Vol. 1, Issue No. 6: An NBA preseason chat with Sports Illustrated's Michael Pina
On Karl-Anthony Towns, Kyrie Irving, the present and future states of the league, and more.
Karl-Anthony Towns has been on the cover of Sports Illustrated four times dating back to his days at Kentucky. Five, actually, if you want to count his appearance on the front of the Sports Illustrated Kids Summer Camp issue back in 2016. One of the five, the only non-physical cover, one of SI’s Daily Covers that they release, well, daily, is likely the one he’ll remember most. If not for its prominence — it won’t appear on shelves at Barnes & Noble or before you reach checkout at the grocery store — then for its contents. There’s little to no doubt about that.
The piece, titled “Karl-Anthony Towns Opens Up About His Season of Grief” and written by SI staff writer Michael Pina, is both a tour de force in reporting and a tour de force in bravery. It covers the last year or so of KAT’s life, during which he tested positive for COVID-19, “just nine months after the 25-year-old watched his mother, Jacqueline Towns, die of the same disease that also killed his uncle and five other members of his family.” It’s needless to say, yet it still bears repeating: “this was a nightmare scenario.”
To open up about his tragedy is one thing. But to do so while preparing for a new season, one he’ll enter without his mother and six other family members in the crowd cheering him on, is the unthinkable. The story fascinated me, both because of the courage Towns displayed in sharing his emotion with the world, and because of Pina’s brilliant work in balancing, as described it to me when we spoke earlier this week, “something that has absolutely nothing to do with basketball, that is so much more important than basketball, with basketball, which is a sport.”
It was a pleasure chatting with Michael about KAT, as well as about the upcoming NBA season and all that comes with it — otherwise known as the good, the bad, and the unvaccinated. Our conversation in its entirety is below.
Will Bjarnar: Your piece on Karl-Anthony Towns unpacks a lot, from his bout with COVID, to his return to the game and the family tragedy he dealt with last year. From a reporting standpoint, what were your conversations with him like to get him to open up in that regard, to get to the root of that tragedy? How did you approach that?
Michael Pina: When the season ended, an editor of mine asked “Do you want to profile anyone? Do you want to do a feature on any teams for our NBA preview issue?” And the first player that popped into my head was KAT. There were a whole bunch of reasons why. Number one: if there was one player I could read a story about, it would be Karl-Anthony Towns, from the obvious trauma that he went through [in] the last 18 months. But I was more fascinated by what it was like to go through that season with his mother already passing, and playing on Mother’s Day, playing on the anniversary of her death, just having COVID himself; what was that like? He briefly spoke about a lot of this stuff in postgame press conferences, but he hadn’t really opened up and said what it was like.
So, as a reporter, his experience was the number one thing that I was interested in. I was pretty pessimistic about actually getting him to speak and talk about it because I just assumed that he hadn’t spoken about it up until that point, and that there was a reason why. I think the reason is obvious. Either he wasn’t ready, didn’t want to, which, I put myself in his shoes, I wouldn’t want to talk to anybody about that stuff. I thought that maybe, as a lot of players are, he was waiting for an opportunity to tell his story, not to a reporter but through your own means, and there’s a lot of ways a player can do that these days. My pitch was essentially, “I want to talk to him about last season,” but the other part of it was, honestly, I’m very interested in Karl-Anthony Towns the basketball player. This guy hadn’t been an All-Star in two seasons. And there were injuries and a lot of reasons for that. But you think about his second year in the league, his third year in the league, and general managers voting him the number-one player they’d like to build a team around… we’re entering year seven, he has not won a playoff series, and only made one third-team All-NBA team.
I have the utmost admiration for his abilities on the floor. I think he’s truly a revolutionary player. We think that there are a lot of big men that shoot threes, but nobody shoots threes like Karl-Anthony Towns. It’s not even close. There’s Jokic comparisons; Jokic obviously won MVP last season, and Karl-Anthony Towns has that talent. To win MVP, you have to be a winning team, though, and so I think a lot of his ability and his talent and skill level has gotten short shrift over the past couple years for a variety of reasons, and I wanted to see where he was at with regards to how he felt about himself. I mean, he’s young, I guess, but this is year seven! I still think he’s a guy who hasn’t touched his prime, hasn’t reached his ceiling, and I wanted to see how he thought about where his career was going, and where he can go from here. But even getting him to talk and the actual interview that we did… it was honestly one of the better interviews that I’ve had in my entire career.
