By Mike Finger, Columnist | San Antonio Express-News (SAEN), 2024-12-07 06:00:12
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
2024年12月3日，亚利桑那州菲尼克斯：在菲尼克斯足迹中心举行的酋长杯NBA比赛下半场，圣安东尼奥马刺队的10号球员杰里米·索汉(Jeremy Sochan)在一个进球后做出反应。
杰里米·索汉(Jeremy Sochan)正在解释他的头发颜色，解释那位身高7尺3寸的法国人是如何建议他染成现在这种“格林奇绿”的，以及人们在不了解情况时是如何妄下结论的。
然后，他主动换了个话题。
“有时候谈论这个很难，”索汉说，“但去年真的很难熬。”
他知道这部分是因为他让自己深陷其中。没有人强迫他去关注手机屏幕上那些匿名的头像。他不必在意他们对他的看法，或者他们对任何事情的看法。
但就像很多其他21岁的年轻人一样——包括很多并非身高6尺8寸、身价数百万美元、喜欢引人注目的年轻人——索汉有时就是控制不住自己。他无法忽视每一个Instagram表情包，也无法忽视每一个TikTok上的批评。
毕竟，这位马刺队三年级前锋是他这一代人，而不是蒂姆·邓肯那一代人。而且邓肯那一代人现在也未必能把社交媒体处理得更好。
“我认为，”索汉说，“在这个时代，任何人都不可能对它一无所知。”
而去年，天哪，他可是太清楚了。这一切始于一次命运多舛的控球后卫实验，马刺队要求他学习一个他从未打过的位置，而当时球队正在学习如何与一位名叫维克托·文班亚马(Victor Wembanyama)的新秀一起打球。当时，索汉试图将其视为一个机会。
虽然这项尝试的潜在好处不可否认，但结果并不理想。即使马刺队在12月放弃了这个实验，但在他们输掉60场比赛的那个赛季里，网上的评论并没有减少。
“人们制作表情包之类的东西，好像他们很了解我，”索汉说，“不给文班传球，不和他做朋友，表现得好像我们互相讨厌一样。我们谈论过这些事情。我们没有去看那些评论。但我们知道。”
索汉现在可以承认的是，在重新确立自己作为马刺队充满活力、至关重要的现在和未来的一部分之后，他曾经一度处于低谷。
关于他和文班亚马关系紧张的说法并不属实，但他手机屏幕上那些匿名的头像却相信了，这让他很困扰。他的第二个NBA赛季在很多方面都取得了进步，但控球后卫的困境掩盖了他取得的一些进步，而且他也不像往常那样外向了。
2024年12月6日，德克萨斯州圣安东尼奥：圣安东尼奥马刺队的10号球员杰里米·索汉(Jeremy Sochan)在上半场对阵萨克拉门托国王队的比赛中，在弗罗斯特银行中心完成扣篮。
那个出生于俄克拉荷马州、带有英国口音、在文班亚马选秀大会上作为NBA TV的漫游记者表现得如此自然的迷人的波兰孩子呢？上个赛季有几周，他完全拒绝接受任何采访。
“只是媒体，社交媒体，总而言之，”索汉说，“我想把这一切都关掉。”
他需要，找不到更好的词来形容，一次重启。这就是休赛期带给他的。当他在10月份回归时，再次自由地做自己，他不仅仅是抢篮板，像21世纪的丹尼斯·罗德曼一样惹恼对手。
在39岁的克里斯·保罗和20岁的文班亚马之间打球，在本赛季的前三周，索汉曾是马刺队最高效的全能球员。
他能得分。
他能为其他人创造机会。
他能防守。
然后，在11月4日对阵快船队的比赛中，他左手拇指骨折了。
这可能会让他再次回到那个低谷。马刺队让他从洛杉矶乘坐他们能找到的最方便的直飞航班回家，结果是一趟西南航空的旅程，他戴着兜帽，低着头，尽量保持低调。
当同一航班上的一位体育记者对他糟糕的运气表示慰问时，索汉发誓他不会让自己感到沮丧。
在接下来的几周里呢？索汉全身心地投入到每一次录像分析、每一次训练会议和每一次更衣室谈话中。用代理马刺队主教练米奇·约翰逊的话来说，索汉“是他所见过的最投入的球员”。
“这是真的，”约翰逊说，“这是真诚的。这不是那种‘看我，加油’的东西。”
索汉的队友也注意到了这一点。在他伤愈期间，马刺队赢得了13场比赛中的8场。看起来他们好像并没有想念他。
但那是因为他们真的没有想念他。他就在那里，在场边欢呼，比任何人都大声。
“每天不能上场都让他很难受，”凯尔登·约翰逊说，“但他参与了我们所做的一切。这不是假的。”
索汉本赛季在球场上的进步也不是假的。他在周二在菲尼克斯的比赛中复出，虽然他仍然是他职业生涯中一直以来的防守威胁，但他不再是一个只会耍花招的球员了。
是的，他顶着那头“格林奇绿”的发型，这是文班亚马和凯尔登·约翰逊热情推荐的。是的，他仍然用单手罚球。是的，当篮下发生身体对抗时，他总有办法挑起事端。
但截至周五，他场均还能得到15.2分、8.5个篮板和2.7次助攻，展现了让他在2022年NBA选秀大会上成为第9顺位新秀的技能。
如果人们仍然想对他想要证明什么妄下结论呢？
嗯，他阻止不了他们。
“我是人，”索汉说，“我总是会展现真实的自己。但并不是每个人都了解所有人的一切。”
他越来越容易接受这一点了。
甚至可以谈论它了。
San Antonio Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan (10) looks to an official after he was called for a foul during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Sacramento Kings in San Antonio, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
San Antonio Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan (10) drives on Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
Chicago Bulls guard Zach LaVine (8) is defended by San Antonio Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan (10) during the second half of an NBA basketball game in San Antonio, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
San Antonio Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan (10) is fooled by Chicago Bulls center Nikola Vucevic, right, as he drives to the basket during the first half of an NBA basketball game in San Antonio, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Sacramento Kings guard De’Aaron Fox (5) drives to the basket against San Antonio Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan, center, during the first half of an NBA basketball game in San Antonio, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
