Kawhi Leonard and the Discipline of Silence

I like the quiet.

It makes me inclined to like Kawhi Leonard.

Leonard is a rare stripe of superstar who thoroughly eschews the spotlight. He wants to ball and go home, and he doesn’t want to talk to anyone in between. I empathize. I always found the forced socializing at work events to be oppressive. I can’t imagine being made to talk about my job after having performed it live for other people. I mean… didn’t they literally just see it all with their own eyes? Isn’t it on tape? In that context, I find the “Why won’t they leave me alone?” look in Leonard’s eye when the press does manage to corner him wholly understandable and can personally attest that it resonates among his fellow introverts.

The narrative around Leonard is that he’s odd. I suppose he is. But the mockery he sometimes receives goes deeper than his reticence or his rusty laugh. His stubborn silence is quite an act of rebellion in a culture that has everyone clamoring for attention and desperate to rack up likes and retweets. Every time he chooses not to speak, he rebukes that value system. In addition, he’s set a clear boundary that he enforces ruthlessly: his duty to entertain the fans stops when the game is over. A certain kind of person doesn’t like that. I suppose it stings when someone rejects the party you’re trying to throw and chooses a quiet…