WB: One of the things I found so interesting about the piece and your process with it is how you perfectly navigated between discussing the tragedy and throwing in little nuggets about his post-game, or his ability from the three. How did you figure out where to transition a bit away from the tragedy, then relate back to it, and almost frame it as a sort of comeback? Because it’s not the typical kind of comeback.
MP: Well, I hope I did a good job of it. It was something I was very conscious of, very weary of trying to tackle, balancing something that has absolutely nothing to do with basketball, that is so much more important than basketball, with basketball, which is a sport. At the same time, it is a part of this person’s identity, who he is, how he makes money, it’s a humongous part of his life. Narratively, I just tried to do it as chronologically as possible and my editor, Matt Wong – shoutout to Matt – was tremendous and instrumental in helping me do this. We wanted to have an arc, obviously, and we wanted to start at the beginning of the previous season. Then you have the story about him at Quicken Loans[1], and then carry it up into the offseason and pitch everything to the future.
Tap dancing back and forth between defensive pick-and-roll coverages and something way more serious and weighty was not easy. I wrote many drafts trying to get it as best I could, and eliminated a lot of flowery language and things that I would love to normally write and have in a story, ‘cause I’m a dumb writer, but just did not serve what we were trying to do with this one. Honestly, the interview with him was, I want to say, 50 minutes to an hour, but it was all him talking. My transcript is loaded with him speaking as openly and honestly and forthright as possible about all of it, from his career up to this point, where he sees himself as a basketball player, his status as a basketball player, what he was going through mentally in the offseason, what he was going through mentally last season, etc.
I didn’t want it to just be a story about tragedy, because I don’t think that that’s fair to him. I don’t think he should be defined by that. And you don’t want to ignore the tragedy and the grief that he’s experienced at the same time. So, I don’t know how we struck the right path there, but I think and hope that we did an okay job with it, and I think that both things were important to include in the story.
WB: The timing of [the story’s release on NBA media day] was almost ironic and fitting, because he went through so much tragedy and horror in his life. And the focus in the NBA on the day that it came out was how many players aren’t doing their part in helping us avoid [what Towns experienced by remaining unvaccinated against COVID-19]. What was that like for you, to see the story and the commentary from players on vaccinations happening at the same time?
MP: The timing of the story was always going to be on the morning of media day. We set that date weeks in advance. The number-one reason why is because we didn’t want KAT to say a lot of the things that he told me. So, selfishly, you want to get the story out there as soon as possible. You don’t want the story to come out Tuesday after he says, “I thought about stepping away from basketball last year.” From that perspective, that was the strategy, for lack of a better word, for the publication date.
Then, the Gersson Rosas termination[2] happened on Wednesday of the previous week, and that was very difficult for us. I spoke to Gersson for over an hour for this story, and his voice was all over it. So, the next few days were tough. We had to cut a lot of stuff and rewrite a lot of stuff. I had to go back to KAT, because the tone of the piece was that everything is on the up-and-up, finally. And then that happens, one of the more dysfunctional things that has ever happened to a very dysfunctional organization. So, I had to make sure his head was still where it was when we spoke about a month prior. Thankfully, for the most part, it was.
As for what the tone of that whole day was around the league, I did not really see any of that coming. Rolling Stone dropped their piece [“The NBA’s Anti-Vaxxers Are Trying to Push Around the League — And It’s Working”] on Saturday night, but… it’s really difficult to gauge how long a story is going to carry in the NBA. If anything carries for more than 24 hours, it’s humongous. So, I knew this was a big story. My friend [Fox Sports’ NBA writer] Yaron Weitzman had reported that Kyrie [Irving] had not been vaccinated, so there was a chance that he would not be at Nets’ media day, so I thought that there was gonna be a story there. Did not expect Kyrie to speak. Did not expect someone like Andrew Wiggins to speak. Did not expect Bradley Beal to say the things that he said. Did not expect Jonathan Isaac to speak and say the things that he said. Frankly, I was a little taken aback by just how bold a lot of these guys were in expressing their views, which is totally their right. But even though 95 or 96-percent of players had been vaccinated to date, and at the time it was probably between 90 and 95 – that’s wonderful, but this issue goes beyond that.
