Analysis vs. Fun in NBA Fandom: Settling the Age-Old Debate

NBA fans are a passionate bunch. Many are smart as heck too. In 2023, fandom and analysis mix freely in the open-media, internet era, creating a chemistry that didn’t exist in the same way before global communication became part of our daily lives.

Talking with each other brings great joy. It can also bring great challenges, as evidenced by today’s Blazer’s Edge Mailbag.

Dave,

I want you to address our fan base from your years of experience. You’ve seen most everything by this point I guess and you seem to keep a pretty positive outlook. I don’t see the same thing among most fans. We seem to have turned into a bunch of nitpickers with backseat analysis of every little thing instead of actually having fun and enjoying what we have. Even your pieces get pretty picky and even dark sometimes. I think most of us are just here to have fun. Why can’t we just enjoy the game win or lose? What do we get from being so critical all the time? Can you encourage people to find more of a balance — even readers here?

Kyle

I appreciate your question and I don’t think you’re alone in your sentiment, but I can’t ride with that train very far.

Let’s get something straight from the start. Nothing in professional sports is more fun than winning. When victories come in droves and a franchise contends for a title, the analysis turns out positive and the enjoyment factor is through the roof. It brings everybody together in that way, solving the problem automatically.

If your team is making you choose between winning and fun, you already know they’re kinda bad. “Fun” in this case becomes a substitute for success, not a by-product of it.

It just doesn’t work that way...not for players, not for coaches, not for executives, and over the long haul not for fans either. All these folks are capable of appreciating the game even in the midst of losing. Highlight-reel dunks, player development, buzzer-beaters...they’re still big moments! Nobody’s trying to drain the joy out of any of them. But ultimately, they don’t mean as much—nor provide as much enduring enjoyment—if they seldom lead to victory. It’s like picking up random parts of the game without experiencing a cohesive whole.

If we lean on “fun” as the main reason for following the game, we have to admit it’s a subjective concept. Lots of people have fun analyzing teams and games, for instance. You may not have fun doing so—or reading about it—but that shouldn’t prevent anybody else from enjoying it.

Many of the pleas to “just have fun and enjoy the game” are preceded by some version of, “You guys are just terrible...” No, they’re not. They’re just finding a different way to engage in the process. Your fun is not their fun, and vice versa.

We can go to extremes with this. If fun is the only metric that matters, why limit the discussion to basketball at all? Plenty of things are just as fun, if not more so. If the team starts losing and following them becomes more of a chore, why not shift the site topic to sex or circuses or penguins or some combination of the three? All of them are probably more fun than running a -12.5 per game deficit on the scoreboard.

This holds true even when taking a charitable outlook on the debate. Sometimes charity isn’t merited. I’ve seen plenty of discussions like this unfold over the course of a season...

Bob: The Blazers are going to be great this year!

Sam: I’m not sure about that. They have a few weaknesses...

Bob: I don’t think you’re right!

Portland loses 7 of 10 to start the season.

Sam: I think some of those weaknesses are showing up now.

Bob: It’s the refs and the phase of the moon and the travel schedule. They’re going to come around!

Portland plays just below .500 for an extended stretch and appears to be sinking into oblivion.

Sam: We probably should start talk about the cracks in the lineup.

Bob: Why do you have to analyze every little thing? Why can’t you just sit back and have fun???

I’m not saying you’re doing this at all, Kyle. I believe your question and motive are well-meant. But the “fun” argument has been used this way too many times to just pass it over as completely innocent (and offered at face value) in all cases. If analysis can be misused, so can calls to limit it.

Ideally, we’re all here for real talk about basketball no matter what happens during a season. Some years that’s going to be overwhelmingly positive. Some years it won’t. We don’t change our mission statement when the team’s fortunes change. We keep talking honestly no matter what, whether that means being honestly amazed or honestly critical. Usually it’s a combination of both.

Part of that honest talk means finding joy in the game, and the franchise, no matter what. No analysis can filter that out. If people didn’t care, they wouldn’t be analyzing in the first place.

You’re right in this sense: I don’t respect people who use analytical language to ridicule others for their passion, nor people who use stats and charts to centralize their cynicism. That’s not discussion, it’s conceit.

That said, weaponizing fun and fandom to shut down analysis is no different. It’s just the same impulse, aimed in the opposite direction. That doesn’t make it any better.

If we can’t all enjoy the communal fun that comes with winning big, the best solution is to appreciate everybody else’s definition of “fun” without marginalizing those who take a different approach. If everybody owns their feelings and words, there’s nothing wrong with saying. “The Blazers had a huge turnover problem last night.” Nor is there anything wrong with the response, “I really enjoyed that game anyway.”

We get into trouble when people say. “The Blazers have the highest turnover rate in the league! How could you enjoy that?!?” Fire meets fire with comments like, “Don’t mention the turnovers. Just enjoy the team, Debbie Downer!” In each case, somebody is telling a fellow reader how they should be enjoying the sport instead of sharing how they, themselves, perceive it. The grating issue has little to do with either perspective (fun or analysis) and everything to do with how those perspectives are expressed and/or used.

Maybe the better question to ask in all this is, “Is the way in which I’m speaking fun? Does it offer insight and build up the community surrounding the team, either through passion or brain work?” Doing either is OK. If our comments do neither, maybe the team isn’t the only thing that needs checking.

Thanks for the question! You can always send yours to blazersub@gmail.com and we’ll try to answer all we can!