The Miami Flamers might have just killed the bball fan in me. My interest in the game had already begun to ebb over the past season. It's hard, no matter what any non-fairweather fan says, when your hometown team can't truly compete. The Raptors did try, I think, so it's not an effort thing. But their personnel and style combined for something, last season, a bit less than mediocre. There's only so many right-handed Bargniani drives I could take, so many botched Calderon defensive sequences. It was just easier to ignore them.
And man, the playoffs just made it starker. You'd think that some good, consistently well-executed competition would stimulate my love of the game. In a fool's gold kind of way it did. I got lost for a bit in the dazzle of Rondo's ball fakes and Gasol's post play. But, all that reminded me of how ungood Calderon and Bargs are. Also reminded me of how bad regular season basketball is. Sure, strategically it makes sense to rest Garnett for the championship rounds. But, it's about 4 to 1 the ratio of playoff games to regular season and asking us fans to humor 81 games of half-effort is a bit much. 81 Raptor games.
Now that the Heat is stacked, a lot of those 81 games are going to be even harder to watch. Remember how unexciting was the prospect of a Cavs-Raptors game? There's 4 of them next season sans Lebron and Bosh. The league was already pretty watered down so this stockpile does not help. There's some good that'll come out of this, though. The Raptors fan in me that was terminal is now unequivocally dead. Glimmers of hope are no more; it's as if, without Bosh, I'm free in my hopelessness. That's like three 2.5 hour segments per regular season week that I'll have free to, say, read or write or watch a movie.
And if I do get an inkling to watch, I have a team to cheer against to replace the one I used to cheer for. I've always sort of hated Bosh's ugly left handed game and his ugly face, anyways. And I've been loving the Delonte-on-Lebron's mom rumors; I'm with the camp that thinks him a talented choker who just sort of likes basketball. Dwyane, well, I hate him now by proxy I suppose. In my mind I've been going through some matchups. The Bulls will give them a hard time since they're front court is so long and rugged. Same goes for the Lakers, plus they have Kobe. Dwight, on some nights, will be able to burn Bosh and co. And Durant is sick. Of course, those are tough matchups are in my imagination only. They're going to be good soon. Maybe too good for me to care. I'll be busy with real life to notice, though. And with watching boxing.
