I’ve spent most of this current playoff run trying to reacclimate to this environment. I should be used to this, right? I’m a veteran Spurs fan. This is a franchise that made the playoffs for 22 consecutive years. They didn’t just make the playoffs, they made deep runs. Battles. Marathons. Titles. Heartbreak. We have, collectively, been through it all. I should be used to this. I should have a handle on it.
So why does it feel like I’m falling apart at the seams?
The last few days, in the wake of what happened in Game 4, have not been fun. The elbow heard round the world felt like it rippled through every aspect of my day-to-day. Everyone had an opinion on it. Takes were flying everywhere. You have people coming out of the woodwork breaking down footage from various elbows thrown by various nefarious characters throughout history, gleefully speculating on the potential ramifications for our boy. Even once the actual judgment was rendered, the conversation around what happened to Vic felt like something that threatened to envelope this entire playoff run. Was this the breaking point for this young Spurs team? Were the lights finally getting too bright? Was Wemby becoming a villain?
I wanted to defend Victor. People needed to know that the Wolves were baiting him. Not just that, but physically they were practically trying to hurt him. Arm pulls. Elbows to the back. Shots to the face. You name it, and Vic had been on the receiving end of it. Hell, he got a taste of the whole menu on the exact play where it all boiled over. The Wolves were provoking him. The refs were either biased or incompetent. The media was too quick to judge. No one else has ever been treated as unfairly as this. Man, I just wanted to shout it to the heavens. I wanted to shout loud enough so someone, anyone could hear me. I know I’m biased and I know it doesn’t matter, but I felt this real, visceral yearning to be understood and have someone outside my own circle of Spurs voices tell me, “we hear you. We get it.”
That’s obviously a little bit insane.
The rational person in me understands the shades of grey and that the noise is just that. Noise. It doesn’t have any bearing or effect on anything unless I let it. Problem is, the intensity of the playoffs has this way of fooling around with the “rational” knobs on my dashboard.
I don’t remember it being like this. I don’t remember sweating the small stuff when Tim and D-Rob went 6 games in the second round with the Lakers back in 03. I was simply bummed about the losses and psyched about the wins. I mean, they went 6 games in every series that year, including the Finals. It was just a part of the trip.
Seriously, I go back and think about all those playoff runs and, more than anything, I remember it being fun. I looked forward to it all season. We had watch parties and the games were on national television and it felt like, for once, the whole world was locked in on what the Spurs were doing. It was everything I loved about sports and it was all happening in my backyard. We were watching our cool older brothers go out there and take on all comers. We were watching Coach Pop, our grumpy old dad with a heart of gold, gradually solidify himself as a basketball genius who seemed to have all the answers. I don’t think I ever worried for a single second about the Spurs back then. Even when they lost, I knew they’d be back. They always were.
I’m a bundle of nerves these days. What gives? I should be older and wiser. Experienced. Savvy. I should be the one preaching patience and calm because, after all, I’ve been there before. Instead I’m out here ready to go to war with First Take’s Nick Wright because he has the audacity to say “It’s unacceptable to elbow people in the face.” I don’t care if he’s right, I don’t like his tone!
I could blame social media. I could blame the league. I could blame society. Shoot, I could probably download an astrology app and start blaming the cosmos if I really put my mind to it. But, deep down, I think I’m starting to understand that I’m the problem. It’s me. Hi.
I’m no longer watching these games through the childlike, optimistic lens of someone who has only known success. It’s not necessarily that the Spurs won all the time, but they were good all the time. I didn’t need to worry because they had it figured out. It’s certainly possible that like, maybe they didn’t at the time! Who can say? But when I looked out on the floor and saw Tim Duncan and Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, I felt like they had it under control.
When I look out there now, all I see are the boys. They are supremely talented and they are extremely tall, but they are kids. There’s no getting around it. I see it when Steph starts getting a little frustrated with the contact. I see it when Dylan Harper makes what can only be described as an “oooohhhhhh, you’re in trooooouuubbbllllleeeee” face any time literally anything happens. I see it when Vic is posturing. Acting tougher than he is because he thinks he has to. I see it all, every night, and it doesn’t make me want to go to battle with them. No, it makes me want to give them a cup of tea and listen to their hopes and dreams.
