The Best Moments of the 08-09 Season: Popovich’s “Hack-a-Shaq” on the First Play of the Season
I was in my office in New Baltimore, Michigan, awkwardly huddled on the floor, a High Life in one hand and a stapler in the other. My printer sat next to me while my computer (on which the game was being played) was propped up on the couch. I was stapling canvassing maps and entering my nightly data when the NBA season awoke from its slumber.
Like Shaq himself, I was caught off guard. This is the only moment of this retrospective in which I did not stand up and cheer. I just sat there, confused and, honestly, a little disheartened. I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about the hack-a-Shaq and the thought that Pop might be serious was deflating. As luck would have, a few moments later we would all be in on the joke.
Recently Matt Moore and I were discussing the idea that “winning should be everything,” and how we find that ethic to be distasteful. In few other professions are people so lavishly praised for sacrificing their sense of balance on the altar of success. I am not in awe of those for whom there is nothing outside of basketball. Players such as Michael Jordan and Kevin Garnett are lionized for their ceaseless intensity but in their demeanor I see only infatuation, the tell tale sign of a life poorly lived.
This has never been true of the San Antonio Spurs. Yes, the franchise defines itself in terms of championships. But they do not do so because they are obsessed; they do so because it is their job. For the coaching staff and players of the San Antonio Spurs, basketball is a profession, not a calling, and I respect them for that. Gregg Popovich would rather be strolling through a vineyard in Oregon; Tim Duncan would rather be at home playing Dungeons and Dragons. But Pop happens to one of the best coaches in the history of the NBA and Tim Duncan happens to be a top ten all-time player. So eight months out of the year they do that instead.
The hack-a-Shaq was nothing more than a playful jab at an old nemesis but it quietly betrayed a certain attitude towards the game. Or rather, it betrayed an awareness that basketball is in fact a game. That you play basketball. The Spurs work hard. They are ambitious. But those attributes do not displace our easygoingness or our sense of sobriety. I feel quite lucky that my favorite team is not only good at what they do but also charming while they do it.
