Boston Convert

As I'm writing this I'm getting ready for game 2 of the Rangers/Bruins series.  First of all, if you aren't watching the hockey playoffs, honestly, what's wrong with you?  Whatever you're doing instead just isn't nearly as important.

Anyway, as I've tried to figure out who I'm rooting for in this series, I've come to a shocking revelation about myself.  I think I'm becoming a Boston sports fan.  True story.  It seems ridiculous to just switch all rooting interests to a whole new town, but let's go through it one by one.

The Celtics are the easiest one.  I've always been a Celtics fan, except for that brief period in the 90's when there were only two basketball fan identities (Bulls fan or Bulls hater) and I was a Bulls fan.  My parents were never that into sports (except for my mom and the Rangers, and we'll get to them in a minute), so I inherited a lot of my rooting interests from my grandmother.  Because the Celtics are implicitly Irish, we rooted for Boston.

Sidenote: In hindsight, there also might be something to the fact that, in the 80's, the Celtics pretty much cornered the market on white basketball players.  Really...Bird, McHale, Ainge, Walton.  It's like a who's who of useful or better NBA white guys.  I don't know, I didn't really give that a lot of thought when I was 7.

In terms of hockey, I grew up an Islanders fan.  My grandparents live like 10 minutes from the Nassau Coliseum, and back when I was like 0-3 years old, the Isles were winning four straight Stanley Cups.  So that's a pretty formative experience.  A few years ago I disowned the Islanders because of their many many uniform transgressions.  Since then, I assume in response to my outrage, they went back to the classic uniform scheme and I've been back on board.  But, they're moving to Brooklyn soon.

I'm sorry, I'm not rooting for a hockey team from Brooklyn.  Especially after they change their name to the Hipsters or the Skinny Jeans or whatever and incorporate irony into their new uniforms.  No thank you.  Plus, I'm from Queens, I don't want to root for Brooklyn anyway.

And the Rangers and Devils?  Come on.  Listen, the Rangers suck.  And the Devils, they're even worse.  I had a girlfriend in college who loved the Devils, and even when someone I loved loved the Devils, I still fucking hated them.  They are perpetually unwatchable.  The uniforms are awful, and even though they don't play like they did in the 90's anymore, I can't watch them without seeing that awful neutral zone trap.  Boooooo!!!!!!!!!

Meanwhile, the Bruins have great uniforms, aren't from Brooklyn and aren't planning to randomly move to some other part of Boston just for fun.  I like the Bruins and I'm not having a hard time seeing myself getting on board with being a fan.  I mean, just look at Zdeno Chara.  He's like an angry giant on skates. Who doesn't want to root for an angry giant?  Also, they have a goalie named Tuukka.  Tuukka!  Come on, he has an extra K.  Everyone knows K is the best letter.  At least it is in Finland, or Sweden, or Denmark or wherever the fuck Tuukka is from.

Football is pretty easy too.  I've always kind of hated the New York football teams, and I haven't really kept that a secret.  In my football watching life I've bounced around from the Houston Oilers (until they moved) to the Tampa Bay Bucs (until they got new uniforms) to just being a fan of the NFL Redzone network (because it's seriously fucking awesome).  I can settle in with the Patriots.  I already have a Patriots jersey (although it hasn't been worn since September, and even then not by me, and the story of how I became the owner of a Patriots jersey is interesting, somewhat embarrassing, has very little to do with being a Patriots fan, and I'm not quite ready to tell it yet).

Oh, and did I mention the New York football teams are actually from New Jersey?  Yeah, that's a real thing.

Honestly, I'm not even sure why people have favorite football teams anymore.  It's like having a favorite character on a sit-com.  It's just a TV show.  When I watch How I Met Your Mother, I don't root for Marshall, I just enjoy the show.  I feel like having a strong rooting interest might ruin football for me, but I've never had one before, so I'm open to trying it.

But then there's the Yankees.  I grew up a Yankee fan.  I've always been a Yankee fan.  The '96 World Series was awesome.  And so were the other three they won when I was in college.  But the last one, honestly, the thrill just wasn't there anymore.  I've said this before.  Being a Yankee fan is exhausting.  Yankee fans only have two emotions, terrible disappointment when the Yankees don't win the World Series, and what could best be described as relief when they do.  To be honest, I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a Yankee game.  In some ways, my Yankee fandom has become like a bad relationship that I'm just too much of a wimp to get out of.

Speaking of bad relationships, I can't really imagine what it's like to be a Red Sox fan.  I'm not 100% sure it would really be more fun, but I'm 100% sure it wouldn't be less fun.  Typical relationship dilemma.  Stay with something familiar, or go try something new that isn't necessarily any better and just leaves you feeling like an idiot.  As you can probably tell from the fact that I'm going to die alone, I'm not very good at this.