It makes me want to die any time a shot doesn’t go in. It makes me fly into a rage when they don’t get a call. It makes me want to fight people who don’t understand them like I do. It makes me want to defend them to the death, even when they do something wrong.
I just…I worry about them. You know? I get it. It’s an overly emotional, parasocial relationship that is 1000% me projecting my own stuff onto a group of young men who are, quite literally, just doing their jobs. That’s fine. If that’s what you want your relationship with sports to be then, yea, that’s fine. Healthy, even.
But I love these guys. I want them to do well and I want them to do great things, not for me, but for themselves. For the city. For the fans. I want kids who are out there looking up to guys like Vic and Steph and Dylan to feel that same sense of inevitability and pride that I did back in the day. It’s the most pure gift that sports has to offer and when it hits right, it’s like magic. That’s what’s at stake in these games and it feels a whole lot more important than whether or not the Spurs win or lose.
Heading into Game 5, I was a mess. The Spurs? They were not. They came out and handled their business. They were measured in their response to the Wolves’ physicality. The game plan was solid and it was executed perfectly. No one took the ample amount of rage bait offered and no one backed down when the Wolves inevitably mounted their comeback. It was, dare I say, mature. It looked like a group of guys who had it under control.
I’m not going to stop worrying about them and I’m not going to stop irrationally defending them. I’m not going to stop being nervous whenever they miss a shot and I’m not going to stop thinking they’re perfect little basketball angels who can do no wrong. I’m a bundle of nerves and I am irrationally confident in my convictions. I am the all-seeing, all-knowing duality that is a middle-aged man just trying to get by. I know this and I’m at, relative, peace with it.
I’m a mess and I can’t help it. But the kids are alright. Even when they lose, the kids are alright.
They always have been.
Takeaways:
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Keldon Johnson, have yourself a day. More than any other Spurs player right now, it just makes my heart grow three sizes when KJ gets his stuff rolling and is able to influence the game. He wants it so bad and he cares so much. He’s the heartbeat of this team and when things aren’t going his way, it’s almost like it has an outsized effect on everyone around him. It’s not as simple as missing out on a few extra points off the bench. Your biggest cheerleader goes missing as well. On the flip side, when he gets it going it can make a single contested layup in the lane feel like a quick 10-0 run in and of itself. He’ll swag over to the crowd and bellow and everyone around him gets about 10% more hype. I love it. I love him. I’m not nervous at all about the mood and collective psyche of this team riding on whether or not his jumper is falling, why do you ask?
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61-61 in the third quarter felt really bad. Like, the moment it happened, I was having a bad time. In hindsight, especially considering the response, it doesn’t feel like all that big of a deal that they crawled back into it. It’ll be one of those things that’s lost to history, but I’m marking it here for posterity: as it was happening, it felt like the world was ending. Dating back to the end of the second quarter, the Spurs had, according to my notes, missed 100 straight shots. Edwards was starting to feel it and I just…yea, we don’t have to talk about it anymore. It was a bad time.
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Dylan Harper being listed as questionable for Game 5 (knee) almost had me listed as questionable for watching Game 5 (diarrhea). I really did not want to go into this game without him because, hey, turns out he’s maybe the third-best player in this series? It’s insane. I mean, all due respect to literally everyone, but what are we even watching with this kid anymore? It’s breathtaking every time he touches the ball. The control he has, the way he can move and operate in so little space, feels like a magic trick. His finishes at the rim are electric. His defense is insane. I honestly almost don’t ever want to talk about it because I’m afraid my eyes are playing tricks on me. Did we mess around and draft Kobe Bryant to pair alongside Vic? How is his real life?
WWL Post Game Press Conference
Do you really think you should be offering to fight various media personalities for their Wembanyama takes?
If the takes are particularly bad then, yea, I mean, I think I’m honor bound. Duty bound. They need to answer for their sins in the octagon.
What even was the take that got you riled up?
Oh who even knows. There were a lot of bad actors out there trying to cash in on the moment. Hard to keep track. As you can imagine, no one has accepted my offer to settle things via the sacred art of hand-to-hand combat so, clearly, they lack the courage of their convictions and will have to live out their days knowing deep in their soul that cowardice is eating away at the very foundations of their being like a virus.
Are you sure they aren’t just being professional and not getting into fistfights about sports?
I’m sure. They’re cowards. I checked.
