On April 30, 2023 around 6pm ET, we saw the last game for the first round in the 2023 NBA Playoffs. The Golden State Warriors was the last team to book their slot in the Conference Semifinals by beating the Sacramento Kings in Game 7 with a score of 120-100.
As this series goes along, we see the drama keeps on unfolding and all types of emotions are present in the moment. Some people know how to act professional whether in victory or in defeat. However, some players may have a hard time dealing with the defeat and if you are not watching the series closely, you would create a narrative of the said player.
The player in question? Domantas Sabonis. I would admit he is my favorite player in the series regardless of what the talking heads say. Yes there are Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson or at least De’Aaron Fox to root for, but I still want to root for the Lithuanian Forward/Center from the Sacramento Kings even if Kevon Looney made him look like a fraud in this series for boxing out rebounds despite Sabonis leading the league in rebounds during the regular season.
I admit I was wondering why wouldn’t Sabonis shake any of their hands when they lost? Is he really like that whenever his team loses a game? I honestly shrugged it off until I saw on Twitter that Draymond Green said something on his own podcast where he called out Sabonis for not giving respect to the Warriors by not shaking their hands while praising Sabonis’ teammate De’Aaron Fox for being a professional as he shook their hands even if their team lost.
Various opinions came spewing after Draymond Green’s remarks of Sabonis not shaking any of the Warriors’ hands as a sign of professionalism or respect. For those who did not follow the series, it would look like Sabonis is not a good sport. However, people who watched the whole series and do not have rose-colored glasses knew that it was more than that. Like what he did was understandable if he does not like to shake any of the opposing players’ hands.
That series, Sabonis was not only the victim of Draymond Green’s inadvertent stomp on his chest that led to Green’s ejection and an eventual suspension for the next game (Haters may have said Domantas Sabonis held Green’s foot that led to the stomp - which by the way referees gave Sabonis a technical for that hold on Green’s foot.), but the whole Warriors organization claimed that Sabonis is using the ball as a weapon to push opponents. Imagine being accused of using the ball as a weapon to hurt opposing players? So you get stomped on, accused of unproven claims and these people expect you to shake their hands because they beat you fair and square?
Which made me remember that one incident I had when I was in first and second year high school. During my first year in high school, there was a male classmate who is a new student yet also the one who probably put my self worth at an all-time low and sort of became a laughingstock on our whole batch because of what he did by calling us and other two classmates of mine having a mental disorder because they all felt we act very weirdly to school society standards plus probably our inability to handle those teasing and their taunting with only our class adviser defending us. To cut the story short (probably in another blog), all three of us moved up to 2nd year with the two of us going to the star section that year while he ended up repeating that year after he repeated that made him end up the same batch as ours (but do not have any idea which year did he repeated from his previous school as he was a transfer student).
Then fast forward to my second year and his first year of high school still at the same school, he still called me that same name that haunted my freshmen year when I passed by him once. Then a few months after my sister passed away and when we crossed paths in the corridor, he said condolence to my sister’s death and extended his hand to shake and I accepted it.
You may be wondering what has this something to do with Sabonis? Well both of us were bullied while I may have succeeded and Sabonis lost, the difference was Sabonis admitted he doesn’t know how to respond after Draymond called him out for not shaking his hand but we should also know that Sabonis may know his boundaries and does not want to be disrespected further. So if approaching and congratulating them after his team lost to the Warriors may mean he is professional in the eyes of the public, but deep inside he might feel uneasy, disrespected and insulted. Meanwhile I on the other hand realized after you called me names, you are just going to shake my hand to send condolences as if nothing happened? Yes the bullying stopped, but I realized I was in a state of surprise and probably on autopilot that you should accept the condolence and handshake.
I realized, do I have to lose someone I truly love for this person to stop bullying me and make it look like he has a heart of compassion? Perhaps deep inside he knew that it might be technically useless to continue the insults he was spewing as the whole school knew about my sister’s incident on the day of the whole high school’s field trip and if he continued… people would further question his character. Also maybe… just maybe he might be secretly happy that I lost a part of me that he no longer needed to add more insult as losing her was far more painful than the insults he and some other batchmates of mine did against me. After all, nobody is expected to gracefully handle the loss of your sister, a friend and de-facto maid-of-honor on your wedding when you lost her on the eve of your 14th birthday right? So internal damage that they are secretly enjoying perhaps?
Well at least the consoling thing I did was I am not friends with him on Facebook no matter how many times he pops out of Facebook’s suggested list of friends.
To conclude, I think as much as professionalism is very very emphasized, we have to still prioritize our emotional state. Yes it may look like you are immature and cannot handle the situation properly, but at least you were able to express what needed to be expressed so that you would be able to move forward immediately. After all, why would we want to carry the burden that other people consider it lightly right?
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