitting on people, people sitting on people sitting on tables, to get over to my friends and me. He sat down relaxed, kind of sleepy, smiling almost a little beatifically. The next time I saw him was at Summer League in Las Vegas last July, down in the media pit the end of the main arena that was consistently thronged with press, team staff, league staff, coaches and players — like LeBron — visiting to watch who were brought in through a guarded tunnel. You kind of clung to the few square inches of floorspace you could find until you got a seat during the team you were covering or it got too hairy. After we caught up, I asked Pina what he was doing and he shrugged and smiled and said, “Just hanging out” as bodies continued to jostle and bump us, like kelp in the waves. I ran into him most recently at All-Star on media day when I positioned myself and my elbows just beside Jimmy Butler’s booth. After five minutes of close staring at the back of the head four inches from my face I tapped the shoulder it was attached to and a serene Pina turned around and smiled at me, “Oh hey!” He said, like he’d been expecting me. The arena monitors directly overhead were blasting live coverage, fans in the stands screamed, and when Butler sat down in front of us, Pina, barely raising his voice, asked him one of the first questions in a sea of 60 other people screaming theirs. Consistently finding someone in moments of chaos is strange enough but finding them always composed, quietly impassive, is quite another. It’s not an emotive thing, we both basically cried sitting together during the Dunk Contest, it’s being able to shift into an entirely different cerebral plane. Beyond that, I had no idea people from Boston could be so low-key. That he picked Calm and that he picked it at such an eruptive point in time is fitting to me, but maybe more importantly, an honest admission to how collectively we’re all grappling.

There is no reason to be calm right now. The world is on fire. Up is down. Terrible is normal. Racism and the coronavirus are undefeated. On his very best day the President of the United States can barely muster the IQ of an undercooked potato. 

Calm is peace, and these times call for outrage. But unlike other emotions such as joy or sadness, calm is more like a condition that can be learned and harnessed. It’s a subjective state of mind that comes from within; something to reach for, aspire to, and even debate. I usually take pride in my ability, for the most part, to be calm under duress. There’s nothing like the sense of control it provides.

But over the last several months all sense of calm has clung to pangs of guilt and dread, particularly around 3 AM, which is apparently when I wake up now despite my recent addiction to Tylenol PM.

There is no calm at that hour, when 9,000 existential questions about that day and the one to come drip through my mind: Am I working hard enough? What work even matters anymore? Should I feel good or embarrassed about donating (only) $20 to the UNCF? Will I regret not participating in more protests? Are my parents practicing social distancing when they go to the bakery or butcher shop? Should I scold them for the 85th time about going out as often as they do?

It’s here where calm is as in demand as it is elusive. I’m stressed. I’m angry. I’m anxious. I’m frustrated. I’m exhausted. To those who can avoid or ignore those feelings right now, I’m jealous. To those who can’t conjure them, I’m alarmed. But at the same time, any and every emotion does not preclude someone from also being calm. For a variety of reasons most of us are currently filled with rage, but when calm coalescence over a collective body, that same wrath can be channeled into a resilient energy. Calm is power. Calm is strength. Calm is clarity. It reflects determination, satisfaction, wise indifference, and practical acceptance. 

That doesn’t mean practicing it is easy. Far from it! Especially when so many carriers of doom and depression (i.e. Twitter) are a finger tap away. Remaining calm in the face of injustice, suppression, discrimination, and bigotry—knowing that life is an uphill climb for millions of people because they happen to look different from society’s majority—will eventually make you want to tear your hair out. But it’s never more necessary to be calm than when life is hard.

To vaguely associate all of this with the NBA—which feels weird seeing as I’m barely thinking about sports in any context other than they shouldn’t be played in 2020—the synergy between calm and success is undeniable. Despite massive waves of pressure I could never imagine enduring for more than a fraction of a second, the world’s best players, teams, and coaches hardly ever panic. And when they do it’s evident enough to pass as cringeworthy. LeBron James can capitalize on his own white-knuckled fury, but that alone wouldn’t get him very far. Without an inherent calm, he’d crumble. 

Basketball is not reality, but aspects of it do mirror how we all function on a day-to-day basis. Calm isn’t the sole answer to all of society’s problems, but splash it on just about any dilemma and self-made obstacles will disappear. The less calm team rarely wins the game.