I'm posting this here instead of the GARM or NBA dish because even though it is about the team the Rockets are facing there is a lot in this article that long suffering Houston fans can relate to. For those of us who sat through the all the failures of Houston sports going back to NC State beating the Cougars in what most consider the greatest moment of the NCAA tournament, the Oilers collapse in Buffalo, The Rockets losing by 40 at home to the Mavs in a game 7, getting eliminated at home to the Jazz, getting eliminated at home to he Jazz, and all those dismal Stros' seasons I think we can relate to the long suffering fandom. https://www.inc.com/john-brandon/ho...-timberwolves-became-a-lesson-in-failure.html How Following a Team Like the Minnesota Timberwolves Became a Lesson in Failure Was it my own failure? Or the failure of my favorite team? A lot can happen in 14 years. A complete shift in politics. The rise of social media. A scary new obsession with smartphones. Way back in 2004, an icon of professional basketball named Kevin Garnett emerged as a future champion, leading the Minnesota Timberwolves through a Cinderella season. That year, after defeating the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the NBA Playoffs, then the Sacramento Kings, the Wolves met their demise after facing a giant and his sidekick (the dynamic duo of Shaq and Kobe) in a Western Conference Finals showdown. An expansion team entered the national spotlight. NBA announcers told the story about my team, and a rising star known simply as KG became a new fascination. It was good while it lasted. Then, something changed. Garnett left after that playoff run, joining the Boston Celtics. Contract disputes, coaching changes--the team became a shell of their former selves. It was a sad implosion. Since then, sports fans witnessed the complete devastation of an NBA franchise. At least, some of us witnessed it. In the intervening years, I watched in disbelief as the Timberwolves struggled to win more than half of their regular season games. Jaded and dismayed, my loyalties shifted year after year, season after season. As a life-long Minnesotan, it was downright painful. Under Garnett, the team thrived. Through the rest of the decade and long into the next, the Timberwolves--seemingly cursed--became a small market non-contender. My rapt attention turned to casual disinterest. By 2012, I decided to abandon the team entirely. You might wonder why that is. In sports, we stay loyal. We wear our jerseys, we follow the statistics for individual players and we pour over box scores. To turn our backs on a team is a mortal sin. No matter what happens on the court or off, we cast all aspirations aside. This is our team. And yet, for me, after the first 10 years, it started to feel like I was the failure, that there was something wrong with me. They say in any divorce there is a moment when you have to raise your eyes up to the horizon line and start thinking about what comes next. You have to overcome the failure and find new hope. You have to let the past go and move on. After I divorced myself from the Timberwolves, it was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I'd stayed loyal since the first expansion games. Now, I was free, and it didn't take me long to find a new team. I knew all about Stephen Curry and had even watched the highlight reels from his college days. After a few games, I made my decision. The Golden State Warriors already have a legion of fans, but I was happy to see the team flourish over and over again. In 2015, then in 2016, and again in 2017. The glorious golden sheen, the intricate passing schemes, the fading-off-the-line three-pointers ending in a swish. If there is a basketball nirvana state, I had discovered it. I was part of it. Newly captivated again by a professional sports team, I started poking around through the stats. I set my DISH receiver to record more games. Eventually, I noticed when other players started replacing my beloved Warriors in the rankings. James Harden, Isaiah Thomas, Russell Westbrook--they started challenging my loyalties. Last year, when Curry and Kevin Durant rolled over the Cleveland Cavaliers and dominated so soundly, I sensed something shifting yet again. What was I thinking? What was wrong with me? All of this success, falsely earned. I've certainly spent time in California. Yet, I'd never even seen the Warriors play in person; I was not a founding member of this basketball clan. I was a transplant, a traitor. Why do we even follow sports teams? We're hoping the accomplishments on the court obscure our own failures or somehow elevate our own dreams beyond the reality of a 9-5 job. When Steph Curry sinks a mid-court jumper--because we're a loyal fan--we feel a bit of the same swish in our own souls, a scent of the success. We're winning by extension. Except for one problem. I had forgotten about the geography of sports. As a disloyal fan, I was watching but not participating. I was in the stands, but my heart was not on the court. I experienced the benefits of winning without the trials of losing -- again and again. My sports fascination, long dormant from my youth and from those early years cheering for the Wolves, had dissolved into a selfish desire to win at all costs, even if it meant abandonment and disloyalty. I had failed to really understand why I was even following a sports team in the first place, what it really means. Earlier this year, I went to a game with my son. We kept tabs on the Warriors, checking our phones, using Twitter--laughing about President Trump's tweets. But there was a team on the court that is made up of actual human beings who live in my state. (Well, most of them do.) We looked around and saw other Timberwolves fans. We sat through a show of drudgery and perfunctory second-string performances, at least two starters sitting with sore limbs on the bench, but we warmed up to the idea of returning to the fold. And right there, right then--I realized that sports (and life) is not always about winning. It's not about the final score at the end of the game. It's not always about the trophy. It's about the tribulations, the dry periods--the failures. Sports can mirror our own failures at times--the low periods known as a losing effort and the wallowing colossal inability to rise to the challenge. Athletes mirror us, up close and in our own zip code. I came back to the Timberwolves. I cheered them on during their painful first round game. I laughed at how we--my team--reacted to the dribbling mastery of Harden. And I'm here until the end, waiting and hopeful--the prodigal son who knows that the team probably won't make it much further, but at least this is my own local, joined-at-the-hip team. I'm no longer a transplant. I'm a Minnesota Timberwolves fan. I may have been a lost sheep, but at least I've found the fold again. And I've decided to let my failures mirror what's on the court. The Wolves host the Houston Rockets tonight in what could be a deciding game. If they do end up losing tonight, I'll continue watching...from a distance.
