Some New Guys

Hope springs eternal, as they say. I am thinking today of the Phoenix Suns, who I so loved in childhood. These days, basketball is further from my heart, but the Suns remain my favorite team. I have been swayed by the Dodgers, but I could never favor the Lakers or the Clippers over the Suns, despite the fact that the latter team has had hard times for the last few years. Their current owner Robert Sarver seems to be ill-suited to the task.

In any case, many of the people who have done a poor job for the team recently are gone, and change is always reason to hope, even if the new people are chosen by the same people who picked the old ones. There is a new general manager, who has gotten off to a reasonable start by hiring popular former Sun Jeff Hornacek as coach. I can't say whether his virtues on the court will translate well to his present duties, but one can hope.

At My Level

For years, I have had an exceptionally casual level of interest in basketball. That this should be the case is remarkable, because I was a rabidly devoted fan of the Phoenix Suns growing up, and watched about every game possible. My enthusiasm tapered off, and it is now rare that I watch even a few minutes of a game or highlights. It's hard to say why that is. I guess that people grow and change, and I certainly have.

In fact, I have changed to the extent that I am not aware of an NBA Finals game taking place unless I see people discussing it on social media, and in that case, I get a bit annoyed. I don't complain, because I recognize that I can either forsake all friends who like basketball as much as I used to, or I can tolerate their chattering. I choose to tolerated it, and sometimes I'm even glad for it, because my appreciation of the game isn't entirely gone.

Roundball Real Estate

I like basketball. I have for a good long time, going back to the early 90s. That's a long time for me. I think it's a great game, particularly when good fundamentals are practiced and my team wins. I enjoy the pro game as well as college and that peculiar variety one only sees in international competition (which is a little less fun now that the world knows how to play and the USA is unable to field a complete team of all-time legends). I once was an obsessive devotee of video game basketball, spending an inordinate amount of time playing 'Bulls vs Blazers and the NBA Playoffs'. A game almost as fun but probably more popular was 'NBA Jam'. There was a thing that the announcers on it would say, and which real-world announcers inexplicably say when a player would launch a three point shot: "From downtown...". He would trail off expectantly as the shot would arc through the air and either clank or swish.

I hate that phrase. Those around me when it comes up are invariable astonished at how heated I become in attacking it. It's likely to be a factor in my ultimate demise of stress and anxiety-related causes. It doesn't make any sense. The problem is that they have it entirely backwards. The half court is like a city, as the phrase suggests. A  point worth noting is where players of various stature tend to be positioned. The basket is ten feet up in the air, and as layups and dunks are the surest shots, it's entirely logical to place a team's tallest players around the basket. The shorter, quicker players are more likely to be found around the perimeter.