San Antonio Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan (10) looks to shoot against Sacramento Kings guard Malik Monk (0) during the second half of an NBA basketball game in San Antonio, Friday, Dec. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
San Antonio Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan, bottom,is fouled by Chicago Bulls center Nikola Vucevic (9) as he drives to the basket during the first half of an NBA basketball game in San Antonio, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SAN ANTONIO, TX - DECEMBER 6: Jeremy Sochan #10 of the San Antonio Spurs tries to drive by De’Aaron Fox #5 of the Sacramento Kings and Orlando Robinson in the second half at Frost Bank Center on December 6, 2024 in San Antonio, Texas.
San Antonio Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan (10) looks to shoot past Chicago Bulls guard Ayo Dosunmu (11) during the second half of an NBA basketball game in San Antonio, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Chicago Bulls center Nikola Vucevic, center, looks to shoot over San Antonio Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan (10) during the second half of an NBA basketball game in San Antonio, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
San Antonio Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan, left, and Chicago Bulls forward Julian Phillips, right, chase the ball during the second half of an NBA basketball game in San Antonio, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Chicago Bulls guard Josh Giddey (3) is fouled as he drives to the basket against San Antonio Spurs guard Stephon Castle (5) and forward Jeremy Sochan, right, during the first half of an NBA basketball game in San Antonio, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker shoots over San Antonio Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan and guard Devin Vassell (24) during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
点击查看原文：San Antonio Spurs' Jeremy Sochan coming into his own
San Antonio Spurs’ Jeremy Sochan coming into his own
PHOENIX, ARIZONA - DECEMBER 03: Jeremy Sochan #10 of the San Antonio Spurs reacts after a basket during the second half of the Emirates NBA Cup game against the Phoenix Suns at Footprint Center on December 03, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Jeremy Sochan is in the middle of an explanation about hair color, and about the 7-foot-3 Frenchman who suggested his new shock top of Grinch green, and about the assumptions people make when they don’t have a clue.
Then, completely on his own, he changes the subject.
“This is hard sometimes to talk about,” Sochan says. “But last year was really tough.”
He knows that’s partly because he allowed it to be. Nobody made him pay attention to the anonymous avatars on his cell phone screen. He didn’t have to care what they thought about him, or what they thought about anything.
But like lots of other 21-year-olds – including plenty who don’t happen to be 6-foot-8 multimillionaires with a penchant for attracting attention – Sochan just can’t help himself sometimes. He can’t ignore every Instagram meme, nor every Tik Tok takedown.
