Nurse the Hate: The Most Important Basketball Game

I am attending the deciding game of the Cavs first round series against the Pacers this afternoon.  One would think I would be very excited to attend this Game 7 of the NBA Playoffs.  I have luxury suite tickets.  I will park just steps away in reserved parking.  The only way it could be any easier for me to attend this event is if someone carried me into the arena.  There is only one problem.  I absolutely detest going to Cavs games.

The NBA is very focused on what they call “game presentation”.  This is also referred to as “fan experience”.  This means that the atmosphere at the arena has been very well thought out through a series of meetings with bland suburban white people sitting around conference tables on how they can convey “the NBA culture”.  The NBA Culture is a homogenized take on what suburban white people find exciting about their ill-conceived perception of “street” (i.e. “black”) culture.  It is a very well funded version of someone’s mom dancing to an old hip-hop song at a wedding.  It’s that feeling you get when you see a straight laced news anchor try to be “hip” by using words like “crew” or “squad” and then crossing their arms in a clumsy recreation of something they saw on a rap video a decade ago.  It’s Disney doing a re-boot of Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing” with cartoon animals.  It’s all bad.

The massive sound system and video screens in the arena will constantly be blaring instructions for me to “make some noise”.  Electronic beats will pummel me at every second.  There will be no opportunity for anything organic to develop.  Sound effects, old popular songs, beats, movie clips, and in arena “hosts” will scream at me the second I walk into that Hellhole.  I have played astoundingly loud music for decades.  It’s not like I have a problem with noise.  Hell, I can’t hear anything as it is.  But all I want when I step into that arena is for the “game presentation” to cease.  The wave of relief I feel when I escape that building is the same as when exiting a Las Vegas casino.  The sensory overload is too much.

I understand that I sound like an old crank.  Please note that I have always been crotchety.  This is not a new development brought on by age.  I would have hated this when I was 17.  I would have had a better understanding of why anyone else would have liked it though.  I recognize that culture has passed me by on this “game presentation” issue. 95% of the dipshits in that arena absolutely love it.  There is so much going on between the stripper outfit cheerleaders, hot dog cannons, prize giveaways, mascots leaping on mini trampolines, and guys beating on buckets that there is hardly any time for basketball.  I like basketball.  Basketball is great.  It would be incredible to watch LeBron James without all the distractions.  I just don’t know if I can summon the mental discipline to zero in on the actual game.

If the Cavs lose, this could be LeBron James last game as a Cavalier.  This will create what I call “The Doomsday Scenario”.  An early exit for the Cavs in the Playoffs would create a series of events where previously placed ad schedules I have sold get cancelled, LeBron leaves in free agency, the Cavs become one of the worst teams in the league, and I spend next year in a half full luxury suite shielding my eyes from unwatchable basketball and even more enhanced “game presentation”.  The team will have no choice but to compensate for not having any basketball of interest.  They will have topless cheerleaders shot out of cannons landing on trampolines.  A dozen mascots will shoot across the arena on zip lines.  The game will be played with strobe lights synced up to dated rap songs.  The “Kiss Cam” will be replaced with “The Handjob Cam”.  They will do anything to trick The Dipshits back to the arena.  I can’t take it now.  How can I deal with that?  There has never been a more important basketball game than today.  I need LeBron to will this team to victory.