Getting vaccinated is step one to me. And if you are a person that has that kind of stature and platform – platform is something we talked about throughout George Floyd’s murder, and the response and reaction to that, and fair or not, you have a great platform. And when you say it’s a personal choice, you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t want to tell anyone else what to do, I just couldn’t disagree with that any stronger. All of these comments were just kind of throwing gasoline on the fire with this story. It’s really dark of me to say, but the timing for us was serendipitous.
WB: It’s interesting that you put it that way, but that is exactly what it is. It’s bizarre and serendipitous that a story about a player who went through the worst public bout with COVID in the NBA to date comes out on the day when many players are saying, “Well, I had COVID, it wasn’t that bad,” or “I’m not going to get vaccinated,” any number of things. One of the players who tweeted about it, saying “Kyrie’s goated,” was D’Angelo Russell, KAT’s teammate. That’s dark in its own way.
MP: Yeah, I haven’t talked to any of them about that, I don’t know what Karl’s thoughts are about that. You know, one of Karl’s best friends in the league is Devin Booker who has taken the “personal” stance and adopted that rhetoric. I don’t know how he feels about that, so I can’t really speak for him, but me personally, just as another citizen, I’m a little disappointed in people like LeBron [James], people like Draymond [Green]. NBA players just hardcore dropped the ball on this issue. I don’t think there’s much else to say about it. I’ve said it a bunch on my [Open Floor] podcast, it’s a bummer. And now we have Ben Simmons, who’s in the news for other reasons, and I don’t think it’s been officially reported, but it’s been strongly suggested through reporting that he, possibly, is also not vaccinated. I just… he was at Wimbledon! I don’t get it, man, what are we doing? Get vaccinated. It’s such a selfless act. Just get the shot.
WB: Right. And there’s irony at play with Kyrie and the report that came out in The Athletic recently, that he’s trying to give a voice to the voiceless and trying to [remain unvaccinated] not from an anti-vax perspective, but because he wants to stand up for workers who have lost their jobs due to vaccine mandates. Which is wildly ironic due to the fact that he cannot work now because his team won’t allow him to until he gets a vaccine.
MP: One real quick thing about that – if that were true, and I’m not saying it isn’t, but if it were, why hasn’t Kyrie said that? That’s the weirdest part of that whole report to me.
WB: He’s giving a voice to the voiceless… says an anonymous source.
MP: Yeah, like we go back to platforms. He does a lot of wonderful things with his platform. On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, you look on his Instagram and it’s shining a light on a lot of really terrible things that have happened in this country, and where indigenous people in this country still are. So, first of all, that is an anti-vaccine mindset. I don’t understand why it would be posited as anything but. But if he did feel that way, there are ways for him to speak. Go on Instagram Live, say what you have to say, do an interview. I’m just so exhausted with Kyrie Irving right now.
WB: I mean, he went on IG Live to display his own media day. And every time he was asked about it, he’d say “Listen, I’m not here to talk about that.” It’s almost a Belichickian stance of “we’re onto Cincinnati.” No. Speak up. You’re here, you’re talking. I digress.
Do you see a roadmap to the NBA mandating the vaccine?
MP: No, because they would’ve done it already. And they wanted to. A lot of these things are bargained, and the players’ association has their rights, and they try to stick up for their constituents as best they can. They thought this was something worth fighting for and that’s where it is. I don’t think there’s been any progress there. Again, 96 percent of players have been vaccinated. It’d be wonderful if it was 100 percent or 99 percent or whatever… my hope is that everyone who is not vaccinated gets vaccinated. But we have seen players in the markets [where the vaccine is mandated in order to play], Andrew Wiggins being one, get vaccinated because he was starting to lose money. We’ll see what happens with Kyrie, we’ll see how long this holdout lasts, but I think that it’s kind of more unique to that situation, and I don’t think that the NBA could or would enact a mandate or they would’ve done it already.
