By Jared Weiss | The Athletic, 2026-03-01 11:00:09
俄克拉荷马城——当赛后更衣室的大门开启，记者们鱼贯而入，试图为下一篇报道寻找灵感。哪怕是一句简短的引言，也能迸发出一个创意，或是让一个构思变得完整。
通常情况下，是记者们进来撰写关于球员的故事。但在圣安东尼奥马刺队的更衣室里，早在媒体抵达之前，就有一位高产的作家潜伏在他们中间。
一个多月前，《The Athletic》采访了圣安东尼奥马刺队中锋卢克·科内特 (Luke Kornet)，了解他作为教会博主的过往生活。事实证明，这次采访的时机恰到好处。
“好吧，我已经好几年没写了。不过信不信由你，我昨天刚写了点东西，”科内特说道。“我正在考虑重新整顿它，所以可能很快就会推出改版。”
几周后，一位名叫卢克·科内特的 Medium 用户——其简介为“涉足写作的职业运动员”——发布了续作，他那 509 位关注者终于等到了这一刻。他立即回应了关于他停更数年的“争议”，承认自己是一个“意志薄弱、不负责任的虚假作家”，并且承认做一个专注于教会建筑的博客“有点过于狂热了”。
但那个博客不仅仅是一个快乐天才的胡思乱想。
30 岁的科内特长期以来一直是一个困在 NBA 球员身体里的创作者。这可以追溯到他在纽约的 NBA 首站，当时他参加了米切尔·罗宾逊 (Mitchell Robinson) 在尼克斯队 YouTube 频道上的《火锅派对 (Block Party)》节目，并教他的老队友如何耍球。作为波士顿凯尔特人队的一员，科内特尝试了从主持播客到与球队 YouTube 频道及当地转播商 NBC Sports Boston 合作拍摄针对德里克·怀特 (Derrick White) 的讽刺性诋毁运动等各种尝试。
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但他一直在酝酿属于自己的东西，将他的教会博客作为一个充满激情的项目来经营，这更能体现他在工作之外的真实自我。
2023 年 6 月 11 日，他在 Medium 上开通了名为“Don’t Pass the Rock（别传球）”的博客。就在那不久前，凯尔特人队在东部决赛尝试从 0-3 落后的情况下逆转迈阿密热火队的努力宣告失败，杰森·塔图姆 (Jayson Tatum) 在抢七大战早期扭伤了脚踝。科内特提醒他的读者，这个博客不会关于篮球，而是分析他在 NBA 征途中遇到的各种教堂。他计划从五个维度来评价这些教堂：美感、普世性、社区感、传统和寄托。
长期的愿景是建立一份 NBA 天主教徒教堂指南，帮助那些拥有相同信仰的人在客场旅途中轻松找到可以去的教堂。从迈阿密墙壁呈粉彩色的 VOUS 教堂，到纽约市宏伟的圣帕特里克大教堂，科内特一直在记录这些在比赛日带给他平静和灵感的礼拜场所。
科内特意识到自己能以此为生周游全国是多么幸运，他寻求一种更真实的方式与他访问的城市建立联系。球队通常住在五星级酒店，在很多情况下与城市的真实面貌隔绝。寻找一个让他感兴趣的当地教堂，是他寻找真实感的方式。
“坦白说，在工作日而不是周日去教堂，你会看到很多人在那里，因为他们知道自己需要在那，也想要在那，”科内特说。“这是一件很酷的事情，每个人都可以保持自我，但你又与这些仅仅是在周二出现在盐湖城的人们紧密相连。”
这些教堂让他感觉到，即使远离家人，他的信仰和社区依然相随。随着他继续在博客上撰写关于教堂装饰和构造的内容，他意识到这种社区感才是真实所在。
没过多久，博客就陷入了停更。问问他身边的人，他们都会告诉你科内特做任何事都非常有目的性，即使这种目的性有时近乎甚至已经跨越了荒诞。
科内特的停更是因为需要寻找灵感，他意识到自己与其说是一个建筑发烧友，不如说是一个讲故事的人。但他的故事是什么呢？
“我（尝试）花些时间去弄清楚那到底是什么，”科内特说。“因为当你写的东西并不是你真正关心的，它很快就会枯竭，在没有乐趣的情况下强迫自己去写是行不通的。”
如果没有乐趣，那就不是科内特了。他身边的每一件事都带着一丝玩世不恭。这让他赢得了波士顿更衣室的喜爱，也让他成为了圣安东尼奥的固定成员——去年夏天他作为自由球员签约后，这里成了他的新家。
“我认为卢克·科内特是我在篮球界接触过的最有创意的人之一，他给我们的更衣室带来了很多欢乐，”马刺队教练米奇·约翰逊 (Mitch Johnson) 说道。“而且，嗯，是的，我就说到这吧，因为我要把‘家事’留在室内。但他确实是一个让人愉悦的球员。”
虽然马刺队是他职业生涯理想的新篇章，但科内特离开波士顿的决定并不容易。凯尔特人队篮球运营总裁布拉德·史蒂文斯 (Brad Stevens) 非常信任科内特，支持他慢慢成长。到乔·马祖拉 (Joe Mazzulla) 担任主教练时，科内特最终成长为联盟中更优秀的替补中锋之一。
在过去的几个赛季里，当球队在客场时，科内特会和马祖拉以及科内特的开发教练克雷格·卢舍纳特 (Craig Luschenat) 一起去做弥撒。在那儿，他了解到了教练们在脱离工作环境后的真实模样。这帮助他在更深层次上理解了那位严厉的马祖拉，同时也看到了他原则的连贯性。
