Every offseason the NBA makes changes, and every offseason I expect to feel a greater emotional detachment from the league as it becomes less and less my ideal NBA, which is basically just the NBA of my youth.
This offseason, for example, the league moved Jerry West to the back of the uniform. Presumably, this adjustment was made in order to clear real estate for advertisement patches in future seasons. Of course, the decision to relocate Jerry will ultimately have no effect whatsoever on the game itself. Not even the dreaded advertisements will. But when it comes to the basketball jersey, I'm a traditionalist. I want to see mesh, scoop-neck collars, multicolored piping, and Jerry on the left-hand shoulder. Anything else is like wearing a Hawaiian shirt to the board meeting; it's just not appropriate.
So this is the type of incremental change that, piled on top of countless similar changes that have been made over time, leaves me expecting that, at some point, the NBA will be like that long lost friend I'll fail to even recognize when I bump into him at the gas station in twenty-five years. I picture a future in which all jerseys have sleeves covered with corporate sponsorships, every player is a dweeb who arrives to the game dressed as a baked potato, and the season is not the same arbitrary number of games long as it always has been. I feel nauseated, and I imagine I'll just stop watching.
But then the new season begins, and I watch a game. At first, I think about the changes. I see Jerry West on Paul Pierce's back, and Paul Pierce is on the Wizards, and the Wizards are dressed like the Bullets. I flip over to Memphis and Vince Carter is on the Grizzlies, and he's getting his shot attempt squashed at the rim by someone who should not be able to squash the Vince Carter that I know and love's shot at the rim. Things just aren't the same, I think to myself, and I wonder how I will ever adjust.
But then I flip over to Charlotte. There, I see the greatest mascot in the history of major American sports, Hugo the Hornet, jogging across a honeycomb floor. Then I see Lance Stephenson, outfitted in teal, posterize Larry Sanders. Suddenly, I feel a vicarious adrenaline rush, and I realize... it's the same feeling from years past, and oh, how I missed that feeling.
Welcome back, NBA.
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