Nomadic Fandom: Why Playing the Field Comes Highly Recommended

   

I’ve been an NBA nomad since my Rochester Royals left town. I will develop affinities for certain teams without ever tying the knot with them. If you don’t naturally grow up with a strong connection to a certain team in a certain sport, I highly recommend this drifting fandom lifestyle. In many ways its like taking a class pass/fail. Less stress over the outcome often brings about more pleasure in the product.

Speed dating fandom allows one to appreciate the league as a whole, without getting bogged down caring about the PER of the same eight players and the coaching decisions of the same coach over the 82-game grind. As a nomad, I can come to appreciate different teams and different moments without feeling like I’m committing adultery.
I’ve been crushing on the plucky Bobcats and Suns this spring. Teams with former Syracuse players in their starting 5’s (New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia) have my approval, though even Wes Johnson’s 9.1 PPG can’t bring me to root for the Lakers. I’ll cheer 11% more for whichever team nabs Tyler Ennis in the draft. Playing the Heat in the Finals is a good way into my heart. I mailed a thank you card out to the Mavericks in 2011 and was 5.2 seconds away from mailing one to the attn: of Gregg Popovich last June.

I understand the euphoric highs I’m sacrificing, the ones rewarded to the true fans that endure the grind and see their team succeed, but after another 6-win Buffalo Bills season, I’m content with just sitting back and avoiding the infuriatingly crushing lows that comes when the team you put your soul, voice and concerns into disappoints.

The unattached sports experience also keeps one from being affixed to a loathsome team. Like family, you don’t choose who you root for. It’s something you’re born into more often than not. My grandfather was a Red Wings fan; my father was a Red Wings fan, ergo… Octopus! While this “fandom as birthright” notion strengthens familial bonds and makes for solid B plot tropes, it can lead to a repugnant product being foisted upon you. Think of the young wizard who is sorted into Slytherin because Slytherin was his father’s house or the innocent child in Nassau County who grows up a fan of the Dolan Knicks through no fault of his own.

You don’t jump ship when your team becomes less likable. I tend to be wary of those who arbitrate “true” fandom, but sticking with your squad no matter what might be the closest thing to a hard-and-fast rule we have.

You stick with your team no matter the depths of their loathsomeness. I’ve been a Yankees fan since I could pronounce “El Duque”. I soaked in their ’98-’00 Godzilla romp through the rest of the league. I cried for a day when Luis Gonzalez blooped that single. It was the first moment I realized the Yankees were mortal.

In the early and mid-aughts, I watched as the Yankees morphed into their truest iterations of the “Evil Empire”, a period where Steinbrenner tolled up a payroll the size of most Eastern European GDPs. The overpriced toys acquired in this era were sometimes good (Gary Sheffield), sometimes bad (Kevin Brown), but consistently unlikeable.

While human nature would lead any impartial viewer with a modicum of morality to root for the spirited underdog with a payroll of $50 million, Yankees fans had to close off human nature from their cerebrums and instead root for their Bronx Bombers to crush the dreams of the otherwise lovable Wild Card team (quite often the Twins). During those years, the pinstripes represented less tradition and class, and more gluttonous privilege. Rooting for them was like rooting for the 1% to rake in fall bonuses.

While light-years from being spendthrifts, the Yanks have at least somewhat (again, somewhat) tempered their image as drunken carnivorous spenders in the post-Steinbrenner years. Still, being a Yankees fan today means pulling for Goliath to triumph. Being a Yankees fan still means hoping Suzyn Waldman’s happy (she tends to talk more when she is). Being a Yankees fan still means rooting for A-Rod. Don't get me wrong. I’m grateful to ride with the Yanks no matter how much pine tar is found dotted on our starting pitchers' necks. But don’t think this fandom is all smile emojis and lilacs in Monument Park.

So as we go further into the NBA playoffs, my conscious can rest easy. I can adopt teams that demonstrate likable qualities and shrug when they exit. I can marvel at players and plays without guilt nor jealousy. I don’t have to worry about anything, a rare but alluring existence for a sports fan.

Chipper Jones, Nostalgia and Backyard Baseball 2001

Pictured: Baseball at its purest

The moment had every dramatic baseball cliché you can think of. The bases were loaded. It was the bottom of the 9th. There were two outs, with the championship on the line. Sammy Sosa led off third. Vlad Guerrero stood on second as Barry Larkin watched from first. The batter dug into the box; the moment was his. He calmly took the first pitch, a crazyball, for a strike. The pitcher, uber-nerd Dmitri Petrovich, adjusted his glasses, then delivered an inside fireball. The batter swung late as the ball zipped by him in a gulf of flames. Strike two. With no more special pitching “power-ups,” the pitcher threw a breaking ball that hung over the center of the plate. And the batter, Chipper Jones made him pay.

