Moving on

Dear James, Daniel and Emily,

The NBA season is over. The Lakers won the championship, in an almost anticlimactic fashion. I was happy they won, but this team underlined my changing perspective on the NBA. It just wasn't that much fun to watch any of these playoffs. The game has become so professional, so business like that it is losing it's allure. I almost wished the Magic could have won for the same reasons I was cheering for the Suns the last couple of seasons. Something new. I know that basketball, and the NBA especially, is a star driven sport. But it has been missing something in the last few years. Teams are slowly losing their uniqueness. And I think that is what makes any league great. Having teams play with a certain style.

Growing up the NBA had that flavor. The Lakers were Showtime, the Nuggets were Run'n'Gun, the Pistons were the Bad Boys, the Celtics were the brutes, the Jazz were (and still are) about execution. But that is disappearing, instead it's about what stars are on the team: the Lakers are Kobe, the Heat are Dwayne Wade, the Cavs are Lebron etc. And I have lost my taste for watching games like that, especially when the biggest stars seem to get preferential treatment from the Media and the Refs etc.

So it is with not much regret that I move on from the end of the NBA season. And get to look forward to my favorite game: football. Because the beauty of football is that as big as the stars are, they are still wearing that uniform and helmet, and are therefore still faceless to an extent. And therefore th rooting interest is still about the teams first, and players second. And that allows teams to maintain a sense of personality and identity. The Cowboys will always be the team of stars, the Raiders will always be the mismatched group of outlaws, the Bears will always be the Monsters of the Midway. Players and stars may come and go, but the teams are always there, and hold that allure and fan base. And it is the same story with college football as well, stars may come and go, but the teams and the fan base don't care.

Of course I have to endure the next 2 months without any sports with a serious rooting interest, but that is not a bad thing. I can continue working on my ability to watch sports without getting attached to the outcome by watching baseball, because I know I don't much care about baseball, at least not to the point of dying with every outcome.