Why I Love Sports

A couple of days ago I opened up my laptop and noticed that I had received an email from someone I had just had the pleasure of meeting. She is passionate and loving and deeply intellectual, but she (and her husband as well) just didn't get how people could get so enamored with sports like I am. So, she asked me through an email if I would attempt to explain to her, in my opinion, "the meaning of sports." I in turn woke up, steadied myself, and wrote the following response:

"Good Morning,

      
           Thanks again for having us over yesterday. It was truly our pleasure to meet you and the whole family. Your sports question is a complex one to answer and I dare say that I could probably get closer to accurately answering it in an essay that would span thousands of words, but I will try to do my best to answer it somewhat right now in this email. Soo...

     
           I have come to a realization that sports are the vehicle and arena that I use to continually take a break from the harsh realities that life can bring and the issues that are very demanding on my body and soul that I involve myself with often. From my work life as a teacher interacting with students and being a part of constant primary and secondary trauma to my rough family history to every beyond frustrating and sad issue that the news can discuss (healthcare, education, politics, everything can seem irreparably broken and corrupted), if I spent every waking moment of my life turning my immense passion toward these issues, I would be an absolute and complete wreck. And at times, I find myself in that state when my mind and passion focus on the many injustices in this world that need immediate love, power, justice...and often logic.

      
            But sports are different. There is a 24/7 news cycle with sports as well, but unlike constant stories about murder, corruption, brokenness, and fear, in sports the stories are often inspirational in nature. And when they are negative, or tough to read, it's because of a team losing by a certain amount of points, or a player getting hurt, or the way a team lost. This is a layer removed from the depth of trauma that negative stories carry in mainstream media.

     
             In addition, knowledge and depth of sports is truly a language that connects me to so many human beings. At times, it's the only thing that connects me to them. As a man in society, I have expectations that I largely ignore and fight back against as someone who grew up with a single mom and who is a self proclaimed feminist. I don't really know or care to know a thing about cars. I don't know how to hunt, in fact I've never even fired a gun before. I want to know how to fish, but I've never successfully caught one before. I don't really know how to fix things...or even enough to know what the names of certain tools are in a toolbox. And my views of women are very progressive. I believe that a relationship should be consensual and balanced at every level. That checks should be split, names hyphenated or collectively changed in a different way to reflect and respect both families upon marriage. That in a truly healthy relationship two people complement each other, not complete. All of these views go against (sadly) what the mainstream male believes or at least is attempted to be programmed to believe by society.

             And then...there is sports. If I meet a stranger and they are wearing some sort of team paraphernalia, I may have absolutely nothing in common with them. Maybe they're the most conservative tea party Republican on the planet. Maybe they think education should be privatized and that poverty is the right of law. If I attempted to talk with them about any other issue, we both might have an interaction that would be incredibly damaging and negative. But despite all of this, I can look at the team that he or she is sporting (pun intended), and without hesitation begin talking with him or her about that team. I can start by showing empathy in saying something like "wow, that last game of the season...so sorry, that was rough." Or sharing in excitement about the team, like "wow, especially since they just got player x, they are going to be a force to be reckoned with this season!" And you know what, when I say these things to this stranger, a minor miracle happens. Without fail, if they truly are a fan of the team that they are representing (and sometimes they're not. And their reaction is just that it happens to be a cap or shirt that they're wearing. And if that happens, then if nothing else two strangers have shared a moment, and that is beautiful by itself), then their eyes light up. A smile  forms on their mouth. And immediately, we spring into conversation and lively debate. If it wasn't for sports, I don't know if I would ever connect with most males at all. But as someone who is continually well versed in the deepest sports knowledge possible, I have a secret weapon that allows me to converse with just about anyone. Women are easy to talk to. I can often be bold and ask deep questions and be blunt while being sensitive and listening to them. Guys often aren't like that. They don't want to talk about "deep" issues. They don't want to think about them either. But boy oh boy will they talk to me for hours about the Blazers. About the smallest aspect of them, like who I think they will look to obtain to join their team for next year. It is absolutely fascinating.