Winning Backyard Baseball 2001 was the highlight of my summer, the one between 4th and 5th grade. I know this might seem a little sad, but Backyard Sports were the greatest electronic games until Halo, and I was a baseball fanatic. I still remember the exact order of my stack batting order, a lineup so littered with future Hall-of-Famers, All-Stars and steroid abusers that it’s a little embarrassing I had the championship game come down to the last half inning.

Kenny Lofton was my leadoff man. He would get to first on a bunt every time (to second if I had crazy bunt). Barry Bonds batted next, not quite the unrealistic steroid-aided power slugger in the computer game as he would soon become in real life, but Bonds was still usually good for an opposite field single or double down the line. The other team’s catchers were always the really sucky neighborhood kids (except for Pablo Sanchez whose gritty style of play and overall swagger made him the ideal sports figure to emulate), and so it was pretty easy to have Lofton steal all the way to home. It didn’t really matter if I did or not, for the 3-4-5-6 batters in the lineup read Griffey-Sosa-McGwire-Guerrero. After three out of those four hit homeruns into the neighbor’s lawn, I had Pablo Sanchez (see above). The 8 spot was reserved for Larkin --whose Topps rookie card was the coolest thing a pack of trading cards ever got me (Pokémon included). Then came Chipper batting 9th.

I honestly don’t remember why I put him in my lineup. As a Yankees fan you’d think I’d have gone with Jeter. As a fellow Jew, I always liked Shawn Green. And Alex Rodriguez, the young MVP-type talent from the Mariners, was also available. But for some reason Chipper drew me in. There was something very classic to his baseball game, down to the prefect baseball nickname of Chipper (I could tell you his real name but it would diminish the legacy). Come Opening Day 2012, he will have played all his 18 seasons in Major League Baseball with the same team, a rarity in modern times. Yet there will be no 19th season for Jones, who yesterday announced that the Braves 2012 campaign would be his last in a player’s uniform. While still a serviceable hitter, Jones’s numbers have dipped these past few years to but a fraction of what the perennial All-Star once produced in his prime. 1998-2003 saw a six year span where Jones hit over .300, 25 home runs and 100 RBI in each season. And then in 2008, despite injuries hampering the Braves third basemen in his later career, Jones, at the ripe age of 36, won the NL batting title with a .364 average, the a mark that National league player has come within 20 percentage points of since. But as a Yankees fan who frankly didn’t give two cares to Chipper’s on-field career (until late October at least), I’m reacting to his pending retirement with a good sense of nostalgia. I think 20 is the age a person can start feeling genuine nostalgia for a bygone era, and for me, the era was that summer spent hovered over a Backyard Sports game with my finger twitching the mouse.

 While not using the Aluminum Power bat to knock balls into adjacent stratospheres, I filled my days playing actually backyard baseball with the neighborhood kids, our own version of Sandlot, except that we all kind of stunk and there was no beast. After playing, we would gather in one of our basements to haggle each other over baseball card trades (I cried for three days when my older brother swindled me into trading away Carlos Delgado for Bobby Bonilla). I still have those cards somewhere in the attic, and if not for the steroid era defaming the good names of players like Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield, they might have actually been worth a considerable amount of money someday. Chipper Jones belongs to this time period in my life. And while there are still several players on the 2001 version of Backyard Baseball still in the league, many like Pudge Rodriguez, Guerrero and Carlos Beltran are but shadows of the players they once were.

It’s just a matter of time before they too make a similar announcement to the one Chipper made, closing the books on their playing careers and the period in my life when baseball was its purest.

Nets Trade their Lottery Ticket to a Title

The newest Net, Gerald Wallace, may have been a mistake

The NBA trade deadline came and went last week with the junior high-worthy gossip and drama surrounding a certain center from Orlando occupying much of the media spotlight. Part soap opera, part hostage situation, the impending threat of Dwight Howard seeking the greener pastures of a big market caused the Orlando Magic to offer their seven-time all-star everything short of renaming the franchise in his honor. This reportedly included Magic owner Richard Devos giving Howard control over the future fates of GM Otis Smith and Head Coach Ron Jeremy Stan Van Gundy. Thus if Howard has a perverse sense of humor, the rotund Van Gundy could be a member of the Magic dance squad come playoff time.

In the end, this sycophantic approach worked (kind of), and Howard agreed to remain in Orlando for at least the very foreseeable future, exercising a one-year option on his contract. So the Magic got their man (kind of) and whatever dignity the franchise lost along the way will be assuaged if Howard keeps putting up point and rebounding statistics that rival the ratio for perfect vision (20/20).

Yet while the Magic were the spectacle, another franchise, one equally desperate to retain a superstar, made a move that reeked of desperation worse than a teenager reeks of insecurity and Ax. And this team, unlike the Magic, aren’t likely to get their star.

