NBA fans are a passionate group. Many are as smart as heck. In 2023, fandom and analysis mix freely in the age of open media and the Internet, creating a chemistry that did not exist in the same way before global communication became part of our daily lives.
Talking to yourself brings great joy. It can also bring big challenges, as evidenced by today’s Blazer’s Edge mailbag.
Dave,
I want you to talk about our fans with your years of experience. You’ve seen almost everything at this point, I suppose, and you seem to keep a pretty positive attitude. I don’t see the same thing in most fans. It seems like we’ve become a bunch of nitpickers who overanalyze every little thing instead of actually having fun and enjoying what we have. Even your rooms become quite difficult and even dark at times. I think most of us are just there to have fun. Why can’t we just enjoy the game, win or lose? What do you get from being so critical all the time? Can you encourage people to find a better balance, even readers here?
Kyle
I appreciate your question and I don’t think you’re alone in your feeling, but I can’t travel very far on this train.
Let’s get things straight from the start. Nothing in professional sports is more fun than winning. When the wins come in droves and a franchise contends for a title, the analysis proves positive and the fun factor skyrockets. It brings everyone together in this way, automatically solving the problem.
If your team makes you choose between winning and having fun, you already know they’re pretty bad. “Fun” in this case becomes a substitute for success, not a byproduct of it.
It just doesn’t work that way… not for the players, not for the coaches, not for the management, and in the long run, not for the fans either. All these people are capable of enjoying the game even in defeat. Highlight dunks, player development, buzzer-beaters…these are always great moments! No one is trying to take away their joy. But ultimately, they don’t matter as much – or provide as much lasting pleasure – if they rarely lead to victory. It’s like picking up random parts of the game without experiencing a coherent whole.
If we consider “fun” as the main reason for following the game, we must admit that it is a subjective concept. For example, many people have fun analyzing teams and matches. You might not have fun doing it – or reading about it – but that shouldn’t stop anyone else from enjoying it.
Many calls to “have fun and enjoy the game” are prefaced with some version of “You guys are just horrible.” No, that’s not the case. They simply find a different way to engage in the process. Your pleasure is not their pleasure, and vice versa.
We can go to extremes with this. If fun is the only metric that matters, why limit the discussion to basketball? Many things are just as fun, if not more. If the team starts to lose and keeping up with them becomes a chore, why not shift the topic of the site to sex, circuses, penguins, or a combination of all three? All of them are probably more fun than having a -12.5 per game deficit on the scoreboard.
This remains true even if one adopts a charitable view of the debate. Sometimes charity is not deserved. I’ve seen a lot of discussions like this take place over the course of a season…
Bob: The Blazers are going to be awesome this year!
Sam: I’m not sure. They have some weaknesses…
Bob: I don’t think you’re right!
Portland loses 7 of 10 to start the season.
Sam: I think some of those weaknesses are showing up now.
Bob: These are the referees, the phase of the moon and the travel schedule. They will come back!
Portland plays just below .500 for a long time and seems to be fading into oblivion.
Sam: We should probably start talking about the cracks in the roster.
Bob: Why do you have to analyze every little thing? Why can’t you just sit back and have fun???
I’m not saying you do that at all, Kyle. I think your question and motive are well-intentioned. But the “fun” argument has been used in this way too often to simply pass it off as completely innocent (and presented at face value) in all cases. If analysis can be misused, so can calls to limit it.
Ideally, we’re all here to really talk about basketball, no matter what happens during a season. Some years it’s going to be extremely positive. Some years this will not be the case. We don’t change our mission statement when the team’s fortunes change. We continue to speak honestly no matter what, whether that means being honestly surprised or honestly critical. Usually it’s a combination of both.
Part of that honest talk means finding joy in the game and in the franchise, no matter what. No analysis can filter that out. If people didn’t care, they wouldn’t analyze in the first place.
You’re right in this: I don’t respect people who use analytical language to ridicule others for their passion, nor those who use statistics and graphs to centralize their cynicism. This isn’t a discussion, it’s vanity.
That said, using fun and fandom to end analysis is no different. It’s just the same impulse, directed in the opposite direction. That doesn’t make things better.
If we can’t all enjoy the shared pleasure that comes with winning big, the best solution is to appreciate everyone’s definition of “fun” without marginalizing those who take a different approach. If everyone owns their feelings and words, there is nothing wrong with saying so. “The Blazers had a huge turnover problem last night.” There’s also nothing wrong with answering, “Anyway, I really enjoyed this game.”
We get in trouble when people say. “The Blazers have the highest turnover rate in the league! How could you enjoy that?!? Fire meets fire with comments like, “Don’t mention the turnovers. Just enjoy the team, Debbie Downer! » In each case, someone is telling another reader how they should enjoy the sport instead of sharing how they perceive it themselves. The thorny problem has little to do with either perspective (amusing or analytical) and everything to do with how those perspectives are expressed and/or used.
Perhaps the best question to ask in all of this is, “Is the way I talk funny?” Does it provide insight and build community around the team, whether through passion or intellectual work? » Doing either is OK. If our comments do neither, maybe the team isn’t the only thing to check.
Thanks for the question! You can always send yours to [email protected] and we’ll try to answer anything we can!
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