Sometimes, the noise doesn’t translate. Cheers that rock an arena’s foundation, boos that rattle its rafters, the television muffles them, neutralizes them, softens them. A din can seem dim when it’s boiled down to a speaker, even on the most sophisticated TV.
But there is no mistaking what you hear every single time you replay the moment Kristaps Porzingis became a Knick. Every time, NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s body language tells you he knows what is coming.
“With the fourth pick in the 2015 NBA draft,” Silver says, “the New York Knicks select …”
Here, Silver widens his eyes and almost smiles, as if trying to soften the blow to the thousands of Knicks fans who had invaded Barclays Center, and he involuntarily emphasizes every few words, like a convention keynote speaker urging on the unpopular planks of a party platform.