The third-year Spurs forward is, after all, part of his generation, not Tim Duncan’s. And it’s not like Duncan’s generation handles social media much better anymore.
“I think,” Sochan says, “it’s impossible for anyone to be unaware of it in this day and age.”
And last year, boy, was he aware. It began with an ill-fated point guard experiment, with the Spurs asking him to learn a position he’d never played on the fly, right as the team was learning how to play with a rookie named Victor Wembanyama. At the time, Sochan tried to view it as an opportunity.
While the potential upside of the endeavor was undeniable, it didn’t go well. And even though the Spurs ditched it by December, the online comments did not abate during a season in which they lost 60 games.
“People made memes and things like they thought they knew me,” Sochan says. “Not passing to Victor, not being friends with him, acting like we hate each other. We had conversations about that stuff. We didn’t look at it. But we knew about it.”
And what Sochan can admit now, having reasserted himself as an indispensable part of the Spurs’ recharged present and future, is that he’d been in a dark place.
The stuff about tension with Wembanyama wasn’t true, but the anonymous avatars on his cell phone screen believed it, and that bothered him. His second NBA season was a step forward in a lot of ways, but the point-guard difficulties disguised some of the progress he’d made, and he wasn’t his usual outgoing self.
SAN ANTONIO, TX - DECEMBER 6: Jeremy Sochan #10 of the San Antonio Spurs dunks against the Sacramento Kings in the first half at Frost Bank Center on December 6, 2024 in San Antonio, Texas.
The charming Oklahoma-born Polish kid with the British accent who’d been such a natural for NBA TV as a roving reporter at the Wembanyama draft? For several weeks last season, he declined to do any interviews at all.
“It was just media, social media, in general,” Sochan says. “I wanted to turn it all off.”
He needed, for lack of a better a term, a reset. That’s what the offseason gave him. And when he returned in October, free again to be himself, he wasn’t just grabbing rebounds and annoying the heck out of opponents like a 21st-century Dennis Rodman.
Playing between 39-year-old Chris Paul and 20-year-old Wembanyama, there were stretches during the first three weeks of this season when Sochan was the Spurs’ most productive all-around player.
He was scoring.
He was creating plays for others.
He was defending.
Then, against the Clippers on November 4, he broke his left thumb.
That could have sent him back into that dark place again. The Spurs sent him home from Los Angeles on the most convenient direct flight they could find, which turned out to be a Southwest Airlines jaunt in which he wore a hoodie low over his face and tried his best to stay inconspicuous.
When a sports writer on the same flight expressed condolences regarding his tough bit of luck, Sochan swore he wouldn’t let himself get frustrated.
And in the weeks that followed? Sochan poured himself into every film session, every practice huddle, and every locker-room conversation. The way acting Spurs coach Mitch Johnson puts it, Sochan was “as engaged as any player (Johnson’s) been around.”
“It was real,” Johnson says. “It was genuine. It wasn’t ‘look at me, rah-rah’ stuff.”
Sochan’s teammates noticed this, too. The Spurs won eight of 13 games while he recovered from his injury. It might have seemed like they didn’t miss him.
But that’s because they weren’t missing him, really. He was right there, cheering from the bench, louder than anybody.
“It was killing him every day not to be out there,” Keldon Johnson says. “But he was a part of everything we did. It wasn’t fake.”
Neither is Sochan’s on-court improvement this season. He returned to game action Tuesday at Phoenix, and while he remains the same defensive menace he’s been throughout his career, he’s no gimmick player anymore.
Yes, he sports that Grinch green shock top, which came from an enthusiastic suggestion from Wembanyama and Keldon Johnson. Yes, he still shoots his free throws with one hand. And yes, he has a way of instigating trouble when things get physical under the basket.
But through Friday, he also was averaging 15.2 points, 8.5 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game, showing off the skillset that made him the No. 9 overall pick in the 2022 NBA draft.
And if people still want to make assumptions about what he’s trying to prove?
Well, he can’t stop them.
“I’m human,” Sochan says. “I’m always gonna put myself out there. But everyone doesn’t know everything about everyone.”
It’s becoming easier for him to come to terms with that.
And even to talk about it.
By Mike Finger, Columnist, via San Antonio Express-News