Welcome, welcome welcome back to another edish of BasketballandFeelings-ish. Disclaimer: I’ll soon be changing the name of the newsletter to something even cooler. Long story, which I’ll explain some other time, but stay on the look out for that. In the meantime, what name do you guys like more between these:
Anywaze, On to the show now. Let’s talk death, shall we?
Often when I’m listening to podcasts I hear the hosts whining about their mortality. Quipping about being old. Feeling so out of touch etcetera. This is understandable as the NBA is a very young league and it’s natural for thirty & forty something year olds to feel “old” in comparison to nineteen year olds. But issues of mortality?! Man, that’s taking it a bit far.
Another question, does being from a big city make it impossible to live in a small city?
That’s the question I couldn’t help but ponder as I started to think about the reaction to Giannis’ comments this past week. Long story short, when asked whether or not he would be re-signing his contract with the Milwaukee Bucs, Giannis said he wasn’t sure. This being the NBA, everyone got sad, worried, and the whole big market / small market debate erupted once again.
Would Giannis leave Milwaukee for a big market like New York? Agggghhhhhhhh
In fairness, the conversation is usually filtered through the media, so it might not be accurate, but the way it’s presented, it always feels like players, especially the best young players, the Zions, the ADs, and Donovan Mitchell’s of the world, would be cray to want to play in a small market, like Charlotte or Cleveland or Milwaukee.
When players like Giannis are fine/happy/cool playing for Milwaukee, what happens is that there’s usually a collective gasp of surprise. How quirky they are, the message seems to be. Family men, built of good stock. How strange and quirky.
So this week, when everyone started to freak out about Giannis’s comments about potentially being open to exit Milwaukee when his contract was up, I started to think about this big market small shmarket thing again.
But then I started thinking, does the desire to live in a big market just kill the possibility for ever realistically being able to live that smaller market life? I mean, if you’re from a big market, born and raised in Los Angeles, let’s say, or New York, London, Mumbai, Paris, etc, could you ever feel comfortable living in a small market like say, Milwaukee or New Orleans?
New Orleans is an amazing city. After spending a year there, I can attest to that, but no lie, I did not have the desire to stay there long term. I missed the thrum and the activity of the big city, the pain, as much as the comfort of the hustle. The lights, the dreams, the energy. There’s something about all of that that a smaller market like New Orleans, for all of its charm, culture, and mystery doesn’t quite give me.
Let’s throw one other element into it while we’re at it which I don’t think can be separated from all of this big market, small market stuff.
Mortality.
What is it about a big city that’s blasted with billboards and fashion and pop culture that makes you feel like you’re young (even when you’re not). That makes you feel like you’re living in the fountain of youth and you’re never going to die.
Because that doesn’t really exist in a city like New Orleans. You have the city - the people - the traditions - the slower pace of life; and even the culture but it’s not the the culture-culture-culture of a city like Los Angeles where shit’s popping off on a nightly basis and filled with energy, the energy of young people who are simply dying to be here. It’s Athens during the Renaissance or Florence during the Renaissance or Los Angeles during our media soaked renaissance moment “where everyone who wants to be anything,” is and fucking has to be.
This is not a judgement on those other places or other players who don’t need that. God bless the Giannis’ of the world who play in Milwaukee and magically don’t give a fuck about the glitz and glamour of the NBA in any kinda way that’s beyond clocking in and clocking out. Who scoff at the idea of fame. Clearly you can be amazing and not care about being famous!
Again, just look at Giannis or Jokic and you’ve got all the evidence you need of someone who could care less about any of the glitz and glamor stuff, and still be the very best at what he does, who can play at the very highest level of the game, and then rush back to Slovenia for the summer to milk his goats after winning a Finals MVP. Maybe he’s not afraid to die at all?
So if it’s not a recipe for success why do so many successful players want it? Why do Zion or Anthony Davis or Donovan Mitchell scoff at the idea of playing in a small market?
Why does Zion, of the New Orleans Pelicans, always feel like he’s halfway to New York? What is it about being a Big Market Person, whether you’re randomly born one like I am, or itching for one your whole life like Zion, that makes this idea so irresistible?
Whatever it is, it’s much easier to get it and always easier to find when you’re in a big city. Even when you’re young like some of these NBA guys. There’s something about being in a big city that makes it irresistible no matter how old you are, that makes you feel young no matter how old you are.
I’ll admit, I felt a little old in New Orleans sometimes. And it wasn’t just because everywhere I looked I saw old people. I’m reminded of a barista who I was friends with for a time during the pandemic. She was from New Orleans. When I asked her why she had left for Los Angeles at such a young age (21), she told me that New Orleans was a strangely small city, and as someone who wanted to make waves in music, she knew she would reach a ceiling there, fast. So she left and started to do her thing in Los Angeles. This was a talented 21 year old up and coming musician leaving New Orleans.
Red flag?
I thought about this for a while on my drive across the country for our gap year in New Orleans, and then thought about it a lot more when we got there, especially when we first got there. Eventually I became intoxicated by the rhythm of life, and thank goodness, forgot all about Los Angeles for a while. I think it saved me.
I think it made it possible to move back here. To put roots down and start really calling it my home, because I knew another kind of energy existed, and whenever I needed it or wanted it, New Orleans (or Slovenia) was right there — a short three hour plane flight or killer one week road trip of La Quintas adjacent to the freeway away.
But now that I’m back in LA what I realize is that New Orleans is even closer. It lives in my bones and even though I’m just a desperate old man closer to the end every day, I can access it whenever I want right there on the TV whenever Zion is playing. 🏀🥲
Comments R’ Us
1. Do you dream about leaving the big city? Where would you rather be?
2. How long have you wanted to leave for?
3. Do you already live somewhere else?
43. HOW old are you? 😭
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Sock drawer
(muchos gracias to all these for giving me the feels this week)
And finally, a piece of a poem. I encourage y’all to read the whole thing.
Would I burn palaces? The child has seen
In this fierce creature of the Commune here,
So bright with bitterness and so serene,
A being finer than my soul, I fear.
Sifting right into the murky sands of age as reference point. I like it! This post really reminds me of a conversation I had recently with my 18 year old nephew who has thrown it all in to pursue professional dance. The idea of the "age-window" is very real; in this case 7 years to make it OR "get there enough" to then teach professionally etc.. But in reality its a mere construct methinks we've created; quite prevalent in sports. But then the question of the environment surfaces, how much does that influence these constructs of ours? Perhaps more prevalent in a big city…