With the 23rd pick in the Basketball Feelings Feelings Draft, Seth Rosenthal selects... RESTLESSNESS

The first thing I ever read of Seth Rosenthal’s was when he tried to bankrupt James Dolan on Knicks Fan Appreciation Night by consuming as much complementary food at MSG as he could. There’s a handful of sportswriting that sticks out as perennial to me and Seth’s voracious comitragedy is up there with Grantland’s oral history of Malice at the Palace, that and I’ve also done dumb stories where the premise was I would eat until I got sick so I felt a gross kinship from afar. What I like best about Seth’s writing, his general presence in the big and occasionally frustratingly insular world of basketball, is his compassion. He writes offbeat, astute and funny stuff but it’s all bolted down by a kind of tenderheartedness. It’s the mix that makes “weird” writing the more engaging kind, though continually forced to the margins for the serious analysis we’re told fans are more desirous of. The foundation of basketball is the play itself, sure, but the heart is the flare, the mysticism, the failures, the rending parts, remembering that it’s all being played out by people who are as changeable from one game to the next as weather.

Seth can dredge up all that swirling goop and distill it into elixir or balm. That and he’s a long suffering Knicks fan who has been writing about the team forever, which I’ve always felt does a Sisyphean number on someone’s patience. You get glimpses of both with how he handled his pick, Restlessness.

I am not a restless person. I am patient. Check this out:

.

.

.

.

.

.

Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. Dot. I could have done more dots, but I won’t assume you’re as patient as I am. You see what I’m saying, though. 

.

Dot.

I can sustain attention even on dull things, or just sit still for a while. No problem. I can handle my dots. I can tolerate delayed gratification. Might even prefer it that way. No gratification, even. Just dots. People notice this about me. 

. 

Basketball didn’t raise me to be patient; it nourished me with feelings. I never met a dot. I rode in my friend Max’s dad’s Saturn to see Nets-Pistons at the Meadowlands and felt intrigued. I rode in the way-back of my mom’s Volvo to see Space Jam in theaters and felt tickled, like an itch needed scratching. My compulsion to memorize and taxonomize shifted from the Big Golden Book of Animals to the books full of NBA players. At the book fair, I selected a thin, floppy volume about the 1996 Dream Team and felt dreams of teams. I rode to Borders in my grandmother’s foul-smelling Toyota Sienna to pick out the 1997-1998 NBA register. It smelled nice and fed me a party trick where I could name every single NBA player’s alma mater. I felt full. I didn’t know where Fayetteville was and suspected Fayetteville wasn’t even a State, but I knew Darrell Armstrong went there.

Feelings cornered me, then pummelled me. I learned Max was a Knicks fan. I felt … Knicks, maybe? This very tall kid named Patrick, who had the same name as Patrick Ewing, and who taught me how to shoot a basketball, and who walked up the stairs on all fours AT SCHOOL … he was also into the Knicks. My dad, it turned out, had grown up a Knicks fan. My babysitter would let me stay up late and watch Knicks games with her. On TV! I felt love. I became a Knicks fan. I stayed up late under the covers and listened to west-coast Knicks games on my Walkman. I perched at the end of Max’s parents’ bed to watch playoff games. I felt Knicks! I met the Heat and the Bulls and the Pacers, which is to say I walked a murderer’s row of draft-stud basketball feelings like basketball joy and basketball contempt and basketball heartbreak. I watched Patrick Ewing shatter. I felt it. I watched the Knicks gasp and choke and roar in tones I didn’t understand, delivering me the whole fucking draft board of basketball feelings over the course of like six weeks. Little of this challenged my patience. During a critical period of brain development, each new emotion erupted and consumed me faster than the last one. It was a truly psychedelic avalanche of feelings. My gut felt heavy. My ears felt hot. I felt, I felt, I felt.

And then the Knicks traded Ewing. Twenty years later here I am. 

I’m patient now. You see the first dot in that line?

That guy. That’s patience. That’s 20 seasons. This many dots:

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

A lot of dots. Meanwhile, the last dot in that line represents the dots to come. I don’t know how many dots that’s going to be.

I sit and I contemplate each dot throughout the duration of its residency. 

.

Dot.

.

Dot.

.

Dot.

.

Fuck!

.

Dot.

Occasionally, I buzz. I get the premonition of a feeling, a little feelings treat. Then it shrinks into a dot.

.

Ah! Another dot.

I am patient. I am not a child. I AM NOT. I can survive on dots.

.

I can wake up and behold the horizon and say “Hmm, more dots,” and think that’s perfectly fine. 

Sometimes I’m told non-dots lie ahead, and I’ll say “I doubt it. Probably dots.” and then I’ll think “Unless??? Maybe it’s not dots,” and then eventually I’ll say “I knew it was gonna be dots,” and then “Fuck!” and then I’ll stare at the dots, and I’ll bounce my leg and imagine things besides dots. Fuck! Fuck.

I’m not sure I even want non-dots. At least you know what you’re getting when it’s dots.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Dots! You’re getting dots. 

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

;AISJDF;AOIJFAIJAW;EOFIJAW;EFOIJFUCKFUCKFUCFFF

.

.

.

.

.

.

If I get tired of dots, I can always remember before, when it wasn’t dots, and sometimes my gut felt heavy or my ears felt hot. 

.

Dots don’t make my gut feel heavy and they don’t make my ears feel hot. Dots don’t make me feel. But eventually it won’t be dots!

.

I don’t think I’ll know in advance when it’s not dots. I don’t buzz anymore. I’m patient. I just … 

.

Dot.

.

Dot.

.

.

.

Dots. I just …

.

I just … fuck!

. 

Dot.

Fuck! FUCK!!!!!!!!!

.