Welcome back to BasketandFeelings!!! This week I started a new copywriting job, which always comes with mixed feelings. On the one hand, hooray for me, I get compensated to be creative and the money I make allows me to continue to work on my novel. Hooray for me! On the other hand I am at the mercy of an unpredictable economy, corporate greed, and layoffs that no person should ever have to be at the mercy of, aka I’m an American.
Also, I have to go to meetings, answer emails, and play non human idiot with people who trust me to help them make their business successful? Part of me wants to tell these people, do you realize how crazy you are for hiring me? I have no idea what the effing shit I’m doing and the last person you should be taking any professional advice from is the person who would rather go live on Mars or on a Hare Krishna farm in Mississippi than hop onto a Zoom call to talk touch points. And therein lies the modern day conundrum ? Malaise ? Of all working people? I have no idea, I can only speak for myself, and what I know is that it’s a dirty game out there no matter where you’re situated, and the best way to win is as a community, supported by the people who know you, and you know in return.
So, to honor this deep well of pro community NBA-philosophy that lives in my Jewish blood, I’ve decided I’m going to (sorry corporate America!) start to take this BasketabllandFeelings shit even more seriously.
What started on a whim has proven to be the best job I could’ve ever asked for. Soooooo — thank you!! & let’s get Allen paid. He deserves it.
The next (4) BasketballandFeelings pieces are going to be free, and then starting next month I’ll turn on Paid Subscriptions.
I’m hoping that those of you have been engaging with BBF on a weekly basis will become Paid Subscribers and continue to support my work that way. By doing so you will help me buy weed, sustain me spiritually, and most importantly keep BasketballandFeelings fiercely independent, so that it never gets scooped up by Disney and turned into a ride next to those terrifying spinning Teacups from Cinderella.
Thanks for listening, now onto the show.
It started with that one dude’s comments. The track and field runner, the fast fast man who said something or other about how he thinks it’s annoying when NBA athletes call themselves “world champions” after winning an NBA title.
A lot of NBA players chimed in after that, calling him a goof and a sucker. In the eye of the NBA players it was a really stupid point to be making, of course NBA players who win the NBA championship have the right to call themselves “world champions” even if it’s just an American championship. They’re playing in the best league in the world, where it’s universally understood all of the best players come to play.
At first I didn’t want to write about this because it felt too dumb. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that what was at the crux of this issue was not whether or not you’re the best team in THE WORLD if you win the NBA championship, but this idea of American exceptionalism.
Yes, it’s fair to say you’re all-world if you win an NBA championship. But I also think the response to the track and field star’s statement is interesting. NBA players really took offense to someone saying something that on the face of it is actually kinda true. Flat out, the NBA is an American sports league.
The NBA is not the Olympics. The Olympics are the Olympics and there’s a reason why world champion is something that people can call themselves after they compete with athletes from all across the entire world. Michael Phelps is a world champion. Simone Biles is a world champ. Why were NBA basketball players like Kevin Durant getting so offended?
As Americans, whether we realize it or not this American exceptionalism stuff is engrained into our fat heads from the very beginning. But if you’re an immigrant or your parents are immigrants, like mine, it’s different. You’re automatically exposed to a completely other side of America, the kind that looks at you funny sometimes, and since most NBA players are not immigrants, I’m not surprised that they reacted as defensively as they did.
Because that’s what it was, a defensive response. Players (and Drake!) almost took it personally that an American track star would’ve said something like that about their league, but I wonder how many players who critiqued the track star, paused to wonder if perhaps he wasn’t talking shit about the NBA at all. Perhaps he was coming more from a a place of, hmm, maybe they shouldn’t call themselves “World Champions,” when in reality the world is a much bigger place than America. Maybe there is something here about the myth of American exceptionalism that’s worth, well, exploring.
As most people (with no life) know the Americans lost to the Canadians and placed 4th in the 2023 FIBA Basketball Tournament this summer. It just ended a few weeks ago. Yes, our team did not have Lebron or Steph or KD, or you name it, but it still lost.
