NBA Finals - The Sphincter Factor
*This piece was originally published to the r/NBA subreddit on June 3rd, 2019 prior to Game 3 of the 2019 NBA Finals
It’s a well known physiological reaction, the tightening of the sphincter. Everyone does it. It’s a totally natural reaction as your body, when confronted with an adverse situation, enters fight or flight mode and tightens up in order to keep your insides from spilling out. And yet when I find myself leading conversations asking “When was the last time you got nervous and your butthole shriveled up?” people look at me like I just said something about a carpeted kitchen.
Undeterred, I present to you a totally scientific estimation as to just how hard certain figures in the NBA Finals are clenching their dumpers.
I will be using the following 0–10 scale as a measure of how clenched someone’s b-hole is.
0: Could not be less clenched. Like juuling in a lecture hall — as cool as someone can be.
1: Ever-so-slightly clenched. Like opening a pack of Starbursts and hoping that you don’t get two yellow ones.
2: Barely clenched. Like seeing a kind bumblebee on the sidewalk as you walk by.
3: A little clenched. Like being on vacation at the beach and remembering that you didn’t cancel your dentist appointment.
4: Kinda clenched. Like seeing a cop on the road even though you’re not speeding or anything.
5: Clenched. Like hearing the THX sound in the theaters as a kid.
6: Definitely clenched. Like listening to a voicemail from your mom after two missed calls.
7: Uncomfortably clenched. Like being at a funeral and remembering that you didn’t cancel your dentist appointment.
8: Painfully clenched. Like watching the scenes with the dogs in episode 4 of Chernobyl.
9: Vice-grip clench. Like watching the first scene of Saving Private Ryan but instead of soldiers shooting each other it’s pandas shooting each other.
10: Arthur’s hand-clenched. A rich man would have an easier time getting into heaven than anything making its way out of your bowels.
Now that we have our scale, we can begin. I won’t be going over everybody as I’m still tinkering with the formula, but we’ll hit some big names now, examine some others after Game 3, and make adjustments as necessary as the series progresses.
Stephen Curry — 4: Kinda clenched
Steph’s level of clench is really hard to place. On one hand, his team is going back to Oakland after winning a game that they easily could have lost, splitting the first two games and gaining home-court advantage for the series. The Warriors have momentum in this, their fifth straight Finals, and are in a position to win their third straight championship and put themselves on the all-time list of all-time teams.
But Klay Thompson tweaked something in his hamstring in Game 2, Kevon Looney is out for the rest of the series, Andre Iguodala has some lingering injury concerns and Kevin Durant (whose future is still unclear) will not play in Game 3. There is plenty of fodder here to incite a pucker in Curry’s curry-hole.
There’s also been a lot of talk about Curry having not won a Finals MVP trophy in his career despite being the de facto best player (during the regular season, not necessarily the Finals) on the 2015 championship team and the maybe-sort-of best player on the 2017 and 2018 championship squads. There are arguments made by Warrior-haters, the 22 Clippers fans out there and Max Kellerman that Curry serially underperforms in the playoffs.
And while his numbers through the first two games of these Finals have been solid — though not spectacular — Curry is a victim of his own standard. His regular season accomplishments already rank him among the greatest of all time. His playoff numbers, though consistently above average and criminally underrated, are prone to a few bad nights when his lethal shooting efficiency drops. In the minds of many viewers and talking-heads, he still lacks a signature series in the on the sport’s biggest stage; which is contrasted further by how memorable some of his regular season performances were.
If Steph can lead the Warriors to one more ring against a formidable opponent and with key teammates possibly missing multiple games, all of those hot takes will go away as he will undoubtedly add the final trophy to his mantel. I expect him to clench accordingly.
Kawhi Leonard — 7: Uncomfortably clenched
The Klaw? More like The Klench. There are some silver linings and positive affirmations that Kawhi can think about, but let’s start with the stuff that’ll have him seizin’ and squeezin’ his sphincter. His team is tied with the Warriors and probably should have won Game 2 but didn’t, and now the series is going back to Golden State, where the Warriors have won 85% of their playoff games since 2015.
Losing Game 2 is extra tough because it was right there for the taking. Had any of a number of shots down the stretch gone in, the Raptors would have been primed to steal a game as the Dubs’ offense stalled. The Raptors failed to capitalize, though, and gave away home court. The next two games in the Bay will be a very butt-puckering exercise.
However, Kawhi shouldn’t lock the doors just yet. In their last series, the Raptors came back from down 2–0 against the Bucks, who were the odds-on favorite to make it to the Finals. Granted, Games 4 and 5 were in Toronto, but the moral fiber is still evident. Additionally, if Kawhi wants to look at this semi-selfishly: he’s playing like the best player in the world and has asserted himself already as the best player that has ever come through Toronto.
He already has a vintage game winner, a vintage dunk and a vintage laugh, leaving very little left to be proven. If he leads the Raptors to their first championship, he’s on the short list along with Dirk and D-Wade as the only guys this century to bring their team its first championship after tearing through the playoffs as a one-man wrecking crew. Android though he may be, he’s clenching uncomfortably hard.
Kevin Durant — 6: Definitely clenched.
If you ever got the chance to ask Kevin Durant how clenched his butt is when he thinks about this series and then followed through and asked him that, you would probably get answers like “Who are you”, “What the fuck are you talking about”, “How did you get in here”, “Why are you so sweaty”, and “Not very” before being immediately hit with a restraining order and being known as the dude that asked Kevin Durant about his butt.
That last answer is the most important one because it is almost certainly a lie. Kevin Durant cares deeply about what people think of him, which is an extremely human thing to care about and one that I do not think he should be ridiculed for. He must know that mean people out there (even people that hate the Warriors) want the Warriors to win without him so that they can say things like “Durant ruined the Warriors”, “The Warriors could’ve won without him all along” and “Durant’s championships all have asterisks”.
Even so, the Warriors winning without him would still count as a championship for him and it is still possible that he could come back at some point in this series and try to leave his fingerprints on it. It’s also possible that the Raptors could win in his absence, which would stifle the talk of the “ruined” state of the league with KD in Golden State and perhaps make it more likely that he returns.
In any event, Durant will still be a free agent this summer and could do anything (though it sounds like he may have some fans feeling like their team is back on pace and gearing up for a championship race). Only time will tell this story and only Kevin knows how clenched his butt truly is.
Drake — 9: Vice-grip clench
As the ultra-mega-super famous meme lord of the Raptors, Drake desperately needs this series to go in their favor. He is, more than anyone, the face of the franchise and he has a sports curse associated with him that continues to wrack up bodies. Klay Thompson said “See you in the Bay, Aubrey” to him after Game 2, and calling someone who has a stage name by their real name just seems like some next-level pettiness. Imagine if Reggie Miller had won a road game in Madison Square Garden and said “See you in Indiana, Shelton” to Spike Lee afterwards.
Drake’s sphincter is ready for war.
Former President Barack Obama — 0: Could not be less clenched.
All aboard the Colon Express.
Obama was in attendance in Toronto for Game 2 (already a cool thing to be able to do), sat next to Adam Silver the whole game (someone else who knows where bodies are buried), got a standing ovation as a former leader of a foreign country (way cooler than being told by my mom that I did a good job emptying the dishwasher) and rocked a leather jacket that Esquire said “[is] bringing balance to the universe”.
Sure the Warriors are giving the 90’s Bulls a run for their historical money, but if you think that that makes Number 44’s butt start to quiver even the slightest bit, you’re dead wrong.
Me — 8: Painfully clenched.
TL;DR - Various buttholes are clinching to various degrees.