OAKLAND – Fitting that at an NBA Finals where the presenting sponsor is YouTube, we are offered a cautionary tale – maybe even a parable – about how to manage yourself in those split seconds when the global camera phone turns itself to you.
How in a blink you face the risk – or the opportunity – of revealing your true self for everyone to see. No do-overs.
Toronto Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry has had a long tail of adjectives attached to him over the course of his 13-year NBA career: Hot-headed. Stubborn. Hard-headed. Difficult.
By his own admission, Lowry didn’t always manage the frustrations and emotions of his high-stress work environment as smoothly as he could have.
A lot of those shorthand descriptors have fallen away as he’s grown and matured. Lowry, 33, credits his determination to be a proper role model for his two young boys as another factor in his personal development.
It’s that growth that has helped Lowry guide the Raptors to these previously unthinkable heights: up 2-1 over the Golden State Warriors with a chance to take a stranglehold on the NBA Finals with a win Friday night at Oracle Arena in Game 4.
Worst case they come back to Toronto with a split and a best-of-three series with two home games to bring the NBA Championship to Canada for the first time.
[snippet id=3360195]
A Raptors title would be a major win for the little guys and a kick at the existing NBA super-team order. Lowry, a late first-round pick who cycled through two franchises before finding footing in Toronto, is the perfect representative for what would be the first NBA championship won by a team without a lottery pick on its roster.
And to do it over the Warriors? The colossus that morphed into your standard corporate overlord the minute they added Kevin Durant to a 73-9 team? The plucky tech startup that grew up to be the NBA version of Facebook?
Too rich.
But Lowry may have already earned his biggest win, passed his camera-phone test. The Warriors, tied up in the knots of their own success, may have failed theirs.
Lowry’s moment came in the fourth quarter of Game 3 as he hurled himself into the first two rows of seats trying to save a loose ball. Standard Kyle.
But as he was disentangling himself, a man named Mark Stevens angrily shoved him and followed up with a simple message — "Go f— yourself," — over and over again.
It was out of nowhere – Stevens or his companion weren’t even the fans who Lowry was diving over to save the ball – and it was ugly.
Anything could have happened. It was a moment that balanced on a razor’s edge.
But the reformed hothead’s new cool prevailed.
[snippet id=4267701]
The mechanics of the interaction are these: Lowry quite rightly demanded Stevens be ejected, and he was. The game resumed. The Raptors won.
If it ended there it would have been largely the end of it – another example of the random anger of our age, as if we needed any more proof.
But subsequently, it was learned that Stevens is a minority owner of the Warriors, which elevated the issue beyond a standard case of boorish fan behaviour.
At minimum, it was someone in a position of power and privilege who absolutely should have known better behaving like an idiot after too many drinks.
Taken a step further, if you want to read something into the image of a white, billionaire Republican (based on his political donation pattern) assaulting and berating a young, black male athlete in Donald Trump’s America, well there is probably some mileage to be had there too.
But at its root, it was one of those moments that can define you as a public figure and Lowry shone as Stevens cratered.
Lowry had the restraint not to retaliate, the presence of mind to appeal to the referees and security, have it addressed and the calm confidence of his convictions in the aftermath.
Oh, and he went back to the floor and helped the Raptor ice Game 3, putting up 23 points and nine assists in one the best all-round games of his post-season career.
Lowry said he was initially furious and the likes of teammates Marc Gasol and Danny Green helped calm him down. But his good sense after Stevens shoved him and swore at him for no reason was born of choices he’s made long before that moment.
"Understanding that at the moment my team needed me," said Lowry on Thursday. "Understanding that there are plenty of fans and kids in the world watching this game. Me being a grown man, having kids myself. I’m a grown man and my kids could always go back and see that.
"If it wasn’t in this situation, things may have been — they probably would have been done differently, handled differently by me. But understanding that I have two young children and being able to hold myself to a certain standard … that’s a big thing for me, being a guy that upholds himself to a high standard. Never letting guys like him get under your skin because that’s bullcrap."
And this isn’t a case where an apology and a well-placed charitable donation will make everything go away. The clip will live in YouTube forever, a Google search of Stevens will always connect the USC and Harvard-educated venture capitalist with a few seconds of his life he’ll always regret. Lowry has no interest in letting him off the hook.
"I don’t know him. I don’t care to know him," Lowry said when asked if Stevens had attempted to reach out to him in the aftermath. "He showed his true colours at the time. And you show what you’re really about in that time and at that moment. And it’s not, oh, you get the reaction of everyone else saying this, that and the other, that’s kind of the whole — I mean, no, you showed what you really are."
The issue belongs to the NBA now. They along with the Warriors have suspended Stevens for a year and fined him $500,000.
It could well be that’s simply a precursor to something more – it’s easy to imagine the league working behind the scenes to facilitate the sale of Stevens’ stake in the team.
LeBron James was quick to post his disgust on Instagram – NBA players will be watching.
"When you’re speaking of players, we are held to a different standard. Coaches are held to – anybody in the NBA circle, you’re held to a different standard," said Warriors forward Draymond Green. "So I think it’s no different when you start talking of anybody in any ownership group in the league. You’re held to a different standard. You can say it’s unfair or not, like whatever your opinion is on it, whether you’re one way or the other, that’s just the reality of it. We’re all held to a different standard, and that’s not going to change."
What is changing are perceptions. The Warriors likeability factor continues to decline, the Raptors continues to rise. Lowry’s transformation from young hard-head to wise old-head may be complete.
The composure Lowry showed in his moment of truth is the quality that champions are made of and whatever happens the rest of the series, Lowry’s proven he’s got the stuff. His YouTube moment will feature him being wise when emotions were peaking and resolved in the calm light of day.
Meanwhile, on the floor he and his team have the Warriors teetering, reeling.
One good shove and the Raptors can be the ones to knock them off. It would be the second big win for Lowry in the space of a few days and maybe not even the biggest one.
[relatedlinks]
