Basketball thoughts

hello

Some basketball-related thoughts I have had recently:

Does anyone even care about basketball right now? Why should they?

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Someone on the Brooklyn Nets PR should ask Michael Porter Jr. to stop speaking to the media.

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Right now the WNBA is more interesting and exciting to watch than the NBA because the women play harder especially during the regular season.

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I was thinking about how most of my favorite basketball players are defensive-minded — Hakeem Olajuwon from the 90’s, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Alyssa Thomas. I can’t really respect the players who just chuck up shots and put up empty stats. Defense is all about effort and hustle. You don’t have to be gifted to be a good defender.

I was thinking about the block by Bam Adebayo on Jayson Tatum during the Bubble NBA playoffs, one of the craziest blocks I’ve ever seen considering the high-pressure situation — overtime, a two point game. Bam is like a hidden spider lurking in the darkness who comes out of nowhere to snatch Jayson Tatum’s soul. In some ways it must feel humiliating to get blocked like that, but I don’t know if professional athletes experience rejection that way. I doubt it. I felt bad for Jayson Tatum, how he had what looked like a clear lane to the basket and so much momentum and height going up for the dunk. There’s something beautiful about a player going up for something and wanting it so badly only to get denied and knocked down to the floor by someone bigger and stronger. I guess we’ve all been Jayson Tatum at some point in our lives.

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I’m thinking about rejection because my book comes out next year and it looks like galleys are starting to make their way to people. Rejection is always a part of this process. And humiliation. Of course there are positive things, too. I feel as if most writers right now are sending their work out into a void. I will be joining them. Recently, I was talking with my partner about one of my first experiences on Goodreads. At the time, I was a semi-frequent Goodreads user. I liked to keep track of what I was reading and leave short (positive, five star) reviews. My first book had been posted months before it came out and there were five people who put it on their to-read lists. I noticed exactly ONE person was currently reading it. A bookseller in Tennessee!! I got really excited and added her as a friend (I was very naive about this process and didn’t know any better). I kept checking each day to see if my new friend had finished my book. I was so curious and anxious for her thoughts because she was the first stranger to read it. I’ll never forget the day I logged into Goodreads and saw she had given my book three stars. For her review, she wrote: “3.5 stars.”

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Here are some NBA players I have been obsessed with: Giannis, Hakeem, Clyde Drexler, Robert Horry, Sam Cassell, Jrue Holiday, Ray Allen, Tim Duncan.

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I love Jrue Holiday because you can tell he was friends with the nerds in high school.

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When I was in seventh grade I was so obsessed with the Houston Rockets my parents bought me a Houston Rockets garbage can for Christmas.

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I enjoy Jeremy Sochan from the Spurs simply because he posted a story on IG that had in the background Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, the blue-cover Fitzcarraldo edition.

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This substack is free, super sporadic, and mostly about basketball with some stuff about writing & what I’ve been reading.

I usually follow a team or two throughout the NBA season and watch the playoffs more closely. I have an anonymous basketball account that occasionally goes viral on X and Instagram. I deleted my personal account on X because that place is evil. Right now I’m watching the WNBA playoffs. I don’t know when I started watching the WNBA, but here I am and I have some thoughts about it, too. The Minnesota Lynx look like the team to beat. Sentimental favorite player is Alyssa Thomas because she has torn labrums (she literally can't raise her arms in a shooting motion above her head) and is somehow averaging nearly a triple double.

The women in the WNBA need to be paid more, period.