Green: Confessions of a bandwagon basketball fan

It’s not that I don’t like basketball. Heck, it was invented in Massachusetts, which in my mind immediately puts it on par with marshmallow fluff, Thanksgiving and the Polaroid camera. At least.

But I have to be honest. I stopped being emotionally involved in the NBA when Michael Jordan took that sabbatical with the White Sox. If even Jordan preferred baseball, I figured, maybe he had a point. I never really looked back.

Sure, I followed the NBA. But it was an intellectual exercise. Yes, the Celtics were awful for a while. But I had no emotional involvement in the team, so I was spared any real emotional duress. When they made some big roster moves before this season, I was impressed, but not stirred. Even during the regular season, when they just couldn’t stop winning, I watched … but I did not feel. No, they had to get into the playoffs before they could melt the icy heart of this Bostonian. But once they did — ba-doom.

I don’t mean to offend you hardcore Celtics fans who faithfully waited out that long winter of losing, loyally believing that brighter days were ahead. I tip my hat to you. But the ugly truth is that in just the past month, I’ve gone from dispassionate observer to … [cue ominous music] … bandwagon fan.
There, I said it.

I know I’m not alone. I see the sudden greening of Boston — and I’m not talking about all the new summer foliage or the windmill in Hull. I’m talking about the spring that a thousand Kevin Garnett jerseys bloomed.

These folks must also secretly know how sinfully delightful it feels to surf over to a game anytime you feel like it, as if it were a “Law and Order” rerun. “Oh dearie me, there’s nothing on the telly … oh, is it the conference finals? Third quarter? Yes, let’s watch. Tra la la!” It’s nothing like being a “real fan.” If being a “real fan” is like a marriage — for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, ’til death and all that jazz — then being a bandwagon fan is like having a no-strings-attached vacation fling. Sure, the former is deeply rewarding, morally upright, prevents osteoporosis and all that. But therein lies the delicious, guilty pleasure of the latter.

Basketball and I have little in common. For one thing, I’ll never agree with the T-shirt cannon. And basketball and I probably don’t have a future together, since I can’t be fully supportive of any sport that involves intentional fouling as a late-game strategy. But that’s okay. Because, as a bandwagoner, I get to enjoy it while it lasts and then — when the check comes, when the music stops, when the sunburn starts to peel — I get to leave.

I know it’s wrong. But darling, it just feels so right.