The Watcher: October 2021
To be completely honest, I didn’t think Olney would even want to pick up an article like the one I am about to write. The magazine has more of an art house, deeply thought out, man-I-think-I-feel-feelings-now kind of vibe. Sports are so deeply personal for many, including myself, who grew up playing, watching, and being generally disappointed in their own athletic ability. Unless this piece was going to be a lingering emotional excursion about how I once hit the “behind the backboard” shot in HORSE growing up (which I have DEFINITELY done, no matter what Jordan Johnson in the 6th grade says—seriously, screw that kid), I didn’t think this would make the cut. However, you dorks said I should do it and there is no way I am going to NOT talk about things I love, so here we are.
“Where is this?” you ask. Well, I have been cruising Twitter and Instagram—as someone with my joy of toxic people giving terrible apologies and Cardi B is wont to do—during the weekly episodes of Marvel/Evil Corporate Mouse’s new series “What If…”. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a television adaptation of a line of stories at Marvel Comics that would have alternate universe versions of known Marvel characters.
This version has “The Watcher”, an all seeing-all knowing big headed, galactic entity, showing different versions of heroes we know from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It captures all the things one would love about comic books and fantasy while basically being a colorful substitute for the Twilight Zone and Black Mirror. This idea that anything is possible if only small details are changed, or that we are living in only 1 of infinite universes that could vary slightly or vastly depending on if someone used the wrong bathroom at a Arby’s, allows for interesting takes on stories we know or think we know.
By the time you read this, it will probably be just slightly passed the first week of the 2021 NBA season, and what better way to prep us for all the uncertainty of a barely functioning-COVID existence to take a nonsensical look at some alternate universes and scenarios for basketball as we know. Allow me to be your guide though these vast new realities that I just made up. Follow me and dare to face the unknown. All while pondering the question: What If….?
What If…everyone is healthy for this season, for every team.
Injuries are a part of sports, and every team has a history of “What if…” questions that fans look to answer regarding their beloved players getting hurt. Do the Raptors still win in 2019 if Durant and Klay don’t go down? Do the Blazers have a championship if they have ANY kind of luck with their top draft pick’s health, as they lost so many years to injuries with Bill Walton, Greg Oden, Brandon Roy and selecting Sam Bowie (who lost the majority of 5 of his 10 years in the league), over Michael Jordan in 1984? There are already a bunch of great players out with injury, thanks to the stress of playing two seasons in 18 months from the bubble and back, regular injury mishaps, and drama around players asking to be traded. Multiple teams are missing a piece that would make them a championship contender, but what if….none of that was the case.
Let's say, for this season, everyone has perfect health and plays 82 games. Well, over the past couple of seasons, it has become abundantly clear that the NBA is more dense with good to great talent than it may have ever been. With superstars from the last couple of decades finally grow older and retiring or being a bit more “normal” (Lebron, Carmelo, Dwight, Wade, Bosh), the tail end of primes for more current stars (Durant, Curry, Klay, Westbrook, Harden, Embiid, etc), and the rise of the next generation of superstars (Zion, Luka, Donovan Mitchell, Trae Young, Jokic, Morant etc), the parity that has been elusive for the league is starting to take hold.
Every conference has 3-4 legitimate title contenders for the first time in maybe 15 years. There are, of course, favorites like the Nets, Lakers, Bucks, and Suns. There are just really good teams like the Jazz and the Heat, but there are the likes of the Nuggets, Sixers, Warriors, and Clippers who are kind of right there or would be, if they weren’t missing or trying to incorporate players.
So, if everyone was healthy and assured of their roles, the Clippers would get back Kawhi Leonard and the Nuggets would get back Jamal Murray from ACL injuries. The Warriors would have Klay Thompson while the Nets would get Kyrie vaccinated. This would make every conference four or five deep of potential title contenders, with another couple “might mess around a beat someone they aren’t supposed to” teams (Read: Mavs, Hawks, Celtics). Imagine every night in the association, for the majority of the season, mattering in seating. Playoff talk would start happening REALLY early, even before the Christmas Day games.
So many games would be competitive, on a night in and night out bases, and would probably require most teams to play “to win” for most of the 82 game regular season. With so much talent, so deep, it wouldn’t be too long before Adam Silver went full blown Lex Luthor and started thinking about expansion. Seattle gets the Sonics, Louisville gets a team, Las Vegas and maybe something as crazy as Hampton, VA. I get to wear a Julius Erving Virginia Squires throwback jersey, unironically, because not everyone wants to feel like they are in a Nelly video when trying to be a fan of a team. Either I get clean new gear and the NBA gets extra teams, but unfortunately Adidas still can’t make numerous interesting basketball shoes in this universe.
What If ….J.R. Smith gets a college degree?
Who doesn’t love J.R. Smith? J.R. Swish, if you will. The Henny God. Who doesn’t love a 6’6, microwave bench scorer who has never seen a jumper he didn’t think he could make? He is covered in tattoos and I’m sure one of these says ““You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.- Wayne Gretsky” - Michael Scott”. No one. That’s who. He is the living embodiment of the acronym “IDGAF”, and that has carried him to $90 million in career earnings and one of the greatest direct messages in history (if you don’t know, type:”JR Smith pipe” in Google with SafeSearch on). After 16 years lighting it up, he could have gone to do anything else in retirement (well, not anything. I don’t know the number of businesses that will let you have that many neck tattoos) but he has decided to go back to school.
