Your NBA team fandom & alliances

why four quarters? i mean, what's the difference

— Who's your #1 team: Knicks
— Why is that team your #1: My first-ever sporting event was a Knicks game. Well, not just a Knicks game, but an NBA Finals game. What a way to kick off a fandom right? The Knicks were by far the biggest deal in town in my early childhood ('til I was about ten), and the players were everywhere on the TV.. My fondest pro hoops memories of all time come from the lockout-year team that made the finals. Besides being larger than life, a bunch of the players lived kinda nearby in the suburbs where I lived, so I would occasionally run into, say, Buck Williams shopping at the Halloween store with his kid. And they would do signings and engagement that really affected me when I was a kid. It's a far cry from the current era--a team of journeyman and the occasional star who management alienates until they leave town.
— Who's your side-piece(s): Brooklyn, Sixers
— Why they are your side-piece(s): For Brooklyn--proximity. I live in the Flatbush area, so Barclays is a short walk. Plus, they're a super-fun team with talented youngsters and a good coach who was actually given a leash to work his magic. Sixers, I have a close family friend who works in the front office. Plus--years of Knicks misery and shared enmity against the Celtics.
— How, when, why you got into the NBA: Kinda got into it above, sorry.

I will say that the team I follow closest in both football and basketball is the Michigan Wolverines. College sports seems mostly non-grata around ILX parts, but I can't help it--I've been indoctrinated and I bleed Blue to the point where I organize my life around their games (why why why would you schedule a wedding on a fall saturday, whyyyyy)

I wouldn't say I prefer College Hoops to the NBA product. It's clearly inferior for all the reasons that everyone says. I'm a League Pass subscriber and the NBA is definitely the most fun league out there.. But the shorter games and the longer shot clock means more unpredictability, and it means each possession is a bit more meaningful--it's more of a visceral experience watching than the NBA, which is pure entertainment. Plus, in the particular case of Michigan, John Beilein built a very warm and fuzzy program, with an unconventional style and few one-n-dones. It's nice to have them flourishing while the knicks near their 19th straight year of hopelessness (give or take that one 2012-2013 season)

— Who's your #1 team:

dearly departed seattle super sonics

— Why is that team your #1:

seattle born and bred. i left for a while and came back. now they need to

— Who's your side-piece(s):

blazers

— Why they are your side-piece(s):

lol rivalries, but i lived in portland for a couple years and the town is obsessed and i couldn't help getting with it. living in the same town as rasheed wallace has that effect on a person

— How, when, why you got into the NBA:

legend of '79 champions, slick watts, jack sikma

living in the same town as rasheed wallace has that effect on a person

man I really wanna post earnestly on this thread but when I start thinking about early nba times it is straight up a proustian Madeline and I get lost in memory and I’ll end up writing an 8 volume novel or whatever

— Who's your #1 team:
Sixers
— Why is that team your #1:
Lived in SE PA and became friends with a bunch of Sixers fans in the Iverson era.
— Who's your side-piece(s):
Spurs and anyone playing the Lakers.
— Why they are your side-piece(s):
Pop. And rooting against the Lakers is in the Bill of Rights.
— How, when, why you got into the NBA:
See above. Did not become a real fan until the late 90s when the Sixers got Iverson. Loved that team that went to the Finals with Eric Snow, et. al. LOL.

Iverson was just such a perfect Philly player.

I hear Snow is still highly beloved there

man I really wanna post earnestly on this thread but when I start thinking about early nba times it is straight up a proustian Madeline and I get lost in memory and I’ll end up writing an 8 volume novel or whatever

― Clay, Wednesday, March 20, 2019 11:50 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

let it flow my man

otm

I think the nba owes as much to iverson as it does to jordan. he brought in so many young fans and made everyone in the world want to do sick crossovers and wear arm sleeves.

for sure iverson was so charismatic

i've been largely absent from ILH this year for basketball- and non-basketball reasons but i still lurk and this thread in particular is great

Who's your #1 team:
cavs.

Why is that team your #1:
cleveland is my hometown. i was a kid in the when lenny wilkins coached the mark price / brad daugherty / ron harper / larry nance era, it was p fun. i did basketball camp at the y and danny ferry came to the camp. but really it was seeing lebron ascend when i was in high school and then being able to #witness his whole astonishing career arc, it's been so goddamn fun to see someone from this area do what he's done. i went to a catholic high school and they did prayers over the classroom PA system and sometime in 2002 (i think maybe when sports illustrated did their big "chosen one" feature on the high school lebron? i can't remember but it was sometime when lebron was in the news in 2002) and the prayer leader gave thanks to "our lord and savior, the son of god" over the PA and my teacher in the classroom mumbles under his breath "lebron james" and we all just ate it up.

