Wednesday, August 3, 2011

What it's like to be the best basketball player

Check out the video embedded in this post from Brian McCormick's magnificent blog.

Football's great, but – well who would you say is the most beloved NFL player? Peyton Manning? In Baltimore it's Ray Lewis, but probably not in Atlanta. Let's go with Ray, just for illustration purposes.

Can you imagine Ray-ray playing his game in an intimate non-professional setting, with hundreds of fans ringing the sideline? Playing for fun, with amateurs? Can you imagine him getting mobbed by his fans after making a series of great plays? There's no way, right? Football does not lend itself to that sort of thing, at all. I'm sure Ray gets mobbed in Baltimore, like if he shows up for a charity event or a speaking engagement or something. But that's not the same thing. In the vid, Kevin Durant's fans are involved with his play in the game.

Football's great. But basketball has a very different relationship with its fans. It's so central, so present, so immediate.

You can imagine getting on the court with Kevin Durant, to play some pickup ball. And he would utterly dominate you, it wouldn't even be funny. But you could dribble it and pass it around and try to take a couple shots, and maybe have some fun. Afterward slap hands and ruefully acknowledge how awesome he is.

You couldn't play football with Ray Lewis. He would obliterate you.

1 comment:

  1. Completely true, again I am going to link to the best and definitely FUNNIEST article that talks about this by Dave Barry:

    http://www.davebarry.com/president/dave2k/columns/long.htm

    Grant Long was a rebounding journeyman who started for the Heat. There were zero offensive plays for him in their system.

    Ray Lewis would, of course, obliterate you. So would NBA players. If Durant was actually trying to guard you, you could not:
    a) dribble
    b) pass over him
    c) shoot over him.

    He'd just take it from you easy as pie.

    Naj

    ReplyDelete

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