One of the worst things about getting older is watching your once vibrant hair turn gray and lose its color. I began to succumb to this inevitable process, and a few days ago, the odometer started ticking again. Today, in the mirror, the worst part of my graying stared back at me. A gray hair grows like an unruly weed compared to the rest of my hair, poking out as if trying to grab the attention of every stranger who catches a glimpse of me. I'm sure it's more successful than I realize.
For all the disappointments of being past your prime and entering (oh my) middle age, there are upsides. One of the most important is perspective. I'm young enough to have embraced technology my entire adult life, but old enough to remember using rotary dial phones as a kid. Talking about events like the NBA Finals used to be something that happened with a small group of friends at school or work, or in between shots at the bowling alley. But now, the way we talk about sports has distorted how we think about them.
The so-called democratization of the microphone means that anyone with an Internet connection can speak on a topic they are passionate about. On the surface, this sounds like progress, and we have to admit that there were good things about lowering the barrier of entry into the media. But in the end, the gatekeepers of meritocracy served a purpose for many years. They had an ear for talent, and only a handful of competitors. Their decades of hard work to protect precious message bandwidth for those who have something worth reading and listening to have been more important than we thought. Today, sports reporting is not just spreading out in all directions from the ivory towers of the old media; the older generation has adapted to survive. Who has a bigger audience: Pat McAfee or Zach Lowe? It's easier to flock to the side with the lowest common denominator, and accountants know it.
Proponents of new media would say that the audience should be the final judge of who is worth their time. This is a daily occurrence, but at what cost? If the rise and fall of a YouTube channel or podcast depends, and often does, on stimulating the rage monster in the viewer’s brain, content creators will follow the same yellow brick road that seems to work for so many others. This is why nearly every commentator segment is rooted in conflict, as producers comb through the topics of the day to find ways to create rifts between the performers and create fake tension. Whether it’s new media or traditional media, it’s (almost) all the same now. The battle for the next day’s audience’s gaze, time, and loyalty is fought and won on the battlefields that have confounded our perception of what it means to love sports. Add to that the institutional memory that comes with voicing an opinion on social media and the backlash that comes with being wrong, and you have a recipe for nonstop hyperbole and groupthink.
Many of us are ready to declare a best-of-seven series over at 2-0, or even 3-0. History says so, but history is written every season, and eventually a team will come back from 3-0 down. The team that is down 3-1 to the Boston Celtics could be this year’s Dallas Mavericks. Or maybe the season ends tonight. The truth is we don’t know, and that’s why we love sports; human dramas unfolding before our eyes, with the outcome unknown until the game begins. Why is this kernel of immutable truth about the captivating nature of live events unfolding in real time getting lost amid all the chatter? Too many of us seek knee-jerk certainty, ready to declare something over when the story may be heading in a fateful direction.
From a 3-0 deficit in an era before Twitter and X, before social media and countless talk shows, the Boston Red Sox were destined to lose the 2004 ALCS. Dave Roberts stole a base, David Ortiz hit, bloodied socks and Johnny Damon hit a grand slam in Game 7. Suddenly, Boston was celebrating a miracle. Anyone who watched that series live knows there were countless moments when the Red Sox's fate hinged on one play, one call or one pitch. Twenty years later, they're remembered as the team that did the impossible.
It's a wild, irrational hope to believe the Dallas Mavericks can make history in this Finals. There are dozens of valid reasons to say tonight is the end of it all. Here are three reasons: You're not crazy, and you're not alone, if you believe there will be a Game 6.
First, the Mavericks have been getting better under the surface in this series. Game 1 was a laughing matter, Game 2 was down to single digits late in the game, and Game 3 was down to one possession late in the fourth quarter, but Game 4 was the deciding factor. There have been rumors of Porzingis being available in Game 2, depending on the situation, but this is clearly a ploy. Playing a sharp-shooting big man in this series risks him missing some or all of next season. Also, his lack of movement late in Game 2 suggests he may be little more than a spot-up shooter on one hand and a very tall traffic cone on the other. Finally, the Mavericks have four games of Finals experience under their belts, and players like Derek Lively II and PJ Washington look much more comfortable.
To fully embrace the heart of fandom is to believe that something miraculous can happen, and then, all too often, to be disappointed when the odds don't hold. On those rare occasions when miracles do happen in the sports viewing experience, your faith and belief are rewarded in the form of memories that will stay with you for a lifetime. The jubilation Dallas fans felt after Game 2 of the 2011 NBA Finals, even though they were down 15 points with under six minutes to go, wasn't because they knew it would happen, but because they believed it could happen.
That's why we watch the game. Everything else is noise. And that's OK. In fact, there's reason to believe — not because it will happen, but because it could. And that's reason enough to watch the game with an open mind that something epic might happen later tonight and add another game to this series. As soon as I order some hair color for those pesky gray hairs, I'll tune in and watch the game with you all.