Who's your side-piece(s):
don't really have any but i love lebron for aforementioned reasons, so maybe the lakers right now, i've probably watched more lakers games than cavs this year. always admire the spurs for reasons others have mentioned. i used to hate the dubs of course but now i enjoy them

How, when, why you got into the NBA:
i've always just been a casual fan, dipping in here and there and checking out completely occasionally. but playing tecmo NBA basketball on my super nintendo in the mid-90s, watching NBA inside stuff with my older brothers who really seemed to know everything about the league, playing playground and driveway hoops with them, then the lebron cavs part 1 and of course part 2 made it really fun to be an NBA fan

clay what you describe is the hoops board of equivalent of hoisting which we all agree is wonderful

xps

— Who's your #1 team: Timberwolves
— Why is that team your #1: I grew up in MN; also, I hate myself
— Who's your side-piece(s): wherever Lebron is playing
— Why they are your side-piece(s): I was born in OH
— How, when, why you got into the NBA: I was always a fan of the Magic/Bird rivalry but my real gateway into the NBA was when I watched Patrick Ewing lose to Villanova in the 1985 NCAA tournament and said to myself "I must follow this dude's career into the pros and root against him at any and all opportunities"; then the 90s and Jordan happened and I was hooked up until the always-disappointing Timberwolves beat most of my active enjoyment of the game out of me. I still enjoy rooting against the Celtics and Knicks, though.

i can't remember but it was sometime when lebron was in the news in 2002) and the prayer leader gave thanks to "our lord and savior, the son of god" over the PA and my teacher in the classroom mumbles under his breath "lebron james" and we all just ate it up.

looll please tell me your teacher did it in the Lebron James kid voice

Total bandwagon GSW fan, but I did grow up the Bay Area and live in San Francisco...

but my real gateway into the NBA was when I watched Patrick Ewing lose to Villanova in the 1985 NCAA tournament and said to myself "I must follow this dude's career into the pros and root against him at any and all opportunities"

amazing

DJI if you're from the area then you can jump on the wagon anytime with no baggage!

— Who's your #1 team: Timberwolves
— Why is that team your #1: I grew up in MN; also, I hate myself

― GDPR vs GAPDY (DJP), Thursday, March 21, 2019 2:19 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol i love wolves culture

so much self loathing haha

looll please tell me your teacher did it in the Lebron James kid voice

― but I can't let Trae do it I got Huerter on my mind (Spottie), Thursday, March 21, 2019 2:25 PM (thirty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

loool

also i was 9 when the 1992 dream team happened and that was so fun

xpost Rasheed Wallace is now the coach for the boys team at my old HS. I can't even...

obv I voted for the Wolves basically djp

I don't see sports as fun per se rather a familial burden I must carry through life

wolves fandom is sounding like catholicism itt

Hi, guys
I've never had a #1 team. I grew up in Kansas City, and the Kings left town right after I was born. I guess now OKC is the closest team, but no way could I be a fan of a team from Oklahoma. I have shifting side-pieces depending on style, players, and league narratives. I really enjoyed the early '00s Kings and was bummed that they couldn't grab a title from Shaq and Kobe. LeBron and I were born the same month, and a big part of my NBA fandom has been watching his career since high school.

I watched the Dream Team play, and I had a basic knowledge of who the best players were growing up, but I didn't really get into the NBA until 2000-ish. I was a Kansas Jayhawks fan, so Paul Pierce getting into the league was a big deal. I remember looking at newspaper box scores his rookie year and wondering who this A. Walker was that was taking so many shots. Also, as weird as it might sound, the draft was important for me getting into the NBA. I saw magazine covers featuring Eddy Curry, Tyson Chandler, and Kwame Brown saying something like "This high schooler could be the #1 pick in the draft!" and was intrigued that there could three of them and wanted to find out more. High schoolers and that wave of big time international players made it an interesting period for following basketball prospects, so I could go on nbadraft.net and nerd out and also watch games to see how guys who were already in the league were doing.

I've been neglecting the league this season, need to watch some games to get back in the groove before the 'offs.

I remember looking at newspaper box scores his rookie year and wondering who this A. Walker was that was taking so many shots.

lolllllllllllll

lmao memories

https://media.tenor.com/images/12b3ddf25ec2c58830d84984caa9cbb1/tenor.gif

The antoine walker thing was a great little blip in time

lol, I have a lot of fondness for the players who became stars in the post-Jordan Bulls, pre-LeBron years.

i read a lot of Slam magazine in that time period, they hyped a lot of those guys

I never read Slam, but I can definitely picture those covers in my mind. Also there was about a year in there where I played PS2 NBA Street every day.

