A Very Small, Very Minor RL Dynasty: Finding An NBA Team For Izulde's Fandom
 

I've recently become interested and more involved with the NBA for the first time since the mid '90s. During that time, I didn't consider myself having a favorite team, although the following circumstances were true:

1. I loved watching the Jordan/Pippen/Rodman Bulls. It was something Mom and I shared (She taught high school at the time and was known as the Michael Jordan Lady, through circumstances which were quite accidental, but ultimately played a small role in her becoming one of the most phenomenal and well-liked teachers at her school). I still even have one or two T-shirts from that era at my parents' house, I think.

2. Sometime during my high school career, I had an infatuation/quasi-relationship with a fellow teen girl on Skatetalk or Skatechat (I forget the name) from Boston with the screenname Mia Zapata. We wept over the loss of the Boston Garden, though in my case, it was more the historicity of it rather than her virulent Celtics and Bruins fandom. I considered myself a nominal Celtics fan at that point.

But I wasn't the only one in the chat room in her life. An older guy named Rich competed for her as well. Eventually, she ran away from home to be with him. I believe we were both 16 at the time. I cried for nights afterwards, and though Carrie, the mother of the chat room, did her best to try and track Mia down, she never did find her, and I've always been haunted by the thought of what might have happened and wanting to know what *did* happen.

Anyway, fast forward to 2008. Although initially excited about the Celtics' championship, I realized it meant nothing to me. I hadn't followed the NBA much since Jordan's first retirement, and I wasn't authentically a fan.

This was no 2005 White Sox World Series title, the greatest thrill of my sports fandom life, where I screamed for joy and ran up and down my dorm at Wyoming, cheering. This also led to the moment being marred by a guy across the hall from me coming out and yelling at me to shut up. I told him the White Sox won and he said, "I don't give a shit." To which I of course told him to go fuck himself, and slammed and locked the door in his face. He pounded on it but I didn't answer. To this day, the mixing of these two emotions - championship rapture and anger at crabby asshole, dints the memory.

The Return
It's perhaps fitting that the revival of my interest in the NBA was fueled by finally joining DDS: Pro Basketball multiplayer leagues. Although it was not immediate, but a gradual, slow process of osmosis, I started to again follow the NBA and become more interested in it. My back and forth interest in a sports management career also played a role, but it wasn't really until the combination of Anthony Bennett being a one and done and watching the very enjoyable NBA Finals just passed that I became fully invested in the idea of watching the NBA again.

After all, basketball was my first and in many ways greatest sports playing love. I was thinking today that the positions I played most often in rec leagues as a kid likely had a very direct influence on my own basketball system philosophy... but that's getting off track.

Next up - the five finalists and how I got there.

Winnowing down the list was quite easy - I knew I wanted to become a fan of a team that didn't have a championship to its credit. All my sports fan life (Dolphins, Cardinals/Blue Jays/White Sox, we'll credit the Bulls just because, and I've never been an authentic hockey fan so we won't count that), I've been a fan of a team that's won a title.

UNLV falls into that category as well, but what's ironic about that is, in those days, I was a diehard Duke fan. To the point where, when I was going to apply for colleges, my dream schools list looked like this:

1. Princeton
2. Duke
3. I don't care

And of course, I applied to neither one. In fact, the only school I applied to as a high school senior was Minnesota, done in by a depression that destroyed not only my high school years, but would go on to ruin the rest of my teens, and at least half of my 20s.

(And yes, it still hurts this day to see Princeton anything anywhere, because I have the regret of what might have been. I loved that school and still do, even if I never get there beyond attending the New York Film Academy's summer course on that campus).

Anyway, because of my then-Blue Devil devotion, that 103-73 championship title for UNLV sucked.