He is currently enrolled at North Carolina A&T, a wonderful HCBU, and is a liberal arts major. Everyone is rooting for him but this is so very interesting because many believe this is the last place he would go. It’s not that he wasn’t college material, it’s just that at age 36 and with 90 million dollars in the bank, who would have thunk that he would decide to pursue higher education. I imagine him going to campus, as a 36 year-old college freshman, buying all the 18 year-old freshman in his dorm, as much alcohol that they sneak onto the floor.
His roommate, Conner, trying to study for his mid-term while J.R. keeps trying to get him to designated drive his Lamborghini to Thirsty Thursdays at Schmidty’s, the local college bar. J.R. has a wife and three kids, so he can’t get too crazy and needs to be responsible, so he is only going to be out for an hour with these kids he met in his 18th Century Lit class. But…what if JR not only survives but thrives? He is at an HBCU and by all accounts is kicking butt already.
He has even spoken out and said he doesn’t even like Hennessey and rebukes the “Henny God” nickname. The dude is serious about his studies. So, it would make perfect sense for him to stay on and pick up another couple of degrees once he is done. Maybe a Master’s in History/Anthropology, or an eventual PhD. in Ethnic/Diaspora Studies, where he delivers his thesis with his shirt off. He becomes Dr. Earl “J.R.” Smith III, Ph. D. and helps the NBA build out their “Basketball Without Borders” Program for talented foreign players, where he discovers that by playing pick up games without a shirt in the Congo, the NBA could create a more body positive arena experience and cut wasteful garment manufacturing in developing countries.
Everyone just plays “shirts vs. skins”, thanks to Dr. Swish Ph.D, and thus revealing to all they we aren’t much different from each other to begin with, and just want to grow old with our families as healthy as we can. So, Dr. Swish talks to the UN and all UN representative countries are required to have weekly “shirts vs. skins” pick up games to promote good health and brotherhood.
The average life expectancy goes up 10 years and gun deaths go down, thanks to all the fresh air, exercise and movements toward better mental health. After he receives his Nobel Peace Prize, he retires from his humanitarian efforts to his riverfront house on the Cuyahoga (which he helped clean up thanks to EPA funded grants for sustainable water collection and infrastructure bills), and slowly spends his days reading Angela Davis...shirtless.
"What If...the NBA reached 100% vaccination?"
As it stands right now, through opening day of the NBA season, the league as a whole is 90% vaccinated. That is an incredibly good rate, not just for a major sports league but would be for any business that prides itself in taking the risks of a potential outbreak seriously. However, over the past couple of weeks, there has been a lot page space and internet timeline postings to players and owners who are either anti-vax or vax skeptics.
Kyrie Irving, a superstar player and one of the lead guards for what many believe to be the lock for a Championship this year, has come under fire recently because of his comments regarding receiving the jab. This course would not be the first time he has looked a bit funny in light, since he is not only a superstar athlete but a superstar conspiracy theorist who believes the earth is shaped like a basketball court, instead of a basketball. The only saving grace is that Kyrie has always been like this. This was almost expected. I mean, Kyrie has the “illuminati” eye on all his signature sneakers. You might as well just let him wear a cufi during games and yell at fans to “Open your third eye and don’t use fluoride toothpaste!” every time he makes a step-back.
The issue comes from other players who have used this opportunity to just on the bandwagon of standing up for dummies and feeding the politicization of vaccines. Bradley Beal, Jonathan Isaac (which especially hurts me because he plays for my favorite team and is an alumnus of the college I went to), and Michael Porter Jr. , to name a few, have all managed to look like some variation of clueless during this whole mess, which helps breeds more idiocy in the nation discourse that the only people that are telling the truth about the vaccine are people who failed high school biology but do react videos of used diapers being opened up.
So, lets ponder here…what if everyone got on the bandwagon? If the entire NBA said boldly “Not only did we not have to mandate the vaccine to our players, everyone showed up on vax day, got boosters, and then we all had a picnic!”. First off, this would most likely put them under fire from conservative “thought” leaders like human wet sock Ted Cruz and Will Cain, who kind of answers the question “what if the Monorail salesman from the Simpsons didn’t like black or brown people?”
It would most certainly revive the American Right’s chants of “Shut Up and Dribble”, (two things of which no one on that side of aisle can do, much less together) and might spark more national ire towards one of the two major sports leagues with mostly black players, even though the HWHITEST (big H) sports league in America, the NHL, is 99 percent vaccinated.
Positives a bond though, as it probably makes national news that they were able to pull this off without mandates or penalties, thus adding to the conversation that a major, multi-billion dollar sports league was able to do this, why can’t others? Dr. Fauci gets to throw the opening tip for the season. Front line workers get a moment of silence during every game, like the troops. Nike comes out with a new Jordan 1 called “Moderna Gang” with some sort of convoluted backstory about how MJ used to vaccinate puppies in his off time, or some shit. Everyone who was already making money, makes more money.
The WNBA, who like most alternate universes, would still be underpaid even though they had 100 percent vaccination rate and somehow created a form of the vaccine that also cures cancer, with the side effect of you being able to jump higher. Adidas would still have majority wack shoe designs.
As strange as these different outcomes could be, it’s always fun to see just how dramatic and weird the NBA season can be naturally, on its own, right here in our own corner of the multiverse. There’s been lockouts and COVID bubbles causing stirs over the years. Now, it’s time to sit back and let the 2021-2022 season unfold, as most great NBA seasons have…one game at a time.
Don’t lose your way out there, true believers.