WB: Shifting gears a bit. You just put out your first Sports Illustrated cover story -- Trae Young Is the Hawks’ Torchbearer – on Trae Young, the Atlanta Hawks navigation of the super team era, and more than anything, the state and future of the NBA. As a fan and a journalist and NBA consumer, how do you feel about the state of the game as we enter this season?
MP: I’m super excited about this NBA season as I am heading into just about any season – except the last one; wasn’t that pumped about the last one starting. The more interesting seasons to me are the less predictable ones, and I think this season could go a lot of different ways for a lot of different teams. I have no idea how good the Warriors are going to be; they could be a title contender, they could be a play-in team. There are so many different variables. I’m so close to picking the Clippers to win the championship because I’m insane. I have no idea what’s going on with Kawhi, I have no idea what’s going on with Jamal Murray, the Nuggets look like so much fun. I’m really high on the Celtics this season, but Al Horford and Jaylen Brown just tested positive for COVID, so how much is COVID going to be a factor this season? I really hope it’s a non-factor.
I love a lot of the shakeups we saw in the offseason, too. There’s the Lakers, who I’m fascinated to watch, not high on them, but I’m looking forward to watching them play. There’s just so much young talent around the league, which brings me to the Atlanta Hawks and why I was so fascinated by them. Heading into the playoffs, and even heading into last season, I wrote this piece for FiveThirtyEight that was just almost irresponsibly optimistic about them and the offseason they had. Getting Bogdan Bogdanovic, signing Danilo Gallinari, my boy Rondo was in the mix for a minute. So I was high on them then. I really have long liked Trae Young. I just think anytime you average 30 [points] and 10 [assists] in a season, even on a bad team, you’re good. That’s really hard to do as a player. So I was just excited to see what he could do now that he had a lot of shooting around him, and so much youth. I love Clint Capela, too, and I though a lot of people were sleeping on his impact. After a slow start with some players being injured, they get rid of Lloyd Pierce, Nate McMillan comes over and it just all coalesced. Players started to get healthy at the right time, they had a good rotation, and Nate McMillan and Trae Young really clicked. Heading into the playoffs, I was shocked that so many people were picking the Knicks in round one. I picked the Hawks in five, which I think is the only prediction I got right… don’t listen to me when it comes to things like that. But I did pick the Hawks in five, liked them against the Sixers, and from that point on, I was like, the Hawks could win the championship. What are we even doing here? It was insane.
I had a lot of fun watching them. I wrote several pieces throughout the season about some of their players. I had one about John Collins; I had a long chat with Kevin Huerter during the postseason; I wrote one about Clint Capela. I pitched to my editors that I wanted to go down to Atlanta for a few days, and just talk about how this team is turning into a budding potential juggernaut. I think one of the biggest things that they don’t have, which is such a key ingredient, is that second All-Star, maybe even that third All-Star that is in house. But I just love some of their young talent, and I see at least one of them making a big leap here over the next couple of seasons. I know they can’t keep everybody, but if DeAndre Hunter becomes an efficient two-way wing who can run a pick-and-roll and shoot 38 percent from three, it just changes the whole dynamic of their team.
This isn’t in my story, which I was a little upset about, but I found this stat after we published: Trae’s career assist rate is third all-time behind John Stockton and Chris Paul. He’s an insanely good playmaker. I think that’s one of the things about his game that is still underrated. When you watch him play, obviously there’s the heat checks, the floaters, obviously he runs a ton of pick-and-rolls, but the way he sees the floor… he is brilliant. As he matures, as he continues to grow, to grow as a leader, which was a big criticism of him in year two and at the start of last season, I just think that the sky is the limit for this team. I kept trying to tie a Golden State Warriors comp in with every player I talked to, and no one was biting – they’re too smart for that. But the idea of being a home-grown core, letting it breathe, being patient with everybody, steadily, incrementally improving, teams don’t grow that way anymore. Denver’s doing that out west I suppose, but teams mostly do not do that anymore. I think it’s awesome that the Hawks, so far, are taking that path and having a lot of success with it. They were ripe heading into this season; they have so much continuity. A lot of their players are young, so they’ll be better, one would think, this season, and they have a guy who’s truly special. I think Trae is truly a special player, and last year was just the beginning of everything to come for him.