        
              All of this, and I haven't even started talking about the experience of playing or watching a game together. I often think that the only thing that will ever truly unite the world in peace and love is if aliens from another planet attempt to attack us and take us over. For I'm convinced that until you have a common enemy, it is almost impossible for people to truly come together as a mass group and bond in the deepest of ways. Sports show this constantly. When a Blazer game is on, I can walk into a bar where I know no one. But when the game is on, all of a sudden there is a little pro-Blazers family in that bar. When the Blazers make a positive play, people collectively cheer and hi-five and smile at each other. When Damian Lillard, the famous Blazers point guard hit arguably the biggest shot in the history of the franchise just a month or so ago to help the Blazers win their first playoff series in over a decade, you can see an entire group of thousands of people in such collective jubilation that it is truly beautiful. When that shot goes in, strangers don't just smile and hi-five and cheer together. They jump together. They hug together. They have an out of body experience that Jesus Christ himself would tip his cap to in appreciation of. Democrats and Republicans. Christians and Atheists. Young and old. Men and Women. Heterosexual and Homosexual. These fade for a moment in time. What remains is just human and human. There is no divide between them. They are one, and in a way that only sports can truly unite. This continues throughout the evening as people celebrate the win. For a night they are on top of the world without a care in the world. The World Cup might be the greatest example of this macro-bonding. The Olympics is surely another good example. From all over the country, people watch team USA and root together. Countries all over the world do the same for their teams. Not just thousands, but millions of people, passionately cheering for a team and sharing a common goal (pun intended) and experience. If the team loses, then they bond together in that as well. They sulk together. They drink together. And even as men, gasp, they cry together.

        
              That is the power of sports. For some people in my life or even in my family, we really don't have that much in common. But when we can talk sports, all of that goes away. In addition, when you play sports with people, it often forms an even closer bond. It's a model that teaches people how to work together, how to selflessly sacrifice for a common good. It instills discipline and hard work, but without the murder and PTSD and so much else that the Military gives individuals when it attempts to teach the same concepts. Sports also helps so many people process emotion in a cathartic way that they are desperately seeking. The amount of people that shut everything out and go for a daily run is astounding. The same goes for going to the gym or a yoga class or joining a football team. In this way choir is relate-able, as singing is cathartic for the body and soul and bonds strangers together. And that is why I truly love to sing. But sports...it just takes all of these things to the next level. And the whole time (for the most part), it's good for your body! I think that humans (at least I sure am) are like puppy dogs. You feed them, they run around a little bit, and then they nap. And we try to teach middle school kids after recess at 1:30 p.m. on a sunny afternoon...geez...good luck! Personally, I hate to run. Hattttteeeee it. But, if I'm playing basketball or tennis or football, my mind is tricked into not focusing on running. Like a dog, I am just fully committed to ruthlessly chasing a ball. The moment that ball goes away, I pant and collapse and wonder why I'm doing this, but once the ball comes back....BALL BALL BALL I'm chasing it away freely and those thoughts immediately leave my mind.

          
              Yes, sports not only are exercise, but they bring people together in ways that nothing else can. The bonds between strangers are immense while the common goal acts as a shell that gives a temporary break from the trauma and harsh reality of so many other aspects of life. And furthermore, unlike so many other aspects of life, sports are quantifiable. Sports statistics exercise the brain in fun ways that I personally enjoy as one of my greatest hobbies. There are right decisions and wrong decisions and it's truly the culmination of science and art. Teams are constantly evolving. And for fans hope is always just a few months away. Seasons begin and end. And all of it offers the chance to get away. The chance to put aside the stresses of survival, the guilt and frustrations of life, and worries of the past, present, and future, and enter into this beautiful and powerfully connecting world. of sports

           
               Yes, I can type for many more hours on this topic, but I will let this explanation suffice for now. Have a wonderful day and take care. I will head now to watch a world cup soccer game (Costa Rica) as I text [your son] about it as well. He watches on with a work colleague who is a native Costa Rican, who, despite being physically removed from his home country and ancestors, cheers collectively with them despite being separated by thousands of miles. For a couple of hours, they will connect as one. Ah, the beauty of sports."

              Dillon

Kyle Anderson-The Perfect New Piece for the Spurs Championship Puzzle

 

          When I think about basketball, I often think about puzzles. It is common for the sports media to refer to a player as "the missing piece" on a certain team, and so the jargon fits. If you've ever built a puzzle, you know that the first step once the pieces are all out of the box is to turn them over and locate the corners. After the corners, you can work on filling in the outside edges of the picture. Once the outside edges and corners are intact, you can work your way inward piece by piece until the entire puzzle is complete. As you build your puzzle, you constantly refer to the picture of the completed work on the box. You know what the end product should look like. You just have to get all the pieces to fit together.

