Diary of a Fan Drifter

The NBA season is about a month away, and it's the most intriguing one in recent memory.  You have five or six legitimate contenders in each conference with an abundance of superstars going into free agency after the year ends.  As a basketball fan, this year should be euphoria.

Except for one thing - I don't have a team to cheer for.

What do you do when your
team skips town?

Growing up in Cary, North Carolina, a Raleigh suburb, college basketball ran my sports world.  I was right in the middle of Duke, UNC, NC State, and the rest of the ACC, and my brain could not take in professional sports because in my mind, it didn't match up.

One thing I did have time for, however, was to check the Charlotte Hornets score in the paper each morning.  If they won, who played well, where they were in the standings, how other division teams fared.  With no professional sports teams close by (yet - the Carolina Hurricanes came to Raleigh a little bit later), the Hornets were the only franchise I felt a connection with that felt like my team.

Then they left for New Orleans.

They were no longer my team.  I could still follow them in the paper, but they were halfway across the country.  They were no longer my Charlotte Hornets.

Afterwards, I really didn't care about the NBA.  I had decided I was a Blue Devil, and these were the days of the Miracle Minute and a national championship.  Once seemingly all of the guys on that Duke team went pro - the likes of Jay Williams, Shane Battier, Carlos Boozer, Mike Dunleavy, Chris Duhon, etc. - I wanted to follow their careers.  So I started paying attention to the NBA again.  And if I was going to start following a sport, I needed a team to root for.

I loved Vince Carter, but couldn't
love the Raptors

I was a fan free agent, looking for a team that sparked my interest.  That team turned into the Toronto Raptors, simply because they employed my favorite player at the time - Vince Carter.  I didn't care that he had gone to UNC (I had not yet understood the fact that Duke fans are supposed to hate everything that comes out of Chapel Hill).  His dunks were spectacular, and my ripe young age of 10, it seemed like he could do anything.  But I didn't know anyone else on the team, and there's that whole thing of them being in a different country.  I could never call the Raptors "my team", just Vince Carter as my favorite player.

Then came the Steve Nash Phoenix Suns in their glory days - fast-paced basketball, lots of shooting, and a joy to watch.  They were right up my alley - except they were in Phoenix.  So I followed them, but was never able to call them my own.

At point, I just feel foolish to call myself a basketball fan without having a team to cheer for at the highest level.  

See! I told you no one likes the Bobcats!

The Bobcats had entered the league at this point, giving Charlotte and North Carolina a new franchise, trying to replace the Hornets.  But they weren't the Hornets, and it just didn't feel right.  And it wasn't just me who felt this way - it seemed to be most Hornets fan did, too.  The Bobcats have made us forget this, but Charlotte led the league in attendance EIGHT times in 14 years during the late 80's and 90's, including 364(!!!!!) straight sellouts (which is astonishing when you look at Time Warner Cable Arena now and consider that those years were the vintage Jordan era).  There was simply a fan connection with the Hornets and, safe to say, the Bobcats just never were able to do that with North Carolina basketball fans.

So I decided I was going to cheer for the next closest team to me, which happened to be the Atlanta Hawks.  At first it seemed like I was faking allegiance, but then I truly started to care.  I suffered through Joe Johnson Iso-ball.  I suffered through Josh Smith's fadeaway bricks.  I suffered through numerous anti-climatic seasons knowing we would make the playoffs and lose in the first round.  Basically, I learned and understood what it meant to be a Hawks fan.

Then New Orleans decided they didn't want to be the Hornets anymore because it wasn't New Orleans-y (which is true - there actually is history behind the Charlotte Hornets name), and so they became the New Orleans unibrowed Pelicans.

Ok, I made up the unibrow part, but they probably considered it with Anthony Davis being the franchise savior. 

FEAR THE BROW

But it left the Hornets nickname unclaimed.  Charlotte could be the Hornets again!! And suddenly there were more Charlotte Hornets advocates then there were Charlotte Bobcats fans, so Michael Jordan finally made a good management decision.

The Charlotte Hornets are BACK!

Or they will be.  Next year.

So what do you do, cheering for a team that doesn't exist yet?  Should I stay a Hawks fan for a year, knowing I'm going to jump ship?  Or should I cheer for Bobcats since those players will be Hornets next year? Do you finish your vegetables for save room for your favorite dessert?

The answer, for me, is to do nothing.  You can't cheer for a team without being emotionally invested, and that emotion is no longer with the Hawks.  And you cheer for a team, not for the players - ask Sonics fans if they cheer for the Thunder because they had the same players.  And of course you save room for dessert! What kind of person wouldn't?

Will I follow the Bobcats more than usual? Absolutely.  But I'll be cheering for them to lose as many games as possible so the Hornets will get a better draft pick.

This season will be one where I sit back and observe without any rooting interests, just as a hardcore basketball enthusiast.  Quite frankly, I'm not sure how this is going to go.

Anyways, I'll be posting these diary entries biweekly as I go through a NBA season in fan limbo, so make sure you keep checking the blog for updates.

Lets go Hornets! #backthebuzz