— Who's your #1 team: 76ers
— Why is that team your #1: i started watching basketball in like 2015, and the process was interesting, and then joel embiid ended up being a really fun guy and then they did good and i didn't have to live through years of badness, i just get to show up for the fun part haha sorry phidelphians
— Who's your side-piece(s): blazers, raptors
— Why they are your side-piece(s): cool-ass jerseys (blazers), i liked portland when i visited (blazers), i am from canada (raptors), but not toronto (anyone but raptors), lillard and kawhi
— How, when, why you got into the NBA: 2015 because it was the only major sport i wasn't watching at all and some new friends of mine were v into it so i jumped in and i was like "wtf this is good" and i stopped watching hockey and football p much immediately because basketball is very very very good. still have <3 in my heart for baseball tho, the ambient sport.

THAT SAID i dunno if i am gonna click sixers in the poll or click "w/e team is fun" because honestly i... watch who i can? with the weird nba pass blacking out every game. and there's so many good players at basketball. i like deaaron fox!!

ahh ill clikc 76ers to make it more interesting

— Who's your #1 team:
the nuggets

— Why is that team your #1:
I grew up in upstate NY and had filial and geographical connections to syracuse college sports. I was 13 or so when the carmelo-led team won the NCAA title and ended up just following him to the nuggets as I didn’t really have an NBA team. I was really into those teams from melo’s early years but only really became an every-game-watching fanatic after he was traded and fell in love with the deep, fun team they put together (especially the 2013 nuggets, my favorite team ever)
— Who's your side-piece(s):
whichever team chris paul is playing on, mid-2010s spurs for aesthetic and manu reasons, and generally any team that is good and plays fast

— How, when, why you got into the NBA:
I was only a casual fan for most of my early life, watched the late jordan bulls and the shaq lakers, but probably started the league more closely once I started following the nuggets

#1 team: Milwaukee Bucks
Lived in Wisconsin since I was 7.

Side-pieces...none, really. I liked the Mavs because of Dirk and the Spurs are always a cool team to watch. I like LeBron and a few other individual players like Chris Paul and Boban.

How, when, why you got into the NBA: Like a lot of 90s kids I pretty much grew up on Jordan's Bulls, not really caring about my own hometown team which was mostly awful. Nobody I knew really liked basketball so I kinda forgot about it, by the time I made some basketball friends and started watching again it was 2002, the year after the Bucks' last run with Ray Allen. They have not won a playoff series since. Still, it wasn't all bad - not having a good team meant no pressure and cheap tickets. Plus, we've been kind of spoiled by the Packers, so I figured rooting for a team that downright sucked sometimes was probably good, on balance. I thought the 2010 Bogut/Jennings team had a chance to make some noise...didn't happen. Of course Giannis has changed everything in Milwaukee.

aw go mke

how's the local vibe for the bucks now? are people into it?

i have only passing familiarity with milwaukee but don't see any reason why it shouldn't be a good basketball town.

a friend of mine who moved back to WI said it was a legit vibe, sld out games after years of like not getting sold out

yeah Milwaukee's a good basketball town, even better baseball town. how could it not be, drinking + cold weather + sports really do go together. there is a lot of excitement around the Bucks right now; most of the games I've been at this year were sold out and incredibly loud. Like when they go on one of those 2-minute 12-2 runs the place just goes absolutely mental. Plus we don't have a lot of big money/celebrities here so the front rows are nearly always big fans. I also think the Packers missing the playoffs twice in a row and generally looking like garbage has something to do with it as well. the idea that Wisconsin would have 2 MVPs and neither would be Aaron Rodgers would have sounded completely bonkers 5 years ago.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

— Why is that team your #1:
I grew up in upstate NY and had filial and geographical connections to syracuse college sports. I was 13 or so when the carmelo-led team won the NCAA title and ended up just following him to the nuggets as I didn’t really have an NBA team. I was really into those teams from melo’s early years but only really became an every-game-watching fanatic after he was traded and fell in love with the deep, fun team they put together (especially the 2013 nuggets, my favorite team ever)

― k3vin k., Wednesday, April 10, 2019 2:44 PM (six days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you should feel blessed every day that you didnt choose the knicks

for sure lol

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

dang, 46 votes? show yourselves you cowards

46 votes!?!? xp!!

ILH has got some lurkers

i voted so:

— Who's your #1 team: Bulls
— Why is that team your #1: grew up in northern IN, which is closer to Chicago than Indy. MJ was dominant.
— Who's your side-piece(s): I loved the Hornets when younger. I like to watch the celtics these days.
— Why they are your side-piece(s): hornets: for their gear and later on for the 'My Brother and Me' ties. celtics: IN ties. grew up watching all of the epic Larry Bird VHS docs with my dad. I like Brad. I also like to know what Bill Simmons is complaining about on his podcast.
— How, when, why you got into the NBA: Larry Bird VHS docs. pistol pete instructional videos.