WB: Time for the fun stuff. What are you most looking forward to seeing this season and to covering as well?
MP: I have a story [that came out on Thursday] about Zion. I’m dangerously obsessed with Zion Williamson. You look at the numbers and the film from last year – I watched a lot of Pelicans games last season.
WB: I feel seen. Them and the Hornets were my League Pass teams last season.
MP: The Hornets are fun, man. The Hornets should trade for Ben Simmons if we’re being honest, but that’s neither here nor there.
I hated the Pelicans offseason, and it seems that every single bit of news that comes out of there is negative, but Zion is just true transcendence. I think people are sleeping on it a little bit, so I’m fascinated by his third-year leap potential. Not just making an All-NBA team, but like, why can’t he be first-team All-NBA this year? I don’t know why that’s not possible. I’m going to be watching a ton of Pelicans games.
I’m just a sucker for the teams that aren’t good now but will be in three or four years. I’m a sucker for the Pistons this year, I’m a sucker for the Rockets. I can’t wait to see what Tyler Herro looks like this season. I’m getting into the weeds now, but there’s so much stuff beyond the obvious and I can’t wait to unpack, explore, and analyze this season.
WB: I want to back up to this Hornets-Ben Simmons thing. I need the case, and I need it now.
MP: I mean, Gordon Hayward and Miles Bridges, done deal. Let’s go. You’d probably have to give up a first round pick, too, but like, that’s great. That’s wonderful for both sides. You’re not getting Damian Lillard or Bradley Beal. Gordon Hayward is a borderline All-Star if healthy. He makes a lot of sense in Philadelphia. He can run pick-and-rolls. He’s a really good player when healthy. Bridges is extension eligible, I believe. He shot like 40 percent from three last season, he would be in their rotation, he fits around [Joel] Embiid. It just makes sense. Then you look at Simmons with LaMelo [Ball], Scary Terry [Rozier]… that’s a team. I would love to watch that team. Terry Rozier takes every single crunch time shot so Simmons doesn’t have to worry about that. They’ve been playing PJ Washington at the five quite a bit, and I know they just got [Mason] Plumlee, but Simmons would play at the five. It’s such a perfect situation for him. I think his fit with LaMelo is great, I think his fit with Rozier is great, he would just fit with the style of play also. That would be a lot of fun, beyond Simmons for Kyrie, which Kyrie might just retire if that happens. So that’s not as fun. It’s just more fun when more teams are competitive. I’m already all-in on watching the Hornets, but I would DVR probably every single Hornets game if he was on that team.
WB: What else do you have in terms of bold predictions this season that you can give away? I don’t want to step on the podcast and/or any columns anytime soon.
MP: I guess this is pretty bold. I’m picking Trae Young to be my MVP this season. I don’t think he’s the best player in the league or anything like that… Giannis could very well win MVP, Kevin Durant could win MVP, especially with Kyrie out now. Jokic to repeat would have to be even more exceptional than he was last season, and the Nuggets would have to be better than they were last season just because of how voters’ minds work. But beyond that situation, Trae’s kind of the only guy who is All-NBA caliber on a very good team, a team that we think is likely to be at least a top-four seed in the Eastern Conference. You just look at the few ingredients we talk about for winning most valuable player, it’s high usage, high points per game, and your team is really good. A lot of these other guys are kind of cannibalizing each other. LeBron, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, cross all of them out. I’m skeptical of Harden and Durant winning because of them crossing each other out. Giannis could win, it’s entirely possible. But three times? That’s a lot. We’ll see what his approach is this season; I don’t know if he’s going to be going balls to the wall. They just won a title, maybe prioritize the playoffs.
