Loyalty and the NBA: Strange Bedfellows Indeed

First appeared on November 18, 2014
in The Lebanon Reporter

When I was in the Third Grade I had a crush on Mary Beth Stevens. She of the hair like golden shocks of wheat and dangerous blue eyes so crystal clear they cast perfect reflections of the checkerboard tile floor in the multi-purpose room. Then at recess, while Mary Beth was in a heated game of tetherball, I confessed my love only to have the cutest girl in the Fourth Grade ask me out moments later.

As a simple boy who still raced Matchbox cars and believed the Legion of Doom was in fact the greatest threat facing the world, how was I to know it was a test of my loyalty? A devious plot hatched by the Black Widow Mary Beth herself. But I stood tall and strong, like a 4’3 oak. And for two magical hours we were Charles and Diana, until Mary Beth asked me to dump her lunch tray and never spoke to me again.

Perhaps it’s no secret that, just like fashion in North Korea and the careers of most male meteorologists, loyalty is dead. It’s a powerful statement indeed and one that applies wholeheartedly to the National Basketball Association.

So LeBron is hailed for his loyalty after abandoning Cleveland only to return on a hobbled white horse with two rings earned in the service of another kingdom. How quickly it was forgotten, that ill-fated night Cleve-landers torched King James jerseys in the streets, stomping and dancing all over them. Or what about the “Witless” and “LeBum” posters they displayed when LeBron returned with the Heat?

And then there’s Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert; also known as the one welcoming James back with open arms. This after penning a scathing letter to his fan base denouncing the King 30 seconds after LeBron announced he was divorcing his “hometown” four years ago. A fickle beast loyalty is not. Loyalty is an eternal test of ones will and, when the going gets tough, the truly loyal go nowhere.

But what exactly does loyalty get one? For Cub fans it’s apparently a lifetime of disappointment, frustration and embarrassment. For members of ISIS, it’s a date with a Hellfire missile and an eternity spent looking for a glass of ice water. For Kobe Bryant it’s pumping in 31,000 points for the Lakers and dropping five championship trophies in the broom closet only to return from injury to find trade rumors flaring up after going 1-6 out of the gate.

And before we carve the NBA up for being selfish and materialistic, its best to understand professional basketball is likely a product of our own society. Sports fans, not unlike your two year old, want everything immediately. There’s no waiting in life. They don’t want to hear another one of Daddy’s sermons on patience.

They want the best coach, a franchise player, deep playoff runs and championship trophies, and if they don’t have them by the close of business, the bandwagon gets lighter and season tickets wind up on EBAY with an opening bid of twelve cents.
Loyalty is hard work and we’ve become a people who are, by and large, highly allergic to hard work. Of course there are times when loyalty pays off. For if there weren’t, who in their right mind would ever have it?

Truly rare moments that are magical and powerful and lasting and try as we might we can never get them back. Moments that often take a lifetime to reach and mere seconds to expire. And yet it’s the allure and rarity of these that keep the truly loyal in the game. Moments that keep us picking ourselves up and dusting ourselves off time after time.

So here’s to you who count yourself amongst the loyal, that ever dwindling crowd of the lonely and the ridiculed, smile and wave at all those chasing empty calories, for you know your moment, far off as it may be, does in fact lie ahead somewhere.

© 2014 Eric Walker Williams

Despite record, Pacers' attendance woes continue

First appeared on April 12th, 2012
in The Lebanon Reporter

In my hometown the corner barber shop was the place to go for the low down. To find out what the weather would be like that week or how much Artie Johnson paid for that new truck with the fancy running boards and tinted rain guards. It was also the place the old hayseeds gathered on Saturday mornings to ruminate the fallout of Friday night’s high school game. Old men in overalls who chewed longleaf tobacco and cursed the new varsity coach, openly lamenting the death of the underhanded free throw.

Most know Indiana for two things, the deep fried Twinkie and a long love affair with basketball. I first learned how much basketball meant to me from hearing those hayseeds, their passion as strong as their gnarled hands.

So you take a team with the 3rd best record in the NBA’s Eastern Conference and one with a budding young star grouped with a collection of no-nonsense, hardnosed players and you’d expect to find them near the top in league attendance. Especially if you were told that same team with the high flying wing and the bruising power forward played its home games in Indiana, the self-proclaimed capital of Basketball-land.

Currently however the Indiana Pacers are edging out the New Jersey nets for 29th place in attendance (convenient time to remind you there are only 30 teams in the NBA). And when you factor in the fact the Jersey mafia has more than likely killed off another 7 season ticket holders since I pounded this out, the Nets are technically drawing more people to games than we are.

