The Sixth Man

by Andre Iguodala

  Meanwhile I’m guarding Jennings, he trips on his way to the basket, and I get called. I watch it again on the jumbotron and it’s even more ridiculous. The crowd is starting to boo. I’m trying to keep it together. We all are, but some of us are doing a better job than others. Six straight Warrior turnovers later, they have ended the half on a 14–2 run.

  And then it gets bad. KD gets frustrated on a no-call as he drives to the basket and takes contact. He approaches the ref, who won’t even make eye contact with him. KD loses it. “Call a foul!” (He may have thrown in some more colorful language.) And that’s it. It’s his second technical foul of the night. He is ejected from the game.

  Now everything falls apart. A cascade of boos rains down from the stands. They replay it on the jumbotron and no one in the arena can believe it. The crowd is chanting, “Ref, you suck!” over and over. KD is pissed and stalks off down the tunnel shaking his head. This half can’t end fast enough. We walk off the floor to a chorus of jeers. As we walk off, a Hawaiian dance troupe consisting of like three hundred people, mostly kids, is waiting to take the floor for the halftime show. People are still booing. The kids don’t even look nervous. They just look ready. Like us, they’ve put hundreds of hours into preparing for this moment. Sometimes this job is so strange.

  In the locker room a lot of stuff is said that I can’t repeat here, but suffice it to say that no one is happy. Steve and the coaches are really great about keeping us focused on the game plan, focused on what we can control, and there’s a lot of that. Our turnovers are insane, and we’re losing guys altogether on defense. We don’t look like a championship team. We are one, but we don’t look like one.

  When our first offensive possession of the second half is a turnover, and our second is an air ball, we’re pretty sure things aren’t going to get better. There are moments when we look like we’re about to do something. Quinn hits a nice runner, Patrick McCaw finds Draymond for a great dunk. But more than that it’s just like watching the game slip through our fingers. By the end of the third there’s a 16–8 turnover differential favoring the Bucks.

  I come back in at 4:46 in the third to relieve Draymond. We’re behind 78–61 and things are starting to get out of hand. Nevertheless, Pat McCaw hits a three. We’re going to keep fighting. If we can. Kevon Looney gets a jumper to fall. But still we’re getting outscored 44–28 in the paint. I’m gonna try to make that right in a second here. I drive a few possessions later, back my man up, and try a little mid-range turnaround. It misses but the moment I land, I feel something. Sharp pain, left knee. Dammit. I’m trying to jog back up the court, but with every step it stings more than the last. The coaching staff can see me grimacing. At the next time-out, I’m out of the game.

  By the end of the third, we are down 20 points. We lose. Obviously. The mood after the game is somber. Quiet. People are genuinely angry. We’re taught to brush it off, focus on what we can control.

  It’s interesting how the narrative changes. All of our guys have been hurt. Klay, Steph. KD was back for less than one game before he got tossed. Draymond just missed a week with a bruised pelvis. You never want to blame anything on outside influences. You’re only to say “we didn’t play well enough,” but the truth is that’s what it was. Outside influences. We were a team tonight trying to figure out how to play in all our new and ever-changing combinations, trying to ward off fatigue and trying to keep mentally focused among feelings of frustration and exhaustion.

  In 2015 we were “the team that played the game the right way.” We were supposed to be young and exciting and getting people back into basketball. People were telling us that they hadn’t watched the game in twenty years, but we were making it fun for them again. We were the good guys. And if you think about it, the fact that we became good was as much the result of freak occurrences as anything else. Remember that Steph’s ankle was a significant problem in the first few years of his career. In 2011–12 he only played twenty-six games. He was considered a guy you would re-sign but probably not give a max contract to, because his health could potentially be a problem. But his contract remaining small allowed them to sign me. If Steph’s ankle had been healthy those first few years, the entire Golden State roster might look different than it does today. At times it felt as though we were a team of destiny. Too many fluke things landed just right for us to have our success. We felt we were the good guys who had done things the right way.

  But somehow over time we became, in the eyes of some, at least, the bad guys. Even before KD came, the tide was starting to turn for us. But somehow him coming to us sealed the deal, as if we were now evil. Everything is scrutinized under a microscope and people are seeking out reasons to vilify us.

  It’s the blessing and the curse. Once again. We take the paycheck, so we know it going in. And everything we’ve done is for the purpose of following our dreams and experiencing victory and success. But there is also a human element to it that no amount of money can erase. It just doesn’t sit right when you know that the way millions of people think of you is influenced by very little that you actually do and much more by how you’re portrayed. And it makes its way onto the court. We know that the scouting report on us for most teams is, essentially, rough them up. Knock them around. They’re not going to get the calls.

  This is more than just a profession for a lot of us. There are basketball purists on our team. People who have devoted their entire lives to learning and mastering every single wrinkle and facet of this game, and from that perspective it feels like a disservice is being done to the game itself. But if you voice your opinion about it, then somehow that makes you worse. No excuses. Just shut up and play.