Days before the deadline, the Nets acquired forward Gerald Wallace from the Trailblazers in exchange for the Nets first round draft pick. The Nets, owned by Russian eccentric Mikhail Prokhorov, are weary that their current point guard Deron Williams, will not accompany the team as they move into Brooklyn next year unless the Nets add more talent. After whiffing on a deal for Howard before the trade deadline, the Nets were desperate to bring in any marginally well-known name from around the league. And they gave up a likely top pick to do so.
Now New Jersey did at least include a clause that protects their rights to the draft pick if it happens to fall within the top three picks. This is important, for Anthony Davis, the undisputed top pick in the draft, is an overgrown man-child with the defensive prowess of a Howard and the ball handling skills of a three guard. Landing their ping-pong ball on the No. 1 position only to lose Davis due to the trade would be gut wrenching for the Nets and their hundreds of fans. Also, increasing Portland’s probability of obtaining the No. 1 pick to use on another highly touted center just seems cruel to everyone at this point.

But while Davis earns top prospect honors with distinction, this year’s draft class is abnormally deep, due to many of last year’s top players opting for another year of school instead of facing the threat of a locked out rookie season. Harrison Barnes, Jared Sullinger and Perry Jones III watched from their respective dorm rooms as a parade of less talented international players, with names usually only heard in a World Cup telecast between Slovenia and Ghana, were seen shaking hands with David Stern within the first seven selections of the 2011 draft. Add in a particularly stacked freshman class that all seemed to play at Kentucky, and the protection New Jersey has with the first three picks does not guarantee the Nets will not miss out on an uber-talented young player by handing a potential No.4 – No. 10 pick to the Trailblazers. And with the Nets currently holding the sixth worst record in the league, the probability of “earning” and promptly losing an unprotected pick outside of the top three is 78.5%.

Thus, according to the mock draft orders of people in the know, acquiring Gerald Wallace will, in 78.5% likelihood, have cost the Nets the chance to select Barnes, Jones, Sullinger or freshman like Indiana’s Cody Zeller, Kentucky’s Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Florida’s Bradley Beal who some describe as a cross between Ray Allen and Eric Gordon. All these players will be a decade fresher than the injury-prone Wallace whose good but rarely great output over the past eleven seasons gives him an on court production ceiling much lower than the potentials of the prospects listed above.

Would a rebuilding team rather have a battered Wallace or a fresh Allen/Gordon hybrid? And which would be more appealing Deron Williams, the middling star who should never be higher than the third or fourth scoring option on a contending team or a budding young prospect with racks on racks on racks of potential?

There have been successful teams, like last year’s championship Mavs, that surrounded a superstar (Nowitzki) with establish veterans in the general class of a Gerald Wallace (Jason Terry, Tyson Chandler, Shawn Marion, Jason Kidd). Yet this Mavs team had four, not one Gerald Wallaces.

Furthermore, the Mavs formula was an exception to the contemporary NBA blueprint on how to contend for a title. The true title contenders in both conferences, Miami, Chicago (East) and OKC, San Antonio, and both LA teams (West) have at least two perennial all-stars (Chicago’s Deng made first All-Star game this year but will likely make many more in the years to come). This is what separates the your Nuggets, 76’ers and Pacers from the teams with a legitimate shot of competing into June. This is why Lebron teamed up with Wade. This is why Durant and Westbrook will make sure their dynamic duo does not go the way of the Kobe and Shaq breakup. This is why Chris Paul was none too bummed with Commissioner Stern’s much maligned veto of the Lakers-Rockets-Hornets trade, for the five-time all-star point guard landed in the company of Blake Griffin, a star player in the process of becoming a superstar. Wallace, who did make the All-Star Game in 2010, has seen likely seen his best days behind him as the often injured veteran ages to the wrong side of 30. He will not be enough to keep Deron Williams from finding a team with an established fellow star (like in his hometown of Dallas), and without Williams, the Nets will have little appeal to Howard, if/when Howard decides to depart from Orlando. Yes Mr. Prokhorov could luck out and win the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft, securing the wingspan and inside presence of an Anthony Davis to lure Williams to stay.

But New Jersey did not need a top three pick to find a constant 1st or 2nd team All-NBA-caliber talent. Chris Paul (4th), Russell Westbrook (4th) and Dwyane Wade (5th) were all selected outside of the top three in draft classes that were also considered deep.
The Nets will be moving to Brooklyn next year, and they desperately want illustrious stars to attract fans to the new stadium. This want has blinded them to how a team gets really good in the NBA. Every title-contender needs at least two Cadillacs on their roster, be it Lebron-Wade, Durant-Westbrook, Paul-Griffin or Kobe-Gasol.

Out of desperation and near-sightedness, the Nets gave up their lottery bid for a Cadillac, in exchange for a Nissan Ultima. This exchange should never occur. It makes for a mediocre basketball team and a pretty bad analogy.