          A modern NBA team is an extremely complex puzzle. In the salary cap era in which every team has a finite amount of money in which to spend, general managers must try to fill out their rosters in a way that maximizes wins while minimizing cost. Pay too much to one or a set of players and there won't be any more money available to complete the puzzle. But fail to attract anyone worth paying a lot of money to obtain and your puzzle will permanently lack the corners and edges needed to get the puzzle making process off the ground. To make matters worse, the pieces are constantly moving and shifting. A shiny solid piece one day can become completely unusable the next, while a piece that you brought in thinking was a certain shape can change that shape and in turn its ability to fit with its surrounding pieces at a moment's notice.

         All of these vast potential problems with individual puzzle pieces inhibits most NBA teams from ever getting close to completing a championship puzzle. But for those that can solve their individual puzzle piece issues, their reward is to enter a much more difficult phase of the game: trying to fit those pieces together. There are many strategies used by coaches to get their pieces to fit together, but this too is a part of the game that has extremely high difficulty, especially in an era where players are paid so much and their egos are often so high.

Pat Riley has his work ahead of him this off-season to try to keep this current Heat team in tact

         Every puzzle is so fragile and can break at a moment's notice. This is well chronicled throughout NBA history. The Celtics of the 70's, The Bulls of the 90's, the Lakers of the 00's. Every puzzle looks like it is built to last forever. Until it immediately crumbles. This is why the San Antonio Spurs championship puzzle that was created in 1999 and has stayed in tact while taking many different forms and is held together even today is so unbelievably impressive. Instead of breaking apart and rebuilding from scratch during this run, RC Buford, Greg Poppovich, and the entire Spurs staff has found a way to constantly reform the puzzle as the pieces have shifted and changed.

         But even more than this, they have found a way to make the puzzle better. You see, in the NBA there is no box that you can stare at and refer to during the puzzle building process that helps you visualize the exact look of the whole puzzle. Instead, coaches blindly work with pieces and hope that they can fit them together long enough to get close to completing the whole picture. The Spurs, remarkably, have managed to build a box that truly works as a model for them in building their puzzle. And this isn't the same box that they have been using for the last 15 years.

The Spurs have won five NBA Championships in the last 15 years (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2014)

         From the time Tim Duncan was drafted in 1999 until the Spurs were swept out of the playoffs in 2010, the strategy was to use the extremely sturdy corner of Tim Duncan and build the whole puzzle around him. In 1999, Tony Parker became a 2nd corner piece. In 2001, Manu Ginobli a 3rd. And then, for the next 13 years (and counting), the Spurs built their puzzle around these three corner pieces. The corners were so strong that the other pieces could be easily swapped out and fit into the whole and a successful championship picture was always either in tact or just a piece or two away from being formed again.

         But like all puzzle pieces, these three pieces didn't stay new and shiny forever. This especially goes for Tim Duncan, who was the sturdiest and most frequently used corner piece from the time that he was drafted in 1997. Every puzzle piece that was added was somehow connected to him. So, the puzzle making Spurs staff decided that they once again had to change the picture. Duncan must take a smaller role and shrink the size of his piece. The inner pieces must be enlarged, and the size of the puzzle as a whole must grow. More pieces, with each piece taking on a more equitable role. It took four years, but the Spurs have done it. They have their box. It's quite the colorful picture, and it looks like this:

(Kin Man Hui / San Antonio Express-News)

          Here is the plan: have a fast, smart, well shooting point guard run the offense. Surround him with a sniper shooting guard, a jack of all trades small forward who can guard the best opponent's player and make open shots, a stretch four power forward who can score inside and out, and a rebounding big who can also pass the ball well from the high and low post and occasionally score in isolation situations. In addition, every one of these pieces must buy into the idea that they are only a single piece of the whole puzzle, and therefore they are not more important than the picture as a whole or any other piece.

Via NBA.com: The Spurs have transformed from a slow, methodical Duncan led offense to a European Style Powerhouse without sacrificing anything on defense.