  You’re supposed to keep it real. But not too real. You need to hold your tongue, not speak your actual truth, because fans only want part of you. Just the part that feeds their narrative. It all makes you feel like less than a person.

  And yet. We do take the checks. So how do you balance that? The need to be a person with the calling of your profession to essentially shut up and play. Or if you do speak, to do so only within the boundaries set forth by the NBA. You have a platform. But you can’t fully use it.

  On nights like these, games like this one, the silence is heavier in the car on the way home. Everything feels darker. More lonely. I have to keep my mind from spinning downward and I don’t always know how to. There are aches and pains and soreness and there is sweat and fatigue. But there is something else. A feeling of being free but trapped. Crowded and isolated at the very same time. I’m in a beautiful car. The engine is incredibly quiet, almost muted. I can hear every sound in my head, every thump of my heart. My body feels heavy. I’ve crossed through the tunnel into the hills where I live. And even though I know it’s not true, it feels, somehow, like I’m the only car on this entire open highway, the only car moving on this long, slow, painful, and empty night. There will be another game. At this point that’s the only consolation I have. And it feels like a sentence.

  * * *

  —

  We won the 2018 championship in a sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers. It was the hardest and the easiest one of all. The hardest because it was our fourth consecutive year in the finals and the fatigue was daunting, both mentally and physically. We all had significant injuries that year, and I ended up watching the Western Conference finals against Houston from the sidelines. I bumped knees with James Harden in game 3 and ended up missing the rest of what turned out to be a seven-game series.

  It was an interesting experience to miss a series. I liked getting the chance to see the game from a different perspective, to talk to the young guys. But I also got to see how many people only cared about whether I played. It got to a point where people wouldn’t even ask me how I was doing. They would just open up with, “So when are you coming back?” Every fan I ran into, even friends and acquaintances, were telling me about different remedies they had heard about. Our GM, Bob Myers, once told me that y
ou can tell who your real friends are by how they treat you when they need something from you and how they treat you when they don’t. I was happy to find during my injury that I had some good friends and some others who were not.

  The finals series was short. We simply outmatched that version of the Cavaliers. LeBron played great, but we were too much for them. We were up by about 30 points with a whole quarter left to play at the end of game 4, and this time I just let it wash over me. I spoke to every member of my team. I told them how I loved them, how I respected them. I told Steph Curry how much he inspired me with his faith and his honesty and his immovable goodness. I’ve played alongside him for five years and I’ve never seen him blow up, never seen him lose his cool. I told KD that he was the most talented player I had ever seen. I told Coach Kerr that he had taught me the game like no one else had. One by one, I spoke with each member of this squad. This brotherhood. I told my young guys that I loved them, and I believed in them. I tried to do for them what older heads had done for me when I was coming up. And I got to tell them something that Steve Kerr had always told all of us. Enjoy this moment. Enjoy it.

  * * *

  —

  It is the off-season again. My fourteenth. By this time, the rhythm of an NBA year is no longer something that exists only on a calendar. It lives, seemingly, in my bones. As odd as it sounds, it feels to me like the cycle really begins during the playoffs. Maybe it feels that way for me because that’s when the obsessive focus really locks in. And maybe the obsessive focus is where I feel most like myself. During the playoffs, and especially the finals, you are nowhere but in the game. At home, you’re in the game. In bed, you’re in the game. Even on days off, you’re thinking about every play that happened, how it unfolded, how it should have unfolded. What it is that you’re going to do differently the next time you step onto the floor. You literally cannot think of another thing. You disappear into the game and into the quest for a ring. It consumes you and you welcome it.

  Then, in a flash, it’s over. You’ve won. The confetti, the champagne, the parades. A thousand text messages, a million phone calls. You can’t believe it. You are numb, numb with disbelief, numb with fatigue, numb with the feeling that you’ve somehow managed to do a thing that the entire world saw. You are a world champion. Everyone who sees you greets you that way. “Whaddup, Champ?” You begin every text with your teammates like this: “Whaddup, Champ?” Your friends, your coaches, your cousins, your family all greet you by saying, “Whaddup, Champ?” And it’s amazing. It’s like the fireworks have exploded in the sky and you are just sitting there, watching the embers fall to earth, slowly, like a dream. You cannot move.

  But then, slowly, it’s over. The novelty fades away, the numbness fades away. The sky is empty and dark again. You realize that you have nothing to obsess over. But you try to enjoy it because that’s what everyone tells you to do. You try to get a month, just one month, when you don’t think about anything related to basketball. You want to just hang out with your kids. You want to travel with your family. You want to buy stuff that you’ve been thinking about buying. You want to get reconnected with your family, reacquainted with a schedule that doesn’t involve 8:00 a.m. workouts and five out of seven days on the road. You take stock of your body, of the little tears and abrasions, strains and bruises, that occurred over the season. You schedule the medical interventions you need in order to get your body repaired. You feel like a stock car in the garage after a particularly brutal race. You are scheduling meetings to work on the investment projects, media projects, branding opportunities, licensing negotiations you are making in order to establish a foothold and some shelter in the market for your family and your people. You want to get things done. You want to take advantage. You want to rest and relax. You want to enjoy it. So you try. But then you look up and all of a sudden a month has passed. It’s over. You have to get back to the gym.