But getting back to the original point, a quick google search revealed the following non-NBA title teams:

1. Brooklyn Nets
2. Charlotte Bobcats
3. Cleveland Cavaliers
4. Denver Nuggets
5. Indiana Pacers
6. Los Angeles Clippers
7. Memphis Grizzlies
8. Minnesota Timberwolves
9. New Orleans Pelicans
10. Orlando Magic
11. Phoenix Suns
12. Toronto Raptors

That leaves 12 teams. JiMGA pointed out that the Nets and Pacers had ABA titles, but they were already off my list because: 1) Jay-Z sucks and the Nets are wannabe Spurs in their schematic. 2) I can think of nothing more boring and vanilla than the thought of the Indiana Pacers.

10 left.

But more were easily cut down:

The Easy Eliminations
1. Los Angeles Clippers
I've done the whole second team in the city thing with the White Sox. Zero interest in doing it again. If they were still in San Diego, this would be a very different story, probably.

2. Memphis Grizzlies
I hate most of the South. Plus, their logo, color and uniforms were a lot cooler when they were back in Vancouver, and I consider Stern's abandoning Vancouver one of the many vile moves of his stewardship right up there with Seattle.

3. Minnesota Timberwolves
Much of this probably has to do with the year I spent in Minnesota, what I call The Lost Year, but I hate all Minnesota teams. Not to mention, I find Minnesota itself to be a very boring state outside of The Mall of America. But that's okay - I find Wisconsin a very boring state, too, with the exception of La Crosse, which was a terrific college town to go to school in, and is the only city in my native state I would ever consider living in.

4. Utah Jazz
I hate Utah as a state almost as much as I hate Minnesota. Some of the mountainous areas are pretty, but every time I'm in Utah, I keep wishing I was back in Las Vegas or over in San Diego. Plus, I never liked Karl Malone.

*****

So that cuts it down to 6. 5 is a much more even number than 6, paradoxical as that sounds, so the cut to get to 5 is....

















I'm not a fan of becoming a fan of new teams. The one exception to this will be if Las Vegas ever manages to get an NBA franchise, which I know will never happen. But if it did, I would immediately change loyalty to them, most likely, so perhaps this is all immaterial in the long run.

Yes, I know they're going back to becoming the Hornets, which is the right move, in my opinion, but still, there's just not enough here to make me say yeah, I want to become a fan of that team.

Next post, which will probably come tomorrow so as not to burn out or make this too quick and short a mini-dynasty, cutting it down to 4.

Cavaliers. Nuggets. Magic. Suns. Raptors.

The cutdown to 4 is quite easy. Love the team's colors, found what little I've seen/know of the city to be okay, and I like some of their history, but nonetheless, the next cut is...

















The Denver Nuggets

Yes, I'm eliminating Mateen Yeaton's main team. It's for a very strange reason, too. The word Nuggets to me connotes small, little turds, and I have no idea why, but the name is nonetheless repulsive to me as a result. Which is a shame. I love the powder blue and gold combo, and I think their '80s logo was one of the most fun and standout in sports history.

I've also liked a lot of their players, both previously and currently. But I just can't get past that name.

***

Getting it down to three is also going to be easy. This is a team that on the face of it should be able to make it to the final 3. Like the name, like the city, like the logo, but nonetheless, they're out.

















Ironically enough, I've been the Orlando Magic in two sim leagues - a brief stint in the NLL and now currently in the CSL. Orlando as a city rocked every time I've been there, and although I usually prefer plural team names, the Magic works. I like silver and blue as a color combination, even. So what's the problem?

1. The history of the organization is one of repeated failure, despite having had players like Shaq, Penny, and Superman before he got assclownitis. The only guy on the roster I really like is Jameer Nelson. Maybe Moe Harkless, too. But overall, I just get an organizational meh from them and don't feel a strong rooting interest.

2. Hideous uniforms. The pinstripe obsession irritates me because it just does not work. Even the non-pinstripe unis are either ugly or boring. Yes, I know this is superficial, but I'm also the guy who stopped liking the Cardinals as a kid, partly because "The Wizard of Oz" Ozzie Smith retired and partly because I hated the midnight blue they started putting in their uniforms.

So now it's down to 3 - Suns, Raptors, and Cavaliers, and that's where the decision starts getting tough, even though I'm starting to lean in one direction.