Mike Conley is a guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves in his 19th season. He has played more than 37,000 minutes in the NBA and has never been called for a technical foul. At least 15 times a year I get the questions from other players: “Are you going to get a tech tonight? Are you going to finally do it?” There have been a few games where I’ve reacted right away and jumped up and down after a missed call, and everybody else gets kind of excited: “We thought you were going to get a tech!” As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more receptive to the streak. I used to think: “Maybe I should just get a technical foul because people are going to think I don’t care.” But the older I get the more I realize it’s a super power. It allows me to move on really quickly. When you have a bad play or something bad happens to you (you feel something should have been a foul), you can spend two or three possessions or even a quarter thinking about it. “Man, that’s messed up. I can’t believe they did that.” You can spend so much energy on it that you might not realize you’ve been playing terribly for the last 10 minutes because that’s all you’ve been thinking about. Well, I don’t ever have that issue. If I do something bad or something bad happens to me, I go back to thinking about the next play or the next shot. I keep moving forward. I think that just gives you a level of aura. When I go to the free-throw line, I don’t feel a thing. What should be a nerve-racking situation feels very comfortable to me, and I think that’s because I don’t have many highs and lows mentally during a game. It’s an extension of the way I approach basketball in general. A lot of people think being quiet and not showing as much emotion means you’re lacking something or maybe you’re weak. But I beg to differ. To me it’s the opposite. You have full control of your emotions, full control of every situation. You’re able to find a way to be calm through it all and regulate your mind to the point where you’re able to think and not just react. I’m a big fan of Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne. I watched them score a million touchdowns. And not one time did they score and start dancing. It was just business as usual. It was just like: “We scored, what’s next?” I wanted to adopt that approach to the game. I liked that kind of mindset way better, and I wanted to be like those guys. It really had a profound impact on my outlook. I tried to approach the game the way they did, and when you start approaching things that way, you start falling into an identity: “This is who I am. This is my standard. This is who I want to be when I play.” I get mad just as much as the next person, but it’s all about how you react. How long are you going to let it bother you? We played a game recently against Detroit. We got a steal, I leaked out to run down the court for a layup, and while they were trying to throw the ball ahead to me, it went out of bounds. My teammates were all down on the other end of the court saying, “Review, review, review!” I was by our bench, and I thought our coaches were going to review it. I was talking to the ref near me. Then the ref handed the ball to the other team to inbound it — I was still on the far end of the court, so it was essentially a five on four. Inside, I was pissed. I was