“乔就是他自己，我认为正是这一点让他能够保持这种状态，而不是摇摆不定，”科内特说。“他更扎根于正在做的事情。”
虽然科内特原籍达拉斯地区，但波士顿帮助他磨练了更坚韧的性格，并明确了生活中的重心。他逐渐欣赏波士顿那种直接、生硬的沟通方式，这与他成长环境中的南方温暖迷人的文化形成了鲜明对比。他学会了明白，他的职责是照顾他关心的人，并专注于他能力范围内的事情。
“坦白说，你要让你的承诺名副其实，因此不要为了给人一种虚假的温暖感而过度承诺，因为那并不是真实或可靠的，”他说道。“你可以开玩笑，并且清楚自己的立场。这是一种真实的对比。这是我在波士顿意识到的。你关心你该关心的人，你也知道谁不是你的责任，你不会去在意，因为那不是你的义务。”
“我没法满足所有人。”
这一感悟帮助他找到了一个更宽泛、但也更直接的《Don’t Pass The Rock》版本。这一次，它不再受限于教堂评论的概念。博文内容涵盖了从球队飞机故障的详尽记录到关于上帝为何夺走他投篮能力的论文。
当科内特为家人和朋友写了一封详尽的圣诞信时，他感到自己对写作的热爱再次复苏。虽然他的家人每年都会制作一张卡片，但他会附上一封信以传达更深层次的信息，他会用他能写出的最小字体，只为了尽可能塞进所有内容。
每当科内特被问及问题时，他经常会开启一段意识流般的独白，其走向往往变得超现实且荒谬。他能在自己复杂的思绪中绕出宏大的圆圈，制造出喜剧天才般的时刻，每当大家憋笑憋得辛苦时，采访往往会被打断。写作给了他一个磨练这些想法的空间，尽管阅读这些文字仍需要费些工夫。
“我喜欢写很多括号里的注释，”他说。“读这玩意儿你得费点劲。”
博客重新出现，成为了科内特向公众展示其更精致、更开放的一面的工具。他从不担心如何开始一句话，但经常会陷入沉思，以至于把答案带回原点变成了一场旅程。麦克风的存在似乎会让他像大多数运动员一样，无法真正敞开心扉。
写作的美妙之处在于有时间和空间去精雕细琢你的思想。你的文字能够如你所愿地呈现。他写起东西来就像他说话一样，在各种段子中穿梭，试图找到一种方式，用一层喜剧的外衣来表达他的感受，以缓解那种脆弱感。正如他在第二篇博文中所写的，他坚信这种脆弱性正是最好的能力。
当球队因暴风雪被困在夏洛特的跑道上时，灵感迸发了。无聊和沮丧的结合让文字从他笔下流淌而出。
“怀着炽热的心灵和昂扬的斗志，圣安东尼奥国际机场那遥远的跑道似乎就在山丘之外，”科内特写道。“遗憾的是，跨越这些山丘的标志是某个部件的故障，以及随后无法维持机舱压力的窘境。那一刻我意识到，飞机就像我们一样。你希望在整整 48 分钟内都保持压力，但有时你无法持续。这就是‘下一架飞机顶上 (Next Plane Up)’的心态。”
那句“下一架飞机顶上的心态”让他自言自语道：“绝妙。”这是一个作家一直在追寻的感觉，那句迫不及待想与世界分享的金句。这种感觉就像他在读深夜秀主持人斯蒂芬·科尔伯特 (Stephen Colbert) 2007 年的著作《我就是美国（你也可以！）》时一样，那是他机智和讽刺风格的重要启蒙。
这种感觉也体现在他完成扣篮后的仰天长啸，或是摆出极具喜感的姿势以至于最后被印在 T 恤上。
洛杉矶时尚达到了新高度 pic.twitter.com/TgJuCdVqkI
— 杰里德·韦斯 (Jared Weiss) 2025年12月11日
科内特是一个表演者，一个愿意用搞怪来衬托严肃的人。他从联盟边缘球员成长为多支争冠球队看重的拼图，绝不是靠着胡闹混进，嗯，中游水平的。
他能预见到自己有一天会加入媒体行列。在退役之前，他不会知道自己是想去当教练、写作还是专注于另一种热爱。但有一件事永远不会结束，那就是他前往世界各地教堂的旅程，记下光线如何洒满彩色玻璃窗，以及教友们如何张开双臂欢迎他。
“信仰所赋予的东西，”科内特说，“就是让你意识到，你所做的一切最终到底是为了什么。”
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。
点击查看原文：From Bus 1 Boy to Blog Boy: One of the most talented Spurs writers is Wemby’s backup
From Bus 1 Boy to Blog Boy: One of the most talented Spurs writers is Wemby’s backup
OKLAHOMA CITY — When the locker room opens after the game, writers come flocking in seeking inspiration for the next story. A single quote can spark an idea or bring another full circle.