But with the Hawks, there’s a lot of continuity with that roster – I’m a big fan of continuity, I think it’s super valuable – and if Trae stays healthy, his numbers are going to be insane, the team is going to be really good, and he’ll be in that conversation. Clint Capela told me if they finish top-two in the East, which I don’t think is necessarily going to happen, but is technically possible, “Trae’s gonna win MVP. That’s how good he is.” I agree with that. He’ll be in the conversation at least all season, and that’s good enough for me right now.
WB: I’m surprised that didn’t make the story. How did that miss?
MP: We didn’t want too much Clint, and Clint had a great quote about Luka that had to be in there. I mean, you’re going through, like, 80 pages of transcripts. I mean, the story could’ve just been my conversation with John Collins, honestly. It probably should’ve been. He was just an absolute legend with everything that he was saying.
WB: What were the best nuggets from that convo?
MP: I asked everybody on the team and other people around the organization, “Do you have a second All-Star here? Is there a second All-Star on this roster? Because you’ll need one to get to the next level.” Everyone on the team was like, “You know, I think we do, but we can’t just say stuff like that until you make an All-Star team, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves.” And John Collins just says, “Oh, it’s me. Gotta be me. I’m gonna make the All-Star team this year, definitely, no doubt about it.” I’m just like, “You are such a hero of mine.” He was great, just a wonderful personality. I did not wear it to the interview, which is a big regret of mine, but I have the t-shirt that he wore of him dunking on Joel Embiid, and it’s one of my favorites. Shout out to John Collins. He’s a treasure.
WB: I feel like I remember you mentioning that once on the podcast and being like, “I need to start doing my research on this ASAP.” Unfortunately, I still have yet to do that.
MP: Will, when you say “start doing your research,” we should probably just ban that phrase from society, but I totally get what you’re saying.
[1] Of Towns’ panic attack during a regular season game against the Cavaliers, Michael writes, "When the first quarter ended he texted his agent: “I can’t be out here anymore. I can’t do this.” He rushed back to the locker room, where Minnesota’s head equipment manager Peter Warden asked if everything was O.K. Towns was having symptoms of a panic attack. He was sweating and his chest was tight. He contemplated leaving the arena and traveling back to the hotel or even flying himself to Minnesota, but stayed in the back until the game ended. It was the first time Towns had ever felt that way around a basketball court. “It was too much for me,” he says. “My skin was itching.”
[2] The Athletic reported “Rosas’ reign was described as dysfunctional, with tension rippling through the front office, according to some sources.”
Consumption Corner
I (somehow) find time to read a lot, watch a lot, and listen to a lot throughout my weeks here on the internet. Consumption Corner is where I’ll recommend some of the things I appreciated the most. They may be old, or they may be new, but from shows to films to books, I figure the least I can do is lend some insight into the things that make me the cultured young man that I am.
The Reading List:
Kumail Nanjiani’s Feelings by E. Alex Jung (Vulture)
He Rose to the Highest Levels of Business and Basketball—but With a Secret by Howard Beck (Sports Illustrated)
Timothée Chalamet Wants You to Wear Your Heart on Your Sleeve by Sam Landry (Time Magazine)
The Profane Poetry of Succession by Brian Phillips (The Ringer)
ESPN didn't care and doesn't care about now-former Raiders coach Jon Gruden's bigotry by Drew Magary (SF Gate)
The Second Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. by Ibram X. Kendi (The Atlantic)
What I haven’t stopped watching: You familiar with a little show called Squid Game? Me neither. I’ve just been watching the MLB playoffs and WNBA Finals.
Kidding. I’m also watching Squid Game. It’s shocking how few people are talking about this show! You’d think it’d be dominating literally every single social media utterance right now, driving me absolutely insane as I attempt to avoid spoilers and live my LIFE.
And finally… what else I’ve written lately:
The curious case of Justise Winslow takes Los Angeles (Clips Nation)
A goodbye tweet:
Thanks for stopping by, all. Until next week.