This story is part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering the mental side of sports. Sign up for Peak’s newsletter here.
Mike Conley is a guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves in his 19th season. He has played more than 37,000 minutes in the NBA and has never been called for a technical foul.
At least 15 times a year I get the questions from other players: “Are you going to get a tech tonight? Are you going to finally do it?”
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There have been a few games where I’ve reacted right away and jumped up and down after a missed call, and everybody else gets kind of excited: We thought you were going to get a tech!
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more receptive to the streak. I used to think: Maybe I should just get a technical foul because people are going to think I don’t care. But the older I get the more I realize it’s a super power.
It allows me to move on really quickly. When you have a bad play or something bad happens to you (you feel something should have been a foul), you can spend two or three possessions or even a quarter thinking about it. Man, that’s messed up. I can’t believe they did that. You can spend so much energy on it that you might not realize you’ve been playing terribly for the last 10 minutes because that’s all you’ve been thinking about.
Well, I don’t ever have that issue. If I do something bad or something bad happens to me, I go back to thinking about the next play or the next shot. I keep moving forward. I think that just gives you a level of aura.
When I go to the free-throw line, I don’t feel a thing. What should be a nerve-racking situation feels very comfortable to me, and I think that’s because I don’t have many highs and lows mentally during a game.
It’s an extension of the way I approach basketball in general. A lot of people think being quiet and not showing as much emotion means you’re lacking something or maybe you’re weak. But I beg to differ.
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To me it’s the opposite.
You have full control of your emotions, full control of every situation. You’re able to find a way to be calm through it all and regulate your mind to the point where you’re able to think and not just react.
I’m a big Indianapolis Colts fan. I watched Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne score a million touchdowns. And not one time did they score and start dancing. It was just business as usual. It was just like: We scored, what’s next? I wanted to adopt that approach to the game. I liked that kind of mindset way better, and I wanted to be like those guys.
It really had a profound impact on my outlook.
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I tried to approach the game the way they did, and when you start approaching things that way, you start falling into an identity: This is who I am. This is my standard. This is who I want to be when I play.
I get mad just as much as the next person, but it’s all about how you react. How long are you going to let it bother you?
We played a game recently against Detroit. We got a steal, I leaked out to run down the court for a layup, and while they were trying to throw the ball ahead to me, it went out of bounds. My teammates were all down on the other end of the court saying, “Review, review, review!”
I was by our bench, and I thought our coaches were going to review it. I was talking to the ref near me. Then the ref handed the ball to the other team to inbound it — I was still on the far end of the court, so it was essentially a five on four.
Inside, I was pissed. I was thinking: I’m about to be on film because I’m not in the right position defensively. I’m on the other side of the court when the ball is being inbounded. I’m about to let my team down. We’re about to give up points in a tight game. There were a bunch of things going through my mind, but I brushed all that to the side and just thought: How can I approach the refs and hold a conversation without escalating it?
I did get one phantom technical. This was in 2014.
There were three plays in a row where they didn’t call fouls. The ref missed another call and the ball went out of bounds. I was like: Man, come on bro. It was something as simple as that. I wasn’t looking at the ref or talking to him. Then I heard a whistle and that they had called a tech. I was like: On who??? I thought there was no way they called it on me.
The referee was Monty McCutchen. He looked at me immediately and was like: “My bad.” It was funny, and within 24 hours the league rescinded it.
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The No. 1 thing for me is breathing. It’s become a really big tool. Breathing in for four counts. Breathing out slowly. Getting all the way to the end of your breath. Holding it there for a little. Then breathing in again to the count of four.
That’s always allowed me to center myself again. To remind myself: Alright, we’ve got a job to do. Don’t let what just happened a second ago let what’s about to happen for us.
When you do that, you’re always the same no matter what. That, to me, it says a lot about your family and the people around you. That’s what means the most – to represent the people around me. If I can continue to find a way to not get a tech in the next year and make it out of the NBA unscathed, that’s something that will stand for a long time.
— As told to Jayson Jenks