This is America, Man.

by williamschack

The 2011/2012 NBA season has been very strange. The shortened schedule has meant less games overall, but more games played closer together. It has been difficult to watch from afar as ESPN has had an awful broadcasting contract and ONE HD did not even bother to put in a tender. As the season has drawn to a close, however, the regularity of broadcast games has increased and so has the drama. The two conference finals have been very exciting and the match-up that I wanted has come into being. One gets the feeling that we’re to about witness history. The Oklahoma City Thunder look very reminiscent of the 1991 Chicago Bulls and the Miami Heat look as though they, provided they can get over this final hurdle, could dominate the league the way the Bulls did throughout the 90s.

I have only been following the NBA for two seasons and I don’t pretend to know all that much about the game, but I do find it very enjoyable to watch. I went through a phase in high school in which I played basketball at lunch time and I watched Jordan documentaries at night, but as I wasn’t able to watch any live NBA games my interest eventually petered out. I have very much enjoyed the basketball renaissance in my life as the NBA has something that no other sporting league in the world has: supreme athletes who also have the charisma of movie stars. The NBA is the league of the stars and it has intangible qualities that makes its players seem like rockstars. It is not clear if it is the sport, the country it is played in, or the way the league is organised – most likely a combination of all three – but the NBA is so incredibly cool. I love every Collingwood player, but I am under no illusions in thinking that they are cool.  Non-sports fans can become interested in the NBA and not be embarrassed because the players all have great class off the court. In Australia you are often considered uncultured if you like sport, but in America it is just about a given that you do like it. I became so excited when I found out that Jack Kerouac loved baseball. Ditto Spike Lee with basketball. In Australia, for some peculiar reason, most of the people that like these artists would turn their noses up at me if they saw me at a party wearing my Collingwood beanie. Perhaps if they watched some of the upcoming finals games then they would change their opinion on sport.

Basketball and its premier league, the NBA, is made for the modern era. My second favourite sport is Test Cricket but I can understand why people don’t like it. Sport is often described as theatre, but Test Cricket is best described as the Opera. It goes on-and-on and for the non-cricket fan it probably seems like nothing is happening. There are so many seemingly invisible layers and intricacies to it that it is very difficult for non-cricket fans to enjoy. And if Test Cricket is Opera, then the NBA is TV. It is fast-paced, high-scoring and the game is finished pretty quickly. In the modern world in which there are so many different forms of entertainment vying for our attention, it makes sense for a sports game to not only be over quickly (i.e. not five days), but for it to also be as entertaining as possible for the entire time. Basketball’s wide-spread appeal is due to the fact that even if you don’t really understand what is happening you can just enjoy the entertainment of the game. On a superficial and purely physical level, there are few sporting leagues in the world that can match the NBA.

My team is the Miami Heat. Every time I tell someone this I am criticised and called a bandwagon jumper and also an idiot for supporting the most hated team in the NBA. Yes, I did start supporting the Heat after LeBron James and Chris Bosh took their talents to South Beach, but that is not why I chose them as my team. As I said, I have only been following the NBA for two seasons and the very first game I watched was the Boston Celtics versus Miami Heat. The Celtics won the game but in the third quarter LeBron and D. Wade played well and I found them more exciting to watch. I posted on my Facebook page that I was now a Miami Heat fan and the criticism has not stopped since that moment. I am used to being criticised for my team as I support the most hated team in the AFL. My support for the Pies is different, however, because I did not choose to be a Collingwood fan. 29 years before I was born Collingwood beat Melbourne in the upset of the century in the 1958 Grand Final. The following Monday my Father heard some kids talking about Collingwood; he became a Magpies fan on that day and so did I. Many things had to fall into place to ensure that I was born (mainly my Dad staying alive after suffering through eight Grand Final losses) but my path in life was chosen well before I came in to existence. Nevertheless, if I was given the opportunity to choose my AFL team now, I would choose Collingwood without doubt. I can’t say the same for Miami.