Typically, it’s the reporters coming in to write about the players. But in the San Antonio Spurs locker room, there is a prolific writer hiding in their midst long before the media arrives.
A little more than a month ago, The Athletic sat down with San Antonio Spurs center Luke Kornet to learn about his past life as a church blogger. It turned out to be perfect timing.
“Well, I haven’t participated in it in a few years now. I actually wrote stuff yesterday, believe it or not,” Kornet said. “I was thinking about revamping it, so I might come out with a revamp soon.”
A few weeks later, a user on Medium named Luke Kornet, whose bio reads “Professional Athlete Dabbling in Writing,” dropped the sequel his now 509 followers had long awaited. He immediately addressed the “controversy” over his several-year absence from writing, conceding that he is a “weak-willed, noncommittal sham of a writer” and that a blog centered on church architecture was “a bit overzealous.”
But that blog was more than just random musings of a joyful genius.
Kornet, 30, has long been a creator trapped in an NBA player’s body, dating back to his first NBA stop in New York, when he went on Mitchell Robinson’s Block Party show on the Knicks’ YouTube channel and taught his old teammate how to juggle. As a member of the Boston Celtics, Kornet did everything from hosting a podcast to making satirical smear campaigns about Derrick White in partnership with the team’s YouTube channel and local broadcaster, NBC Sports Boston.
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But he was brewing something of his own, building his church blog as a passion project that spoke more to who he was outside of work.
He launched his blog on Medium called “Don’t Pass the Rock” on June 11, 2023, shortly after his Celtics’ attempt at coming back from a 3-0 deficit in the Eastern Conference finals to the Miami Heat was thwarted when Jayson Tatum rolled his ankle early in Game 7. Kornet warned his readers that this blog would not be about basketball, but would analyze the various churches he has come across in his NBA travels. He planned to evaluate the churches on five pillars: beauty, universality, community, tradition and sustenance.
The long-term vision was an NBA Catholic’s church guide, helping those who share his faith easily find accessible churches while on the road. From the VOUS Church in Miami, with its pastel walls, to the vast St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, Kornet has been cataloging the various houses of worship that have brought him peace and inspiration on game days.
Recognizing how fortunate he is to travel the country for a living, he sought a more authentic way to connect to the cities he visited. The teams stay at five-star hotels, isolated from the reality of the city in many cases. Finding a local church that piques his interest is his way to find something authentic.
“Frankly, going during the weekdays, and not just Sundays, you see a lot of people who are there because they know they need to be there and want to be there,” Kornet said. “It’s a cool thing where everyone can be their own, but you’re also very united with these people who are just there on a Tuesday in Salt Lake (City).”
These churches helped him feel like he was at home with his faith and his community, even when he was away from his family. As he continued to blog about the decor and construction of them, he realized the sense of community was what felt real.
It didn’t take long for the blog to hit pause. Ask those around him, and they’ll all tell you that Kornet does things with intention, even when it borders on, or leaps past, absurd.
Kornet’s hiatus was spurred by a need to find inspiration, recognizing that he was less an architecture buff and more of a storyteller. But what was his story?
“I (tried) to take some time to find out what that actually is,” Kornet said. “Because when you’re writing something that’s not actually what you care about, it just dies out pretty quickly, forcing it where it’s not fun.”
If it’s not fun, it’s not Kornet. Everything around him has a hint of irreverence. It ingratiated him with the locker room in Boston and has made him a fixture in San Antonio, his new home after he signed as a free agent last summer.
“I think Luke Kornet is one of the most creative minds that I’ve been around in basketball and he creates a lot of joy in our locker room,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “And, um, yeah, I’ll leave it at that because I’ll keep the family business in the living room. But he is a joy to have.”
