There’s no escaping Bay Area basketball fever! Whether you’re sports-clueless or too woke to wave a foam finger, here’s everything you need to know to help you understand what all the hubbub is about.
What is “sports?”
Sports is what aggressive people do in lieu of waging war. It’s sort of like how art is a thing sensitive people do instead of killing themselves. Or how programming is something mathematical-minded people do to avoid socializing.
What is “basketball?”
Basketball is a sport that was invented in 1891. It was founded as a variation of American football, which was derived from rugby, which was adapted from football (a.k.a. soccer), whose roots goes all the way back to cuju (a game from China that’s 2,000+ years old), which was a military game that helped soldiers stay fit for battle. So basically, basketball is a war thing.
Why do Bay Area people suddenly care soooo much about basketball after not giving a shit for decades?
Throughout the dot-com years, all the Bay Area teams sucked!And the team that sucked the most was the Golden State Warriors. Every indication seemed to suggest that things would stay this way forever. Until about three years ago, most people in San Francisco had no idea Oakland even had a basketball team. But then a techie venture capitalist bought the team and worked his techie venture-capital magic, and now the Warriors are arguably the best team ever. Cue the bandwagon.
But wait…I thought LeBron was the greatest?
Yes, even if you’ve never seen a sports-game contest, you know who LeBron is. He was surprisingly good in that Amy Schumer movie! He is also, perhaps, the greatest basketball player of all time, which also means, maybe, that his Cleveland Cavaliers are the greatest of all time. The important thing to remember is that anytime anyone says “greatest” with regard to basketball, they are making an insufferable argument, and they should shut up.
By the way, no one actually writes “greatest of all time” anymore.
They write “G.O.A.T.” If you ever read or hear anyone spewing platitudes about a purported G.O.A.T., you should lay this thought experiment on them…
Basketball time-machine thought experiment
Imagine that someone invents a time machine so that the best basketball players in the prime of their careers can convene at a mutually agreeable time and court in history. They all arrive to prove once and for all who is the best. Wow! But now that they are all together, how would you even figure this out? The only real way to test them would be one-on-one because team play introduces so many variables. But one-on-one has no bearing as to how NBA basketball is played and how we judge NBA players.
The moral of the story: if you have a frikken time machine and still can’t figure out who the best player ever is, then please stop. Worthless news is worse than fake news.
Why does the NBA deny us our one-on-one joy?
Like, what if the game is tied at the end of regulation and instead of going into overtime, it’s Steph vs. LeBron, game to 11? Everyone in the universe — even people who hate everything — is 100 percent in favor of this happening. So why no one-on-one? It’s like if tennis were only doubles and never singles. That would make no sense at all. Singles is taken way more seriously than doubles. Who won the doubles at last year’s French Open? No one cares! With tennis, the G.O.A.T. is legit.
Why the heck does everyone have “Strength in Numbers” on their T-shirts?
“Strength in Numbers” is the slogan of the Warriors. The cheering masses have been duped into thinking the slogan is an ode to solidarity, the fans, and a commitment to unselfish team play. But to the hedge-fund raiders who own the team and profit off of every golden T-shirt and banner, “Strength in Numbers” is literal, as in “numbers over people.” These supervillians derive their strength from Big Data, equations, margins, algorithms and, most importantly, dollars. “Virtus in Numeris” is no less than the blood oath of San Francisco’s nouveau computational class.
Isn’t it deeply shameful to start rooting for a team only after they start winning?
Yes. Especially because here it means you’re a shill for the tech industry. You might as well be cheering for the best app in the App Store. Warriors games have become must-be-seen-at networking events for tech A-listers. Every so often these so-called fans actually look up from their phones to see what’s happening on the court before tweeting another selfie. On this website, I found tickets for game 1 going as high as $18,000 each. The cheapest tix are over $400. If the series goes to game 7, tickets could go for seven figures.
That’s insane.
Yup. Mere chump change for these people. The humble Oakland folks for whom basketball is actually meaningful can’t even dream of going to the games anymore. By 2020, the Warriors will be in San Francisco; the Raiders will be in Vegas; and everyone who grew up in Oakland will have moved to Fresno and be hate-rooting for the Sacramento Kings. The richer Oakland gets, the poorer it gets.
Aw, come on…stop being such a downer! Just tell us who is going to win the finals!
Sorry, folks. When the people lose, there are no winners.
Virtus in Populus! Strength in people!