          Of all the pieces in this puzzle scheme, it turns out that one is the most uniquely shaped and difficult to find. And it's surprisingly not one of the age old corner pieces. Instead, the rarest piece is the one that is large enough to rebound well, but smooth enough to pass with precision and at times run the offense. It is sharp enough to hit wide open shots, and durable enough to post someone up and occasionally score over them. This is the piece of the ultimate Spur, the purely versatile piece that can fit in anywhere in the puzzle. This piece might forever be known simply as "the Boris Diaw."

          The importance of Boris Diaw to the 2014 Spurs is impossible to understate. What is more concrete is the difficulty of finding a similar piece to fit into the puzzle once his piece retires or moves onto another team. Lots of players are 6'8 or 6'9, but how many can score inside AND outside? And of those few players, how many of them can pass like a point guard? How many can fell comfortable filling every one of these roles and switching between them effortlessly from moment to moment?

          As good as Tony Parker is, Patty Mills has shown that he is eventually replaceable. Danny Green and Kawai Leonard are the future for the Spurs at their positions. As great as Tim Duncan has been in his career, his current role as a double double guy who can pass from the high or low post is replaceable as well. In time, maybe that guy will end up being Tiago Splitter, who is already on the roster under a long term contract and who continues to make huge improvements in his game year after year.

           But how do you replace Boris Diaw? A 6'9 Power forward point guard?

 (blogs.sacurrent.com)

        
         I couldn't believe my eyes, but a few weeks ago I heard of a player who was described as a 6'9 "point-forward." A guy who was the "best passer in the draft," the "most versatile player," and unbelievably, quite prophetically..."the next Boris Diaw." His name was Kyle Anderson. I was so unbelievably happy when I found out that he existed.

         I immediately dove into Kyle Anderson research. His stats in his senior season at UCLA seemed almost too impossibly Spur like: 14.6 points, 8.8 rebounds, and a Pac-12 best 6.5 assists per game!? And only as a sophomore!?!

         Digging deeper, the Spurs parallels just kept coming and coming. There is a video of him telling a group of young kids about the Spurs and how they should value watching them. Everyone who watched the Spurs destroy their opponents in the 2014 playoffs saw it as well. Look no further than his own twitter feed for proof:

          The perfect player to replace a seemingly impossible to replace piece of the puzzle. The next Boris Diaw.

          Only, their was a catch. He was so highly regarded that every mock draft had him getting drafted before the Spurs picked at 30. Some drafts even had him going as a lottery pick. Could the Spurs do as they did for Kawai Leonard and trade up to get him? If they did, who would be the guy they would give up? Who would be this year's George Hill? No, I didn't see them doing this. So I watched the draft and just prayed. I prayed that every other team would focus on the corners and the edges and leave the most valuable and rare Spurs piece alone. Let him fall to #30 Lord, please let him fall to #30.

Pick after pick went and my euphoria rose. He's still there at 20!!!!! He's still there at 25!!!??!!!!

And then....OH MY HE'S STILL THERE AT 30!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What were the Spurs staff members possibly thinking at this point!? How did he drop this far!? Did they think they were dreaming!? I sure did! I got up off the couch and started screaming,

DRAFT KYLE ANDERSON!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And then, the pick came in....I was crouched in anticipation...waiting to jump up in pure exhilaration and pump my fist...when the announcement came:

"With the 30th pick in the 2014 NBA draft, the San Antonio Spurs Select...KYLE ANDERSON!!!!!!!"

          And just like that, the feeling that I had when they won the NBA title just weeks before came immediately back to me. WE DID IT!!!!!!!! WE GOT HIM!!!!! WE HAVE OUR PERFECT BORIS DIAW PUZZLE PIECE FOR THE NEXT TEN TO FIFTEEN YEARS!!!!!!!!!

          I wanted to scream it from the top of the roof for all the world to hear. Yes, the beautiful offensive juggernaut of a system will continue along. And I wasn't alone. Even when Duncan and Ginobli soon retire, the Spurs will find a way to continue to replace the pieces and once again adapt the puzzle. Because of Duncan, Parker, and Ginobli's historic run as the Spurs three corner pieces for so long, the puzzle has evolved with their help to be able to eventually move on without them. And in this effort they will have the most unique piece to work with at their disposal.

         Kyle Anderson, welcome to the San Antonio Spurs. For you, truly, are made to be the perfect Spur and the perfect fit in the championship puzzle.