While the Spurs have been the ideal next chapter for his career, Kornet’s decision to leave Boston was not easy. Brad Stevens, the Celtics’ president of basketball operations, believed in Kornet enough to keep him around as he slowly developed. Kornet eventually evolved into one of the better backup centers in the league by the time Joe Mazzulla was head coach.
Over the past few seasons, Kornet went to Mass with Mazzulla and Kornet’s development coach, Craig Luschenat, when the team was on the road. That was where he learned the type of people his coaches were when the context of work was stripped away. It helped him understand the intense Mazzulla at a deeper level, while also seeing the consistency of his principles.
“Joe is who he is, and I think that’s what allows him to be that way and not be so fluctuating,” Kornet said. “He’s a lot more rooted in what you’re doing.”
Though Kornet is originally from the Dallas area, Boston helped him grow a thicker skin and hone his priorities in life. He grew to appreciate the direct, blunt nature of communication in Boston, contrasting it to the warmth and charm of the Southern culture where he was raised. He learned to understand that he is there to take care of the people he cares about and focus on what’s within his sphere.
“You’re frankly letting your word be what it actually is, and therefore not overpromising things just for the sake of perceived warmth to people, but it’s not actually really real or authentic,” he said. “You can joke and actually know what you’re standing on. It’s a real contrast of things. That was something I realized in Boston. You care for the people you’re there to care about, and you also kind of know who’s not your responsibility and you don’t care about that because it’s, like, not your duty.
“I can’t be everybody’s everything.”
That realization helped him find a broader, yet more direct version of Don’t Pass The Rock. This time around, it wouldn’t be locked into the church review concept. Posts have ranged from a play-by-play of the team’s plane troubles to a dissertation on why God took away his shooting ability.
When Kornet wrote an extensive Christmas letter for his family and friends, he felt his love for writing reviving once again. While his family puts together a card every year, he adds in a letter to provide a deeper message, writing in the smallest font he can muster just to fit everything he possibly can.
Any time Kornet gets asked a question, he often goes on a stream of conscious monologue that meanders into the surreal and absurd. He can talk in grand loops through his convoluted mind, producing moments of comedic brilliance that often disrupt the interview when everyone struggles to keep a straight face. Writing gives him a place to hone these thoughts, even if they still take some work to follow along.
“I enjoy writing a lot of parentheticals,” he said. “You’ve got to put your effort in to read this thing.”
The blog has reemerged as a vehicle for Kornet to express a more refined and open version of the person he shows the public. He never has trouble starting sentences, but often gets so lost in his thoughts that bringing the answer full circle can be a journey. The presence of the microphone seems to push him away from true openness, as is the case with most athletes.
The beauty of writing is having the time and space to hone your thoughts. Your words come out exactly as you wish. He writes like he talks, winding through bits to find a way to express his feelings with a veneer of comedy to alleviate the vulnerability. As he wrote in his second post, he’ll die on the hill that the best ability is vulnerability.
When the team was stuck on a plane grounded by a blizzard in Charlotte, inspiration struck. The combination of boredom and frustration had the words flowing out of him.
“With hearts aflame and spirits lifted, the distant runways of San Antonio International Airport seemed just beyond the hills,” Kornet wrote. “Sadly, the crossing of those hills was marked with the malfunction of a component and the subsequent incapacity to maintain cabin pressure. And that’s when I realized, airplanes are just like us. You want to be able to keep the pressure up for the full 48, but sometimes you can’t sustain it. Next Plane Up Mentality.”
The “next plane up mentality” line made him just say to himself, “Awesome.” It’s the feeling a writer is always chasing, that one line that they can’t wait to share with the world. It was the same feeling he would get when reading late-night show host Stephen Colbert’s 2007 book “I Am America (And So Can You!),” which was one of his great inspirations for his wit and satire.
It’s the same feeling he displays when he throws down a dunk and screams to the heavens, or strikes a pose so comical it ends up on a T-shirt.
LA fashion has reached a new level pic.twitter.com/TgJuCdVqkI
— Jared Weiss (@ JaredWeissNBA) December 11, 2025
Kornet is a showman, someone who leans into silliness to complement the seriousness. He didn’t make it from the fringes of the league to a valued piece of multiple contenders by goofing his way to the, well, middle of the pack.
He can see himself joining the media ranks one day. He won’t know until he hangs it up whether he wants to go coach, write or focus on another passion. But the one thing that will never end is his journeys to churches around the world, jotting down notes on how the lighting fills the stained glass windows and the parishioners welcome him with open arms.
“Something that faith enables,” Kornet said, “is that you realize what you’re ultimately really doing stuff for.”
By Jared Weiss, via The Athletic