Some other valid reasons to switch to Boston fandom:

- I live in Massachusetts now, so there are always Boston teams on my TV.  I mean, I could just watch and root against them.  That's essentially what I did with the Red Sox my first year here, but, to be honest, that wasn't a lot of fun.

- Boston girls are almost exclusively awesome.  New York girls are, frankly, kind of a mixed bag.  Don't make that face at me!  You know I'm right.  You've seen Sex and the City.  So if you're in a bar with half Boston girls and half New York girls, which side of the bar would you rather have a common rooting interest with?  Yeah, me too.  I've also found that Boston girls are significantly more likely to be into sports, so there's a better chance of them being in the bar to begin with.

- Aerosmith is from Boston.  And so are the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.  Who's from New York?  LL Cool J and The Ramones?  Similar question.  If you got invited to watch a game and hang out with famous music people, who would you pick?  Dicky Barrett and Steven Tyler or LL Cool J and whichever Ramone is still alive?  Again, yeah, me too.

Look, to be honest, I'm not sure if I can go through with the full conversion.  I'm still stuck on the Red Sox thing.  That's not an easy switch.  But I've already decided that I'm not buying the MLB extra innings package this season, the Yankees just aren't worth $40 a month to me anymore.  So I suppose I'll watch a summer of Sox baseball and see how I feel in September.  I'll keep you posted.

Pretty Heat Machine

Like everyone else, I'm apparently so fascinated by the marriage of two British people that I can barely concentrate on anything else. So, I'm sort of mailing this one in, but I'm going to do my best, because I'm a trooper. Ready...set...blog!

Who has two thumbs and decided not to make anymore NBA predictions after last year's debacle? This guy! It makes sense, I haven't really watched the NBA since Jordan retired (which happened after the 1998 finals, and anything you think you saw after 1998 never really happened). It isn't that I stopped liking basketball all at once, I just sort of slowly drifted away, like Glenn Beck slowly drifting away from reality.

I was really a victim of NBA circumstance. I grew up with Bird and Magic, then Jordan, then? Blah. The Spurs? You would have to give me the clockwork orange treatment to get me to watch a whole Spurs game. The Lakers? I grew up a Celtics fan. Plus, I lived in New York the whole decade, so my local action consisted of watching Isaiah Thomas' attempt to burn the Knicks down and collect the insurance money.

Bottom line, I don't know anything about the NBA anymore. So, no NBA predictions this year. But, as the proud owner of an internet blog that sometimes deals with sports, I'm required by federal mandate to have an opinion about the Miami Heat, so here goes.

First of all, I'm not a big fan of this whole thing happening in Miami. I've never liked the Heat. Stupid name, ugly uniforms, by-product of the needless expansion period in all sports that stretched the NBA's talent pool a little too thin (and murdered the NHL, but that's another story). I don't blame the big two and a half for doing this in Miami. If you and two of your buddies decided to go work together somewhere, and you could choose pretty much anywhere you wanted, and you worked winter jobs (let's say you're a team of all-star Santa Claus'), you might pick Miami. I'm just saying, wouldn't this be more fun if it were happening in a city with more basketball history? Maybe a city that hadn't seen a title in a while (or ever)? Somewhere like Philadelphia, or New York or...Cleveland(ouch).

More importantly, I'm not a fan of the way the team is constructed. The big three in Boston fit so well together because they do different things. Pierce needs the ball a lot, he gets to the hoop and to the line. Ray Allen is a spot up shooter who can be happy just hanging out around the three point line and waiting for guys to penetrate and kick. Garnett plays defense and rebounds, he can score inside, but he's not the kind of big man who needs the ball to go through him every possession.

In contrast, Lebron, Wade and Bosh all do basically the same thing. Bosh isn't really a big man, he's just a very tall swing man who likes to play around the perimeter and shoot jumpshots. Lebron and Wade do almost exactly the same thing, except Lebron is a better passer. The problem is, there's only one ball. If you're running the "I dribble dribble dribble and then shoot while you guys watch" offense, it doesn't really matter if one of the watchers is also a superstar, because his watching isn't really helping that much.

And don't say multiple stars makes them much harder to defend. Since none of them are great shooters, it doesn't matter if Lebron draws three defenders and then kicks to Wade, because Wade wants to go right back to the hoop, where Lebron and his three defenders are still standing. And the guy on your team who would guard Lebron isn't the same guy who would guard Wade. The guy who would guard Wade isn't big enough to guard Lebron, and the guy who would guard Lebron isn't quick enough to guard Wade. The result is basically the same thing you had in Cleveland since Lebron got there, or in Miami since Shaq passed 400 pounds and then left. One dribbler, four watchers, lots of jumpshots.