  It is early August and you are back on a court. You can feel the rest right away. Your legs are spry, your energy flowing. You remember why you loved this game and have loved it since you were a child. There is anticipation now. Everyone feels like this is going to be their year. You can’t wait to prove yourself. Whatever happened last season is over. This year’s gonna be great. For you. Specifically. You just know it. Every player in August just knows it.

  It’s just like the excitement of getting ready for a new year in school. You can’t wait to see what classes you have, you can’t wait to wear all your new outfits. You can’t wait to show up on campus and show everyone how you’ve glowed up over the summer. That’s the feeling of being in the gym in August. You can’t wait for training camp to start. The off-season is over and it couldn’t have happened soon enough. You’ve gone everywhere you wanted to go, bought everything you wanted to buy, went to the club, partied. It was fine. But this, this right here, is where you want to be.

  Boom, there you are. Training camp. You’re starting to get back into your rhythm. Now you’re bursting at the seams. By the third day of camp you’re thinking, “Man, get this shit over with. Let’s go! When does the regular season start?” You can’t wait until it’s the first game. You have the calendar marked. You know where the big games are. The adrenaline gets you going from tip-off. You want to kill these guys. You’re going to go off for 30 or 40 in the first game, that’s a fact, and there’s no doubt about it.

  The season is off and running, and a picture is starting to form. Who’s good this year, who’s not. Your team is a contender. You’ve started off strong, made it through November, and you’re into December. Thirty games have been played. Then one morning before shoot-around, as you get up and drag yourself to the bathroom, it suddenly dawns on you just how many games are in a regular season. I mean, you’ve played over a decade. You should know. But each year it comes as something of a surprise. You can’t believe how exhausted you are. You can’t believe how early it is. You just want to maintain. You decide you just want to make it to Christmas. That’s every player’s mantra: “Man, just let me make it till Christmas.”

  If your team is struggling, sitting at 11-19, you’re just trying not to throw in the towel, not to give up on the season. If your team is looking good, you’re trying not to get bored, trying not to let bad habits creep in and take root. January comes and you’re relying on your bench. These guys need to help keep it together, because now you’re thinking about guys needing rest for one game here and there. But you need the bench to hold it together for you, not only to win games, but also to keep the systems in place, the little things, the execution, the attention to detail.

  Meanwhile as January and February drag on, you’re trying to keep it together. The coaching staff is getting creative. Ping-Pong tournaments. Everyone, let’s just take a break and go bowling. We’re having class outside today, guys. Guys are starting to get on each other’s nerves. Draymond is getting bored and now he’s trolling people, getting on your nerves on purpose, pissing you off. “Draymond, I’m going to whoop your ass,” you finally say. And then the very next game, you go out and play better than you have in weeks and there he is clapping at you in the locker room after the game. “See?! That’s what I was trying to do!”

  You finally make it to the All-Star break. And it couldn’t have come soon enough. If you’re on a winning team, fans are hating because you’re not blowing everyone out of the gym by 50 points every night. If you’re on a losing team, the arena is starting to empty out, people are giving away their season tickets, and you’re looking down the barrel of a long, boring run till May. Over All-Star break you may go to the festivities, but you may just stay home. If you’ve been in the league long enough, there’s nothing to see here. A bunch of parties and a bunch of noise. You just need to rest your bones and clear your mind. The season is about to start.

  You come back from All-Star break and you have a team meeting. It’s a simple one and a straightforward one. “Listen,” you say, “all that bullshitting i
s out of the way. It begins now. We need to slowly but surely work our way to peak. We want to peak in April, May.” And you can feel that everything is different. The practices are different, the coaching is different, the jokes are different. The rookies are looking around wondering what happened to the team they played on for the first half of the season. You come out of the All-Star break and you are ready to whoop anyone. You’re locked in. You’re dealing with injuries, everyone is missing games with this or that ailment, but the mood remains the same. Next man up, don’t drop the ball.

  Now the playoffs are here. Whatever intensity you had during the second half of the season was nothing. This is where the entire operation becomes a commando force. The scouting is entirely different. During the season the coaches are looking at other teams like, “Yeah, this guy goes to his right and they like to double-team here. Go get it.” But during the playoffs, we are studying a man’s whole lifestyle. We want to know what he had for breakfast and which hand he uses to open a door. The meetings are like strategy sessions. “Steph, what do you have?” Steph breaks down in phenomenal detail his scouting and approach to the defender. “Klay, what do you have?” Klay does the same. Me, Dray, David West, KD. Each player hasn’t just thought about the opponent. We’ve studied them like you study a man who might kill you. The jokes are over. I remember Nick Young, who was in his first year with us, looking around after that first playoff meeting. “Damn!” he said, his eyes wide. “We about to win a championship!”