Just so everybody knows, the basketball spirit animals got together for their annual conference in Lake Havasu at an undetermined time and decided to put one of the crazier days on the NBA’s calendar, the trade deadline, and perhaps the craziest day in all of sports, the first day of the NCAA tournament, on the same day, this Thursday.
Is this too much to keep up with on one day? For fans of strictly one or the other, probably not. Normally, I’d put myself in the NBA snob camp, too focused on the pro game and all its eccentricities to give college ball the time of day or proper attention required to really enjoy it. But the tournament is the tournament, and there just are some sporting events that I feel a strong subliminal desire to dive in to. Brackets are just too much fun.
For all that is swirling around the NBA trade deadline, and for — if anything even happens at all — the impact on the league as a whole a move of Dwight Howard or Pau Gasol, could have, the results of whatever goes down prior to the 2 P.M. central time deadline Thursday, will likely be more than enough to try and digest. Especially considering that oftentimes the first trade that goes through is a “Start your engines” sign for the rest of the league; just keeping up much less putting any understanding into a transaction, can be challenging enough.
Now throw in the NCAA tournament, with its first game — Colorado St. and Murray St. — tipping at 11:15 Central and serving as a much more obvious opening of the floodgates, with games simply rolling out one after another until freaking Sunday. Their results are almost all crucial to somebody’s bracket; add in the first upset or two and the tournament reaches that all-encompassing, sustained frenzy for the weekend and beyond. This is stuff I simply cannot, and don’t want to, ignore.
So what is this all about then? I’m certainly not complaining about an overload of basketball content being jammed into my poor brain, but, considering what could happen, if big trades go through in the league I follow closer than any other sport and the tournament pretty much anyone can’t help but love produces some exciting results (which it almost always does), well, it does seem a bit daunting to try and retain control of and understand.
But, as these things usually go, it’s probably about the experience. I suppose for Thursday, those spirit animals of basketball want us to simply enjoy the lunacy of it all (ahem, Madness) and the chance that all of us, no matter what side of the aisle you’re on basketball-wise, can share that same shock to the system about either or both event. Even if our heads are spinning the whole time.
Griffin Gotta contributes to The Hoop Doctors and is a co-managing editor of Straight Outta Vancouver. The story arcs and infinite weirdness of the NBA are addictions he deals with every day. Email him at griffingotta at gmail dot com.
