A medical, legal, and spiritual assessment.
Every NBA playoff season, I am reminded that professional basketball is less a sport than a live theatrical performance, one that happens to involve a ball, referees, and athletes who can bench-press a Telsa but somehow crumple to the floor when grazed by a pinky finger.
This condition, which I am calling Referee Proximity Collapse Syndrome, is remarkable. A 240-pound man makes contact with another 240-pound man. The first man falls. He lies there. He stares at the ceiling, possibly reconsidering his choices. The referee blows the whistle. The man stands up, completely healed, and walks to the free-throw line. Medicine has no explanation. I have accepted this.
“He went down like he’d been hit by a sniper. The defender had touched him on the elbow. His elbow was fine.”
Then there is the traveling. Technically, in basketball, a player may take two steps. I have watched playoff footage in which a player receives a pass near half-court, embarks on what can only be described as a brief personal journey, and arrives at the basket having covered significant ground entirely on foot. The announcers call it an “and-one opportunity.” Nobody counts the steps. The steps are simply not part of the conversation. I have counted them. I am not sharing the number because I need you to continue trusting me.
And finally: The Face. Every veteran has one. It arrives when a call goes against them — a widening of the eyes, a spreading of the arms, a slow 360-degree turn as though the correct call might be located somewhere behind them. It is the expression of a man wrongly convicted of a crime, the look of someone who found their car towed, and the bafflement of a golden retriever told “no” — all at once, on national television. It is magnificent. The referee does not care. The referee has seen 80,000 Faces and is immune.
I’ll be watching Game 7s. Bring snacks. Abandon your definition of “steps.”
Correction: An earlier version implied traveling is still technically a rule. We cannot confirm this.
