Attending the NBA Draft last Thursday was akin to buying a ticket to sit in the comments section of a Deadspin article for two hours. It's crowded and the guy behind you gets stuck on magically vapid phrases like "He put his nuts in his mouth!" and "Better buy a coat, it's cold in [insert name of draftee's new city]!" The entire affair oozes with negative vibes.
Even the booing of commissioner David Stern, which is a tradition I
fully support, is clearly a hollow and ridiculous exercise. The man is not without flaws, but the immediate jeers he faces when he first walks out on stage each year have nothing to do with his performance as captain of the league; they seem to be anti-authoritarian in some respect, but are ultimately directionless.
This all seems odd, as the draft is designed as the league's one immaculate beacon of hope. In the warm confines of draft night, the hardships of last season shouldn't matter, because there may just be a 20-year-old ready to fix any roster deficiency or chemistry issue that's been causing your favorite team's computer to crash. All-Stars have been picked all the way into the second round, so why not trick yourself into thinking your team has found that hidden coin in the
loaf of Vasilopita—even if just for one night.
But as hard as Jay Bilas and Jon Barry tried to trumpet each and every pick, the atmosphere in the building just didn't match this presumed optimism.
As is normally the case with the NBA Draft, which has resided in the NY/NJ metropolitan area more often than not, the entire affair was best exemplified by Knicks fans. Twenty minutes after New York picked Iman Shumpert to a cacophony of boos, the gentleman sitting to our right in an Allen Houston jersey was still loudly lamenting the pick. Adam Ain't politely leaned over and said, "Excuse me, I'm a Knicks fan too. Just wondering, who did you want them to pick?" Without taking even the briefest of moments to consider the contradiction about to tumble from his lips like a drunkard at a Cirque Du Soleil audition, he responded, "Oh I don't know. Who are you going to get at 17? There's no one there that can do anything."
To combat all this negativity permeating the event, we retreated back to a sort of devil-may-care optimism, what we'll term our Nihilistic Fandom. We greeted most draft decisions with a hearty, "Why not! Print his name on the back of a jersey and get him a locker! He'll get out there!" It's a philosophy we began to develop part of the way through the 2010-2011 season, as a reaction to the sometimes overwhelming spaciousness of the 82-game season. The season is so long, and so many things happen, and so many people have so many things to say about how important or revolutionary or devastating each and every event is, we stopped caring about all of them at a certain point. This is not to say we're not passionate about this league; we spend as much time thinking about the NBA as anyone who actually gets paid to follow the league. We're panicked about a lockout, not even because the threat of missing games, but because we are continually enthralled by the
offseason. We are consumed by the league and every single detail it has to offer. At the same time, we know none of it really matters—in both the real world and cosmic senses.
Sitting in New Jersey or Brooklyn,
No Regard staff conversations have increasingly started to sound like this:
"Definitely put Jamario Moon in the game. He'll run around and work up a sweat, for sure. Maybe deflect a pass or two. Or not, no worries."
"Kurt Thomas? Absolutely. Get him in there and find out how many rebounds the old man can pull down."
"Ok, trade for Hasheem Thabeet if you have the chance and invite him to a few practices! He'll drive his car to the gym and work out a bit!"
For fuck's sake, our only reaction to the Mavs winning the title was
a post about Coach Spoelstra playing Eddie House for 21 minutes in game six.
This ideology is what got us through draft night, and it's what will get us through the lockout. When regular season games finally commence in December, and the players are out of shape and barely aware of the new offensive and defensive systems in which they've been placed, we'll be thrilled with the entire situation—because what does it really matter? Why not enjoy it?
I guess what I'm trying to do here is invite you all to this New Age NBA philosophy of ours, which can be reduced down to this: Nothing matters, and everything that happens in the NBA is fun.
Nihilistic Fandom, welcome.