Part of the reason it lost is because American players don’t care about it. That doesn’t prove that American players are worse than international players, but it does prove that some of the best international players can beat some of the almost-best American players.
If you took the best international players and put them all on one team, would that team be better or worse than the “best of” American team? Off the top of my head, the international team would have Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous Alexander, Luka Doncic, Jamal Murray, Sabonis, Giannis, and maybe-maybe not Joel Embiid, who is still trying to decide if he is French or American.
Joel Embiid is having an identity crisis, people! And the decision he makes regarding his nationality might make the difference in who wins the gold in the 2024 Paris Olympics! But I digress.
The point is the international team (with or without Embiid) would be fucking stacked, and it could compete just fine against Lebron, Steph, KD, and whoever else from actual America. But only if the American players actually played. If the best players didn’t play, if they rested, as we all know we love resting in America, then the American team would be smoked. Because international players don’t really rest. And to me, that is ultimately what “American Exceptionalism” is all about. That, and Chicken McNuggets.
If American exceptionalism means we’re the best because we’re American and know we should win, that sounds like entitlement. That doesn’t really sit well with my 1st generation Ukrainian-American Jewish immigrant ass.
Of course I understand what Kevin Durant meant when he got offended, and I’m definitely going to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I do care, because there’s nuthing more annoying than a bunch of Americans running around with their shirts off kegging and playing ping pong when I’m trying to lay out and sun tan at the pool during my Greek Islands cruise. Just ask any Parisian or Lebanese traveler what they think about Americans in Europe, and you’ll get your answer.
So, yeah, let’s slow down a little when we dog pile the track star. I’m sure he’s a nice dude who got caught on one too many train rides with obnoxious frat boys to automatically admit that NBA players deserve the right to be called world champions. He’s wrong on that point, the very best basketball talent in the universe plays in the NBA. But maybe, just maybe, it’s okay if we give him the benefit of the doubt, and try to understand where someone with experience competing outside of America is coming from.
Remember, the new BasketballandFeelings is debuting in October 🎃
See y’all next week.
Sock drawer
(muchos gracias to all these for giving me the feels this week)
Two recipes come to mind – Ray Kroc’s ( possibly not quite – but he be the originator of the brand and the sweet capitalism that made it happen) / McDonalds – Pink slime ( add antibiotic propped chicken trimmings and enough ammonia to detonate a small middle eastern city no one cares about) – deep fry in some Canola oil – crispy goodness.. but the clock is ticking, the taste dissipates if its not consumed immediately. The alternative, well – picture a cobbler free ranging “they’re” own chickens, sustainably grown and slaughtered “honestly”. Add bread crumbs, spices and a mincer. Then deep fry in some cold pressed organic olive oil. The difference? Which one flips a coin quicker? – On the eve of 5,784 its depressing to learn that 2023 was actually 3,761 years ago – well before the Neolithic folk understood the value of the right way to prepare poultry.. I digress.. of course. ..
So, Going back a few years now, I had a conversation to the effect of why is the “world series” in baseball only really acknowledged in both the US and Japan ( that happened later)… How is it a world series when it originates, engages and ultimately decides rules of engagement in an insular manner? An answer to the described conundrum I received on different occasions was, America is part of the world, ahead in base ball and most of all – “we can call it whatever the frick we want” – again how is that a world series? This question digs deep, one of cultural identify, tribal direction and of course a John Wayne approach to bulldozing things through. There are plenty of rebuttals and logical arguments, but ultimately the real answer is that ; why not call it the world series? Or why should it not be the world championships? As astutely described, the Olympics may be the world standard as is the United Nations all in things globally-political, the the truism in the argument is open to interpretation. And those that commandeer it – be they, countries or individuals alike are no less wrong or right than those that argue against them.
The real question is, what would those Neolithic folk from 3,761BC think about dipping poultry trimmings into some type of sauce like concussion think? The best taste in the world? Or its gotta grow on you 😉