Last Saturday night I sent a text to my brother that read, “My heart is beyond broken.”
The Gators losing had a lot to do with this.
Another contributor was Florida State University’s victory over whatever high school they were playing.
But the main catalyst of the breakage was a stunning trade that sent my favorite NBA player, James Harden, to the Houston Rockets.
It’s not that I’m a huge Oklahoma City Thunder fan: I do like Kevin Durant and the crew enough that I wanted them to win the title last year (especially after my beloved Jazz were unceremoniously swept away in the first round) because Russell Westbrook looks like an alien from planet Speedfreak when he gets going on a fast break, and nobody has a beard like Harden.
Mostly it was how immensely fun they were to watch when they played together: OKC had such a perfect marriage of youth, chemistry, talent and athleticism.
Who knows, maybe they’ll be even more fun to watch this year with Kevin Martin knocking down daggers and Perry Jones doing Perry Jones things (good and bad).
But now they’re missing the Beard.
And it hurts just a little bit.
I know nothing gold can stay.
Every time I find something gold, I hope just a little bit in the back of my mind this time it’s different, that this time the gold will be around forever and the gold will start playing James Harden at the 3 with Durant at the 4 and Ibaka at the 5.
Alas.
I’m not gonna bore you with the pipe dream scenario I’ve discussed with my brother three times now wherein Asik is a game-changing low-post defender and Lin is a faster, trickier Nash and Harden is like Jordan with Manu’s moves and Chandler Parsons and Royce White and Terrence Jones ball out enough that the Rockets shock the Lakers and we have a Thunder-Rockets Western Conference Finals.
(Really, can’t we have this one cool thing just this one time, sports gods?
Do we really need another Western Conference Finals with Kobe, Nash and Pau?)
Because my dilemma this week is much bigger than that one trade that depressed me when I was watching SportsCenter on some random Saturday night.
Why do I care so much?
It’s SPORTS.
Without even knowing it, some people like me become converted to the gospel of sports, baptized in the rain of a muddy 26-19 prep football thriller, paying our tithes of ticket prices, $10 hot dogs and heartache over losses, proselyted by the doctrine of backdoor cuts and corner 3s.
There are a lot of people who are willing to argue and discourse for hours about religion, sometimes even shouting at you until they’re blue in the face that Jesus is God or Buddha is God or God is God or whatever.
Cheering for sports teams is just another way we while away our time down here on Earth, and it’s honestly one of the more stupid ones.
I’d stop, except every time I see James Harden EuroStep and lay it in with that finger roll when the defender’s outstretched hand is thisclose to denying him, I know I never could.
I am hooked on sports, and what’s more, I love every minute of it.
Dallin Kelson is an English senior at UF. His column appears on Mondays.
