Sports fan never tire of talking about speed. MPH. Wheels. Who or what hasn't gotten faster? While Aroldis Chapman officially holds the Guinness World Record for throwing the fastest baseball pitch at 105.8 mph, it's interesting to note that the number of pitchers who can throw 100 mph has increased 31% since 2015. In tennis, the serve has been clocked at shocking speeds. Sam Groth is credited with the fastest serve in tennis history at both a Challenger and ATP tennis event (164 mph and 147 mph, respectively). Yes, both serves were aces. Football fans obsess over how fast (or slow) their favorite players run the forty. Surely a number of records in track, swimming and other sports of speed will be broken in Paris at the Olympic Games. And yet, while the world is speeding up, there's one athlete who is successfully slowing it down: Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Dončić.
Standing 6'7" and weighing 230 lbs you won't have a hard time noticing the Slovenian All-Star. Though he does not get anywhere too quickly, it's hard to argue that he doesn't do so effectively. He goes in and out of the paint, taking shots from downtown or midrange. Textbook Eurostep gets him to the rim time and again.
I have come to believe there must be a healthy disconnect between his mind and body. He might make the decision to complete the no-look quickly but the ball finds its way to the open man at a speed that is part of some other multiverse.
He has incredible vision, which allows him to find an open teammate. That decision is made ever-so-quickly, but the pass often looks like a lob. It is never flashy, but its forceful. Dončić's passes have a near downward trajectory. And its merely an extension of his shot.
No one back peddles better than Luka. You will never say that he is light on his feet to which I would say "Do you need him to be?" He drains the three. He makes game winning shots. He finds open teammates. It's not a sprint. It's not even a marathon. It's a basketball game.
In short, it's worth studying Luka and his game. His purported lack of speed creates space and sets a new pace. For years, coaches and players toy with this equation, but Dončić is on to something. It's not even that "slow and steady wins the race." Again, this is not a race. There is however something to be said for thinking differently about speed.
Few people espouse the virtues of slow. People criticize the Catholic Church for being slow to change. We want change and we want it now. The Holy See finds wisdom prayer, discernment and the passing of time for potential progress. Some things in life—teachings, guidance, direction—cannot be rushed. None of it is easy. No doubt, there is tension in the waiting and deliberation. But as Ignatius of Loyola advised "stay with the tension." Indeed, it can lead to growth.
We know that patience is a virtue. But patience isn't needed when things come quickly. Rome wasn't built in a day, or even three. Masterpieces take time. Aphorisms continue to address the relationship of humanity to speed, because we are forever up against it.
In response to the fast food movement, we have slow food. When teaching my cousins to drive, my Uncle Jay passed on what my Grandfather—who taught driver's ed for years—always said "speed kills." Very true.
Golfers might learn lessons from Luka, too. Every golfer knows the counterintuitive nature of the game, especially as it is concerned to speed. Why is it when things start to break down in my swing, I am summoned to slow it down? Furthermore, one must know the speed of the greens to sink a putt. Are they fast or slow? An awareness of speed is essential.
So where does that leave us? Perhaps with a reminder and an invitation to step back (or should I say back peddle) and go slow. Society will tell us to speed it up but spirituality reminds us to slow it down. You might not need to watch a basketball player like Luka Dončić to learn this lesson, but I have found it to be a fun way to put it into practice.
Patient Trust by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually—let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
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