I chose them based on 12 minutes of basketball. I was ignorant of ‘The Decision’ and the ridiculous ‘Welcome Party’ in which the organisation was acting like it had won the championship months before the team had even played together. I chose them brashly and without reflection. If I had realised the enormity of LeBron leaving Cleveland and going to Miami then I never would have chosen them. But I had made my choice and once you choose your sports team you cannot go back except in extreme circumstances. When choosing a new sports team I usually look for a team that resembles Collingwood the most, but in the NBA there is no real comparable team. It is such a different sport and the league has such a different attitude to the AFL. In the NBA, it is the players that reign supreme, not the club (or to be true to the spirit of the NBA, the franchise). If a team wins the championship, it is its star player that gets all the glory. And if they lose, then it is he who gets all the blame. This is quite bizarre given that basketball is just about the definition of a team sport and I have never heard a commentator suggest that one star player can beat five other players. When Miami recruited like they did in the summer of 2010 every pundit said that it was not the way you built a winning a basketball team. Successful basketball depends on swift and accurate ball movement and for this reason it is an intensely team-oriented game, but in the NBA it is the individual that reigns supreme. It is important to note the country that the capital N for ‘national’ in the NBA is referring to is The United States of America. Only in America could a sport that is so team-oriented be deduced to the responsibility of individuals. It seems to happen in all of their sports. In football there are so many factors that count for victory, but if a team loses then it is because of the quarterback. It is quite bizarre but that is the way it works in America. The NBA is American.

If I was not so hasty in ‘my decision’ of choosing an NBA team I would most certainly not have chosen the Heat. Even though I really like LeBron, I don’t like the way he left Cleveland. I do think that he is unfairly criticised, however, and during game 6 the commentators rightfully pointed out that he carries more pressure than any other player could ever imagine. Critics would argue that he has brought it on himself and that he deserves everything he gets. I agree, the decision played out in the worst way possible, but do you crucify a guy for the rest of his life for it? Paul Pierce played terribly in game 6 and was criticised for it very minimally. If it was LeBron that played like that, healthy or unhealthy, the whole state of Florida would have flooded with the bloodletting that would have followed in the media. So, whilst I still quite like the team, there are certain things about the organisation that mean it would not be my first choice if I chose my team again. In the spirit of America, I would choose my team not based on its history but by the individuals that currently play in it. And there are no two greater individuals in the NBA right now than the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.

“These guys are real cats”.  They are not only the coolest guys in the NBA, but they are the coolest guys in America. They exude enough charisma and style to make Jay-Z and Yeezy green (and not with cash). Sport is one of the very few avenues in which African-Americans are given a chance to really make it in America and the NBA has been the home of the best of these athletes over the past five decades. Football has a very strong African-American presence, but it is still inherently a white man’s game. Ditto baseball. The NBA has now long been established as a place where African-Americans reign supreme. When you watch the Thunder play you cannot help but become excited by their youthful exuberance. It feels like you’re watching a group of friends play together for no reason other than the fact that they all love playing basketball. They’re having fun in America; they’ve made it in America. Their press conferences are almost more enjoyable than the game. Durant wearing a backpack all buckled-up is one of the greatest things you will ever see. Westbrook’s shirts are beyond amazing and anything that you would expect from a sports star. I get excited by Sharrod Wellingham’s fashion sense and he has got about 1% of their style.

Putting Spurs and Celtics fans aside, this is the finals match-up that everyone wanted. This match-up is the perfect season finale for this modern TV show. The young upstarts versus the evil empire. The confident yet humble versus the arrogant yet unproven. Everyone will be waiting for the Heat to fail. I love the Thunder but I will cheering for my boys from South Beach. I really hope that it goes for seven games because that will not only mean that it is a great series but it will mean that I get to see seven more brilliant Westbrook shirts. I am very excited to watch the four most interesting basketballers in the world go head-to-head over the next 2 weeks. It’s NBA finals time and I am very excited. This is America, man.