To be fair, there are some benefits. Last year in Cleveland, if Lebron had an off night, if he just didn't have it, they were done unless they were playing a really awful team. Same thing in Miami with Wade. This year, the Heat have both of those guys, and only one of them really needs to have a good game. Either one of those guys can carry the Heat to a win on any given night. They essentially have one more bullet than everyone else, and that's something.

I don't hate the Heat. I don't blame the players for wanting to play together and I don't blame the team for signing the best players they could. I'll root against them because I like it when so-called experts are wrong, but I don't hate the Heat. I'm not fascinated by them either. They're just another team, above average, title contenders, but just another team.

The Night The Hype Died

I've never been a huge fan of Lebron James. I'm not exactly sure why, it may just be one of those irrational sports things. I've never liked Peyton Manning, I can't stand Tim Tebow, I'll tell anyone who will listen how overrated Cal Ripken was (seriously, pay me baseball player money and I'll show up to work everyday too). Add to that my long time rooting interest in the Celtics and games 5 and 6 of the eastern conference semifinals were, well, they were just fantastic. I won't even bother talking about game 5, it's been beaten to death in the media, a few comments on game six though.

I'm not sure how to react to Lebron's game 6 performance. You could look at the numbers (27 points, 19 boards, 10 assists) and say he couldn't have done any more, and you'd probably be right. Even if you look past the numbers, you have to give him credit for locking Paul Pierce down for most of the night (and most of the series, for that matter). After actually watching the game though, I have to say the numbers don't really reflect the way it looked. Lebron had his moments (including a number of crazy, "where did he come from?" rebounds), but he seemed to sort of fade in and out.

The best example came in the fourth quarter. The Celtics were up ten with around 10 minutes left. Lebron drilled two straight threes and I thought, "uh oh". At that point, I fully expected a 20-point quarter from Lebron and a 10-point Cavs win. Never happened. Instead, Lebron mysteriously disappeared for about four minutes. It was weird. I couldn't believe he didn't come out of the time out and hoist another three or charge to the bucket and draw a foul. Something to keep it going. So, you can't really blame Lebron when you look at the numbers, but he didn't exactly have his A-game either.

The end of the game was genuinely uncomfortable. The Cavs totally bailed on the last minute. They completely gave up. In his post-game comments, Lebron said his team left it all on the court (reading from his book of timely sports cliches). That was just patently false. They stopped trying with a minute to go, that's not leaving it all on the floor, that's going home with at least 1/48 of it. It left me wondering how Lebron could possibly come back to this team, this team that isn't only a team of quitters, but turned him into a quitter too.

Thus begins the summer of Lebron. And you know what? I think this is the best thing for him. They way the season ended, so jarring, so unexpected. The Cavs were exposed as a team that is nowhere near winning a title. There's no rational reason for him to stay in Cleveland now. The team stinks, the coach is awful and, well, let's face it, it's Cleveland. If you live in Cleveland, Lebron James is the only thing to see or care about. If you're Lebron James in Cleveland, that leaves you with nothing.

Lebron can go to the Knicks (if he cares more about his ego and his endorsements than he does about winning), he can go to the Bulls (if he wants to spend the rest of his life hearing about how he's no MJ), he can go to the Clippers (if he always wanted a catastrophic knee injury, surgery and months of grueling rehab just to get back to 80% of what he was) or, if he wants to win, he can go to the Nets.

The Nets have all the pieces you'd want around a star like Lebron, including a top four draft pick coming up. I'm sure they're hoping to get John Wall, and you can't lose with Wall. But I'd almost rather see them get the #2 or #3 pick and find a shooter. They already have a point guard, and Harris doesn't need to dominate the ball the way Wall seems to. Lebron needs to be in an offense where he's the ball handler, where he's the guy who keys the offense. He needs to run something like the triangle Kobe runs and MJ ran. I know Phil Jackson probably isn't leaving LA, but other coaches can get tapes of Laker games, right?

Sure, this would stick Lebron in Newark for a couple of years. First of all, remember, he's currently stuck in Cleveland. Secondly, Newark is pretty close to the only real city in the world, it's not like he'll be required to spend his free time in Newark. Most importantly, it's only two years. If I can survive in Connecticut for two and a half years, Lebron can do two in Newark.

The real point is the opportunity Lebron has this summer. Ever since high school, other people have been writing his story and he's been acting out the part as best he could. I like to call him the Hype King, but most of the hype isn't really his fault. Sure, he embraced it, but the alternative was to shy away and look like a coward. Free agency doesn't just give him the chance to earn a ton of money, which he'll do wherever he goes. It gives him the chance to pick his spot and start over. The chance to go where he wants, with the coach he wants and the kind of team he wants. The chance to write his own story. Just the king, without the hype.