Off Social Media, Nik Stauskas Seeking Light at the End of the Tunnel

Atop Nik Stauskas' Twitter page -- the one he visited only occasionally this season -- is an unattributed quote: "When you master your mind, you master your life."

The Sixers' backup wing endeavored to do that in his third NBA season and second with the team. He sought out the counsel of a sports psychologist before the year got underway. He swore off social media once it began and for the most part stuck to that vow.

The result was tunnel vision. No longer did he allow negativity to seep in, to sap him. No longer did others' slings and arrows knock him off-stride.

That led in turn to incremental improvement -- he averaged 9.5 points a game on 39.6-percent shooting (36.8 percent from 3), all career highs -- but leaves us all with a question, now that the offseason is upon us: Where, exactly, is he tunneling to?

And when will he see the light?

It's possible he will remain a useful reserve next season on a team that surely will look very different from the current one. Or that he will slide another seat or two down the bench, or even out of town. Hard to say.

Coach Brett Brown clearly believes in him; he said recently that Stauskas has "as much 'game' as anybody on our team, in the wings," and late in the year he was even employed as the backup point guard. (Brown also said that in practice he has "ruthlessly" addressed Stauskas' weaknesses, notably on defense.)

Yet Stauskas knows he has to be better, that he has to keep tunneling.

"There's still things this year, just consistency-wise, that I haven't been as great (at) as I would have liked to (be)," he said recently. "Just for me to continually see a little bit of progress, it's like the light at the end of the tunnel."

So to speak.

"That gives me hope," he continued, "if I keep putting in the work, things will continually get a little bit better."

He doesn't turn 24 until October, remember, and just three years ago Sacramento used the eighth overall pick to draft him. Acquired in a larcenous trade from the Kings before the '15-16 season -- a Sam Hinkie special, to be sure -- he is a bright, aware guy. He's done some TV work in his native Canada and is toying with the idea of one day becoming a motivational speaker.

Truth be told, though, he might be too bright, too aware. Too apt to hear every barb, internalize every slight.

He first sat down with a sports psychologist while at Michigan, where he was named Big Ten Player of the Year in 2013-14, his second and last season there. He discontinued those sessions his first two NBA seasons, then reached out once more before this one began.

"I felt like if I was going to make the kind of strides I needed to make," he said early in the year, "I was going to have my mental game on point and it be really sharp."

That's also what led to his social media embargo. 

"I just felt like it wasn't healthy for me anymore," he said. "There was a lot of negativity out there. I was focusing on it a lot and it was bothering me."

He hasn't had a Facebook account in a while, and a scan of his Twitter page shows he limited his activity to a single retweet between Oct. 8 and Dec. 24. He emerged from hibernation on Christmas Eve, when the Sixers were in Sacramento, in part because he was seeking out a gym where he could get some shots up, but then disappeared from the social media platform once more. He has had a handful of retweets since Christmas, but his only original post came on Jan. 10 and it concerned Joel Embiid's All-Star campaign.

There has also been an Instagram foray or two, Stauskas said, but nothing too extreme.

"It was actually kind of good the first month, where I was completely off both of them," he said. "It was good to just clear my mind and get away from that kind of stuff. But it wasn't too difficult (to avoid). It was more of like getting rid of a habit, and once you get rid of it, it's just easier not to go on as much."

He hails from Mississauga, Ont., just outside Toronto. Never was a hockey guy, though. Had a court in the backyard where he used to go at it with his brother, Peter. (One game of one-on-one grew so heated that when it ended, Peter chased after him with the shovel they used to clear the snow away.)

Vince Carter was the Raptors' star at the time, and when Nik was 8 or 9, he recalled going to an open practice. A guy came up to him as he sat in the front row of the stands and asked if he wanted to engage in a shooting contest with Carter, and Nik couldn't get out on the court fast enough.

"I made my first three or four shots," he said. "I think he took it a little bit seriously after I made my first couple shots."

"I remember that," Carter said earlier this season. "We talked about it when he first got in the league."

Carter, now 40 and with Memphis, is wrapping up his 19th season. When the Sixers played the Grizzlies in the Wells Fargo Center on Nov. 23 -- a 104-99 Grizzlies victory -- he and Stauskas actually guarded each other. (Stauskas outscored him, 10-7, though neither shot well.)

"It's crazy," Stauskas said. "That was like one of my childhood heroes. ... I would have died if you would have told me when I was a kid I was going to get a chance to actually go up against him and guard him."

Now Stauskas is seeking something more, after a season that didn't meet his expectations -- in part, he said, because he always likes to "dream big and set the bar really high."

He will do so again this offseason while splitting time between Toronto and Philadelphia.

And, of course, maintaining his tunnel vision.

"You can never sharpen up your mental tools enough," he said.

The rest, he can only hope, will follow.