5 Types Of NBA Fans I Hate, And Dear God I Can’t Get More Excited For A Season Ever

I have never been as excited for an NBA season as I am for the one that’s about to begin in an hour. This is strange considering that the team I care most about, the Nuggets, is going to be pretty bad. I think this means that I have fully transitioned into the liberated fan, but I prefer to think it means I’ve finally managed to taste the entire NBA universe and have now reached nirvana. I’m unconditioned and extinguished, I say yes to all that happens and celebrate it.

Although, to be fair, basketball nirvana doesn’t quite translate to the religious sense. I still feel sadness and joy. For example, I’m still recovering from the bummerage I felt at hearing of Jeff Pendergraph’s injury and subsequent waiving. I’m giddy about the possibility of all things happening with the Wizards. So the emotions and pains that true nirvana erases are still here, but the questioning about said emotions and pains is gone. No longer do I ask “why the hell am I so wrapped up in this?” or “how is this so important to me?”. Now it is more a proclamation of “Yes! I freak out at Serge Ibaka!” “Yes! the soon-upon-us awful trade for Melo causes me to dwell upon acts of depraved violence!” And let me tell you, kids, this feeling is the best.

And the only thing that can harsh this high I’m on? As with most things: idiots. As an act of exorcism and purification of my soul, I will name the evils of idiocy, and in so naming them steal their power to affect me. If you commit the following acts, know that I have for you a hate of the purest rage, and I am so comfortable in that hate that I will proudly proclaim it to your digital face:

1. If you hate Lebron James, I hate you. This is not because I am pro-Lebron. I am just anti-anti-Lebron. He is a supreme talent and we are lucky to be alive during his career. Have a little dignity for yourself and develop a more nuanced stance than “OMG The Decision was the dick-est thing ever and now he’s the biggest dick ever!” He made a decision some of us don’t really like, and if you are so petty as to let a 26 year old’s choice to move to Florida color your opinion of him, I hate you.

2. If you say “I can’t stand the NBA style, college basketball is much more watchable” when we know that means “I’m not comfortable with an African-American dominant sports”, I hate you. In the new book from FreeDarko (which I think I’ve annoyed 100% of my Twitter followers today with my rapturous talk about it) there is a deeply saddening sidebar graphic of two charts. One is of the percentage of the NBA that is black. It starts to rise meteorically in the mid to late 70’s. The other chart shows the national popularity of the NBA over the years. There is a plunge in interest in The Association in, you guessed it, the mid to late 70’s. The FD gang just suggest that there might be a causal relationship between the two. I’m not ensnared by the same boundaries of good taste and propriety as they are (or at least are when required to publish an actual book), so I’ll say it more directly: a bunch of the NBA’s support evaporated when a bunch of white people felt uncomfortable seeing a predominantly-black league taking shape. Y’all are asses, if you say this you clearly haven’t watched more than 30 minutes of the NBA in at least a decade, and I hate you.

3. If you are a Utah Jazz fan, I hate you. I like the Utah Jazz team, but their fanbase is without a doubt the most annoying and petty and shallow group in ever. I’m pretty sure every Utah Jazz fan hates Lebron, so this also fits under number 1.

4. If you wax rhapsodic about the mythical qualities of Madison Square Garden, I hate you. That place hasn’t had true relevance in close to 2 decades, and the Knicks have been peddling on the 60’s and 70’s since the 60’s and 70’s. The Knicks have inherent intrigue, but it’s not because they’re a sleeping giant. They are the 76ers-on-the-Hudson, and I don’t here anyone braying about the Wells Fargo Center.

5. If you engage in the Kobe-vs.-Lebron-vs.-MJ debate, I hate you. This is probably the dumbest and most pedantic bullshit happening in all of sports and I’m including anything Favre or steroids-y or BCS related. It’s an incoherent, unwinnable, juvenile, geographically xenophobic, and wasteful discussion and it deliberately eschews the wonder and beauty of the game in order to pursue a hurr-durr discussion so base that even the pissy bitches over on Fox News would find it stupid and embarrassing. I hate you if you even try to treat this faux-debate seriously.

Okay: with that bit of bile-letting done and over, I’m ready for the season. This is going to be awesome. Allons-y.