TALES OF A MOONBALL NOTHING

OR

How Do I Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Celtics?

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a fan these days.

KG was traded, and a few days later, the bridge collapsed. (Bizarrely, Flip Saunders happened to be driving on a parallel bridge a few hundred feet away and witnessed the whole thing as it happened. But more on him later.) Obviously and understandably, nobody here was talking about KG then – and our grief over the trade was truncated.

Given my druthers, I would have taken the year off the NBA all together. (Does such an emotional response make me a “good” fan, or a “bad” one?) My plan was to wear black, cancel my 10-game ticket package and just sit my melancholy ass out. In the ultimate twist, for the first time in Moonball history I actually had a competitive team, and due to my competitive nature, after a brief interlude I didn’t take the year off after all.

Intellectually (if you can use that term at all in this context), I thought I was ready and willing to root for KG. I don’t blame him one iota for the situation and circumstance under which he left. In fact, the better he does, the more it sticks it to McHale. But when it came down to the rooting question, I just couldn’t do it. No matter, I thought. I’ll certainly root for him when he’s in the playoffs. But, I find, I still haven’t been able to. I’m not sure why.

I can’t articulate it beyond saying that it’s incredibly painful to watch him.

For those who speak in this blog of “easily discarding,” however you choose to define “discard” there is nothing easy about this.

I felt that as Wolves fans we went through the awful experiences with KG. The bad teams, the bad management, the bad drafting, the loss of even the option of bad drafting, the revolving door of point guards: Stephon, Terrell, Chauncey, Sam (his inclusion on that Celtic team just adds insult to injury to a ridiculous degree), Thud, etc, etc, etc. In the long run, maybe it wasn’t so bad, though, because oh what a joy it was to cheer for KG. (And for those blogging about how great KG is: Yeah, yeah, we know. We've known this for years.) KG so deserves to win and I don’t begrudge him it, but find myself selfishly thinking that we Wolves fans deserve something, too. And now we’ve been left behind. Because KG doesn’t do anything half-assed, he has embraced being a Celtic so wholeheartedly it’s as if he has always been a Celtic. I find myself the jilted lover, wondering, “did he really mean it when he said he bled blue and green?”

The story goes that when Marbury left Minny, Flip Saunders was never quite the same – as either a coach or a man. Broken, perhaps. Maybe that’s what it is I’m feeling now. Maybe being a fan is just a series of “breakings.” Kirby Puckett going crazy; Game 7 Suns v. Rockets; Game 7 Blazers v. Lakers (for the record, I can't even watch these clips, so many years later)…and after each, I haven’t been quite the same.

My being a basketball fan has had an odd trajectory. I started as a fan of one man: Charles Barkley. He had no relation to my location. It didn’t matter to me much when he left Phoenix for Houston. Then, when he retired, my surrogate hometown team the Blazers. Top to bottom, that was real team love. Hell, I even loved Scottie Pippen when he showed up on the scene, for chrissake. And through it all, the Timberwolves. And to me, KG was the Timberwolves. So what to do with the love when KG leaves? Is it the team or the man? Is it the city? And what is more legitimate in terms of being a fan?

I’m not sure why, but there’s something about the notion of being a fan that is somehow tied up with a concept of honor to me – from the time that I told Mike I had been called a “fanatic” and he said he was proud of me (the moment I have always credited as the moment that I actually became a fan). I have followed a fan code of ethics of sorts: you don’t leave early; you don’t boo your team; you cheer hard - always. It’s why my being a fan of KG was such kismet. He himself is an honorable player, with his own code: you don’t take games off; you care for your teammates; you play hard – always.

So, now it’s the ultimate situation. The finals. KG vs. the most loathsome team, the most loathsome player, in the history of my fandom. It’s a situation just begging me to weigh in, and again I’m feeling a little melancholy. I can’t say where I’ll be on Thursday. Don’t worry. Whatever the situation, I won’t be rooting for the Lakers. Just not sure how I'll be feeling about the Celtics.

What's the point of the post? Ah, hell, I don't know. Just chalk my ramblings up to that truncated grief. And why James Caan, do you ask? Mostly just wanted to knock a Celtic off the top of the page, for a short time anyway. Also, he’s one of my favorite second bananas in all of the movies. Speaking of second bananas, this one would like to congratulate David on a great Moonball season.