I’m still numb. I can’t believe I did it either. I am the first person to speak of how absurd such things are, and now I’m putting the “A” in absurdity. So, for those of you not near a television, here it is: I participated in a Fantasy Basketball draft today. I know. I know. It’s shocking, isn’t it? I sat in my living room, on the phone with a group of friends and acquaintances poring over the scouting reports and injury lists of all of this year’s NBA players on my laptop and “drafted” 15 players for my team. My team will not practice together. My teammates will never pick each other up off the floor. They will never play any help defense for one another. They will definitely never pass to one another. They will do so with minimal guidance from me, as I merely set the line-up for the week’s games and let them do their thing. Some coach, huh. No pep talks. No making them stay after practice to shoot extra free throws. Nothing. From this computer screen I make various personnel changes based on their performance or reported injuries. If my favorite team is playing against one of my players, I hope that this player has a great game, even at the expense of my team winning. I don’t look at scores. I don’t look at standings. I don’t even care if my player’s team wins. I just look at his stats, and compare them to the stats of the players on some other so-called virtual coach’s team and determine a winner.
There’s even trash talking.
“I can’t believe you activated THAT chump this week! He’s a bum!”
“My sister could pick a better line-up than you!”
“Didn’t you know that Adam Morrison was out for the season?”
The whole thing is laughable. Bragging rights are claimed by couch potatoes all around the country. So-called experts, many of whom have never laced up a pair of sneakers and couldn’t tell a pick and roll from a cinnamon roll, razz each other over email and text messages every day , taking credit for Kevin Garnett’s triple double, as if they had helped him perfect his look-away pass or something. Fantasy football guys are even worse. There is actually a segment on ESPN Sportscenter devoted to telling you whom you should have in your starting line-up based on whom the upcoming opponent is, or if the weather is going to be bad, or if the team is playing on natural grass or turf.
Unfortunately, I have not even told you the worst part of this whole sordid tale yet. This is the really despicable part of the whole thing. I feel like Sylvester in the Looney Toons cartoons after he brags to his son about how he is the greatest catcher of mice known to the free world, and then gets beat-up and outsmarted by the mouse, be it Speedy Gonzales or the Kangaroo. Sylvester Jr. will surely make an appearance, sporting a paper bag on his head with the eyes cut out, shaking his head and express his extreme disappointment in me.
“Oh father…I’m so ashamed.”
The draft started at 5pm today. Monday. On Mondays at 5pm, the “A” game at my gym happens. All the cats that really think they can play, show up for the pick up games at 5pm on Mondays and Wednesdays. They stack their teams in hopes that they will get 4, 5 or 6 consecutive victories and not only get a significant cardio workout, but will have bragging rights (REAL bragging rights) until we play again. I skipped the Monday pick-up game for the Fantasy draft. I sat at a laptop and got my “competitive” juices flowing by selecting players on a laptop that were better statistically than the players that my colleagues selected. “And, what do you get for this?” I was asked during a phone conversation this evening. “Um, nothing,” I replied sheepishly. Merely the satisfaction of knowing that I’m officially a nerd. I am the one always preaching to my kids about why I don’t play video games or why I won’t buy them a PlayStation (“I prefer to play games where I actually break a sweat,” I always say with my chest puffed out). It’s all downhill for me from here. Shhhhhhhh!
No comments:
Post a Comment