this is a basketball thread

I knew they were going to lose this game.

It was a small candle in a handsome tin, packaged in a handsome canvas bag. I didn't realize it was a big deal and that people who weren't there would even know about it.

I "got back into" the Bulls in the 2008 season, Rose's rookie year. My memories of actually watching them at the time are really foggy. I didn't have cable and was only able to watch games on really random, limited occasions. Honestly, I only remember watching 2 games in between then and game 6 of the 1998 Finals. Both of those were wretched experiences redeemed only by eating pizza with friends and I don't blame anyone for ditching the team during the early 2000s.



I always felt like I was watching something important and special during these years. I couldn't tell you if I felt a sense of entitlement because the championships came so easily when I was a kid. I knew perfectly well how hard it was for the Bulls to get past the Pistons back then, I'm old enough to remember them getting their asses kicked and how bad that felt. But the 3-peats probably instilled a sense of inevitability in me that set me up for terrible disappointment.

My memories of the 2010/2011 season are ridiculously foggy. How could this be? The Bulls won 62 games and got 1st place in the East. They were up 1-0 in the conference finals. I think I was going through some shit and couldn't pay as much attention to this as I needed to and surely would have if I wasn't caught up in such a sense of they'll-be-back-next-year-and-even-better, which never really went away.

Rose's injury, Noah's decline, Lebron stopping them again and then again a third time, and then missing the playoffs last season, I don't have to make you relive this, but the verdict was that this team was finished and this year would be a waste of time, not even the beginning of rebuilding, which isn't even a plan, as far as I'm concerned. You never know how things are going to pan out, you can't tank for a year or two and then come back strong, it doesn't work that way.

I was depressed as hell when Rose and Noah left. I knew they could never return to the level they were playing at 3, 4, 5 years ago. But that team had an identity that rekindled my love of basketball and sports, built itself up from the ground up and that felt special. That's so hard to do. Those teams inspired me, showed me some of the most beautiful basketball I'd ever watched I wanted to root for them this season but try to take away some lesson from everything that happened over the past 7 years that would help me learn how to deal with disappointment. Instead, I just got sucked back into it this year, and from the preseason through the middle of November, it was so convincing. 

I don't even have words for what they're doing right now, it's just nauseating. They might bounce back and get a good win streak or two, but who knows?

I have it on good authority that Fred Hoiberg showed that post to everyone before the game tonight.

They play music during every single possession in Cleveland. It literally never stops, it's really annoying and there has to be some kind of rule against this.

lol

Nights like this I'm glad I don't have cable television in my home.