So what is to explain this plague of empty seats that has fallen upon our Pacers? I, like fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers and ESPN analysts explaining why the Heat have yet to win a Title, blame LeBron. Unfortunately the NBA has become a cult of personality and Indiana, like Brother Mitt, simply has none.

When one considers every other Top Flight Playoff Team there’s no shortage of stars. Durant, Howard, Bryant, Nowitzki, the list reads like a Who’s Who of people the average basketball player wishes they were, or at the very least could be for a day. OK, so maybe a month. A month of 4 Star hotels, pregame massages, paychecks that read like a lottery windfall and an endless line of wide eyed autograph seekers you have to muster the energy just to grumble over. Just a month of that and you are happy to go back to accounting. Back to trying to determine why the guy in the cubicle next to you, the one who loves Public Radio and drives a car nobody can hear coming, always smells like cucumbers.

The Pacers could have put all their money in one hat and thrown it at a big name free agent. Maybe even Dwight Howard. Yes perhaps Superman himself would be willing to come here; if only it were written in his contract that the Pacers be willing to fire their coach anytime Howard found himself struck with the notion of course.

And if it’s not a “cult of personality” issue, then it surely is a bad case of lockout fatigue. No matter the real direction fingers need be pointed in that whole ugly lockout mess, at the end of the day you’re smart enough to realize it was still someone with more money than you would see in five lifetimes asking for even more money.

It’s a sad story indeed. And one that would surely have the old men in the barber shop spitting on the floor.


© 2012 Eric Walker Williams

Down go the Lakers

First appeared on May 12th, 2011
in The Lebanon Reporter

Following a shocking 122-86 loss to the Mavericks Sunday the two time defending champion Lakers were swept out of the playoffs. Thus ending the quest for the third ‘3 Peat’ in Franchise history. The loss also likely signifies the end for the greatest basketball coach in a generation. And while it doesn’t close the door on Kobe Bryant’s legacy building days, it certainly has jarred the doorstop loose.


But before you break out the cheap wine and Kleenex, let’s remember these are the Lakers. Is it possible for anyone in the Midwest to shed a tear for these guys? After all L.A. does fly in the face of everything the Midwest stands for. Glitz, glamour, wearing ones sunglasses indoors, these are not things that sit well with us.

We didn’t understand Magic Johnson’s no-look passes or Pat Riley’s $500 suits and slicked back hair. The disgust that surfaced for the Lakers in 2000 when our beloved Pacers made the Finals was not as much a reaction to the red carpet treatment Bryant was getting from referees as much as it was a strong dislike long harbored since the summer of ’87. That year L.A. denied Larry Bird his fourth ring during the last championship appearance he would make as a Celtic.

To us the Lakers are simply the Yankees of professional basketball. Ours is a place where plastic surgery is reserved for farm accidents and anyone who shows up wearing Donald Sutherland’s white sunglasses and black and white checkered coat with matching Fedora would find “Hoosier Hospitality” involves a padded room.

That being said, it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Certainly Commissioner Stern feels the same and knows full well the death of the Lakers may mean the death of ratings as well. As much as I hate L.A. and wanted to see them lose, I wanted it to happen on the biggest of stages; not in the second round of the Playoffs. And how strange the Lakers should fall to the Mavericks and owner Mark Cuban. After all Cuban has long shopped his conspiracy theory that league officiating protects players like Byrant and teams like LA. The only thing more ironic than Cuban’s team hurdling the Lakers is Ron Artest clothes-lining J.J. Barea a week after the NBA handed Ron-Ron their citizenship award.

A Lakers team vying for a Three Peat staring down Miami’s “Big Three” in the Finals would have been a ratings bonanza. This is what everyone wanted. Bryant and LeBron exchanging highlight dunks as Zydrunas Ilgauskas would be, well apparently clanging 19 foot jumpers and committing 3 or 4 over the back fouls each night, not the type of eye-popping performance we’re looking for so let’s leave him out of this for now.

The point here is surely a Lakers-Heat Finals is what Stern wanted. But it would seem ever since Tim Donaghy danced with Lady Justice, nothing has gone according to planned in the Association. The Spurs and Lakers had combined to win 9 of the last 12 NBA Titles and they’re both golfing now.

So what’s next? Phil will likely ride off into the sunset, or into the sunrise I suppose since he does live in L.A., Lamar Odom has his part time gig on the E Channel to fall back on and Kobe Bryant is well-Kobe Bryant. It was just surreal to watch the two-time defending champs wilt like a Pansy. An addled performance rife with blank stares and emotionless effort. After all it is Hollywood, you’d think the Lakers could at least sign someone to act like they care.