An ode to Theo Pinson, the Spark Plug, the most enthusiastic man on the Knicks that provides the energy that fans just can’t at games right now.

Theo Pinson has been unstoppable this season. Per Almost-Basketball-Reference.com, the third year guard is the only player in the modern era to average a 50-40-90, the white whale of statistically measurable pre-impact; with 50 fists pumped, 40 mid-flight 3-pointers celebrated, and 90 sideline miles traveled per game. 538’s new PINEGAWD metric — a complex measurement of NBA-Yay, combining psychologically extrapolated off/on impact with adjusted Plays Celebrated — has him as the most enthusiastic teammate in NBA history. Bordering on dangerous levels of hoops-happy. High-grade, uncut, whispered-about heights of enthusiasm. That Bill-Walton-with-a-microphone shit.

Like defense, though, teammatery is a nebulous and fragile thing. It fidgets and chafes at being captured by numbers; numbers with a firm death grip on the on-court product, but too cold and rigid for the vagaries of sideline impact. Like all the best GOAT debates, complex subjective meta-questions are best framed through a slightly different, simpler, equally subjective micro-question:

Game seven, game on the line, gun to your head — who do you want cheering on your best player as they let it fly?

You want Theo “Pinegawd” Pinson, of course. 

In pretending to research this piece, real reasons for why Pinson is the answer to the real question above from real people ranged from, “What?” to “He’s practically on the court anyway, leaning over the sideline like everyone in every club ever leans over a bar at 3 a.m., ordering a drink,” to “The dude is dressed in warmups and sweating more than most players,” to “Are you OK?” to “He’s setting illegal late game screens with his mind, oblivious to anything but his naked need for ball to find twine,” to “Seek help, please, Jack.”

Looking back, he’s always been a special sideline presence, since going undrafted in 2018 and being picked up by the once-flagship NBA culture franchise Brooklyn Nets on a two-way deal. Best known for his sideline celebrations — certified GIF royalty and hype man extraordinaire — his solid G-League averages of 19 points, six boards, and six assists in 43 games for the Long Island Nets hinted at enough potential for the Knicks to sign Pinson to a second NBA two-way deal in November 2020. Irrespective of the theoretical possibility of developing into an on-court contributor and useful NBA player, Pinson’s contributions as an NBA teammate have never been more needed, and never more noticeable, than in this bizarre and ghostly season.

Pinson has been an arena of one on the Knicks’ bench through 23 games. Nicknamed “Spark Plug” by Basketball-Reference (the real one), Pinson has been a masked breath of fresh air from the bench, clapping and shouting and pointing with the collective verve of all the hands and faces and fingers of all the fans who aren’t at Madison Square Garden. He seemingly doesn’t get tired, fueled by the too-far-away feelings of thousand upon thousand of bored and housebound Knicks faithful, emotionally bottlenecked into a 25-year-old, 6-foot-5 sideline conduit of joy and hope and passion.

It’s a lesson for all of us, really. One shining and smiling example of possession-by-possession, day-by-day positivity in the face of a pandemic greedily hoovering up every crumb of normality, every scrap of routine, and every attempt at enthusiasm it can find. It’s difficult, at times — sitting in our sweatpants, with an alarmingly large head of hair, and a face full of experimental nordic insulation, waiting for the four zillionth Zoom meeting of the week — to channel our inner Theo Pinson. To find the Pinegawd within. To muster the energy for a fist pump,  the cause to hold up three hopeful fingers, or the gusto to howl with the makes and move on from the misses. 

Next time you tune in to watch Immanuel Quickley and his infinity of floaters, while waiting for the rookie revelation to get into the game with 0.54 seconds left in the first quarter, spend a few possessions watching Pinson-cam on the bench, and witness a master of hoops happy at work. 

Surprisingly feisty contributors can be found up and down the Knicks roster: from IQ’s Rookie of the Year quest, Julius Randle’s All-Star bid, and RJ Barrett’s sophomore surge. But the most consistent contributions may come from the masked man writhing with enthusiasm in front of the bench, averaging a cool 2.4 minutes per game in a whole seven total games this season — The Spark Plug, the Pinegawd, and the real M.E.T.: Theo Pinson.