Last year around January or February 2023, I remember when a Spurs Muse account asked people or their fellow Spurs fan which players deserve to be in the All-Star game that year 2023, some people said Tyrese Haliburton. I was like yeah that guy deserves to be there. Then that same account replied back to one of the respondents regarding Haliburton’s case being in the All-star game saying Wally Szczerbiak (a former NBA player turned Knicks color analyst) has something to say regarding Tyrese.
So you resort to putting their names together on Google search to see what happened because I think when Wally said that, I was out of the loop. Lo and behold the Google search results showed that in light of Tyrese Haliburton missing the game-winning or probably game-tying shot against the New York Knicks at the Garden, Wally resorted to saying along the lines of Tyrese not hitting that shot would not make him a case to be in the All-Star game - in fact the trigger word was a “Wanna be All-Star”. He also added that Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle deserve more to be in the All-Star game than Tyrese Haliburton.
Fast forward to April 2023, I watched Bleacher Report’s Youtube Series entitled “Hero Ball” where on one episode entitled “Kings Beam is Under Attack” where it showed that Tyrese Haliburton was trying to sabotage the Almighty Beam at Sacramento (Backstory: Tyrese Haliburton was traded from Sacramento to Indiana Pacers for Domantas Sabonis). Then jumped into the part on the episode where Tyrese attempted to sabotage the Almighty Beam and he entered into the beam where he was able to converse with the Almighty Beam. In the conversation, Tyrese confessed to the Almighty Beam that he tried to destroy him just to prove to everyone in Sacramento that he is not a fake hero. The Almighty Beam responded to him and said “Wally Szczerbiak is everyone now?” He then told Tyrese that he was a hero here in Sacramento, and a hero in Indiana. He also added that doesn’t mean that the Kings (as a team) are shining right now, Tyrese cannot shine. As the Almighty Beam’s final words, he then encouraged Tyrese to find his own beam. The episode rewinds back to the part where he was still attempting to sabotage the Almighty Beam where he realized that he will find his own beam; thus, went back to “the lottery town” or his new team.
The Almighty Beam’s words saying “Wally Szczerbiak is everyone” struck me. Well for one Wally Szczerbiak has somehow a soft spot for me for the reason I don’t know (if I will really, really plan to create a separate blog that was long overdue). Two, the words made me realize that why do we sometimes think that one person’s negative remarks against us already defined us as a person compared with millions of people saying the positive and rightful things to us?
I guess the saying was true when you heard nine positive comments and when you saw one negative comment, you would only focus on the negative comment instead of the nine positive ones that you received.
As much as we hate to admit, sometimes one mistake defines who we are. Such as the girl who was nicknamed “Amalayer”. She trended on social media just because her burst of anger at the heat of the moment to the lady security guard without her knowing that her actions were being recorded by someone and uploaded it on social media. Imagine the world crumbled in front of you just because of that one unfortunate incident. I think that in the end in terms of the story about her, she was able to find a safe space in God’s arms by joining a group where nobody judged her and welcomed her with loving arms.
Maybe that episode on Bleacher Report’s Hero Ball along with dozens of videos, blogs and quotes saying that we shouldn’t let one person negatively influence how the world perceives us. Or in this case in every failure, we were given a chance to redeem ourselves - but it should be in a way where it doesn’t involve hurting other people just to prove ourselves to the naysayers or naysayer.
So like Tyrese Haliburton, if Wally Szczerbiak said he was a wanna be All-star, all you have to do is to prove that you can will your team to win every game. Eventually Tyrese got into the 2023 All-Star game as a reserve. Then comes the 2023-2024 NBA season not only he won the hearts of fans, players and media by voting him in getting the 2024 All-Star Starter nod, but the Indiana Pacers came leaps and bounds by getting into the Eastern Conference Finals which includes eliminating the duo of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard's Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of playoffs and also the Jalen-Brunson-led New York Knicks in the Eastern Semi-conference finals.
For us, maybe we just have to know ourselves very well and know which comments (whether positive or negative), worth taking into heart that only means well for you to improve and which ones are just using you for their own clout or popularity.
