On the floor are some of the best athletes in the world.
Men like Kevin Durant and Travis Outlaw have size, strength, speed and leaping ability that is almost unbelievable.
Brandon Roy has creativity seldom seen in Portland since the Clyde Drexler days.
The story is true throughout the NBA. Every night men with speed, agility, leaping ability, abnormal hand-eye coordination way above that of normal humans and competitive fires the likes of which few people possess, compete for millions of dollars, fame and adulation.
And the fans go crazy—just not for those athletes. No, the loudest roars are typically reserved for the antics that go on during time-outs, breaks after each quarter and at halftime.
It makes one question how much people actually care about the actual game.
On a night when Joel Przybilla and LaMarcus Aldridge each blocked multiple layup attempts, the loudest cheers were reserved for some random guy out of the audience making shots to earn car rentals. Not a new car...just a car RENTAL.
He made a layup, free throw, three-point shot, and then a mid-court shot to earn a seven day rental. The excitement was palpable. Not for me, I was ready to fall asleep—but the crowd was really into it.
They also went nuts for, in no particular order, a guy making a free throw blind-folded, a brief appearance by Super Bowl hero Kevin Boss, Blaze the mascot dunking off a trampoline, and the sensual gyrations of the very fit, scantily-clad Blazer Dancers.
I happened to be sitting next to a guy who just moved to Portland from Minnesota and he was regularly commenting on the entertainment and how much he hated it. To a certain extent I agree with him. I do not get super excited about watching tricycle races between 20-somethings, watching some random stranger get blindfolded, spun in circles and guided to the appliance of their choice by crowd noise, watching a wheel spin to tell what kind of car someone will air-ball a half-court shot in an attempt to win said car, nor watching a blimp drop random prizes in the areas where the loudest fans allegedly sit.
Nor do I feel the need to see the bizarre things they trot out game after game and call halftime entertainment.
Sure, it is nice to see some things once or twice. The lady who rides the unicycle and flips bowls on her head is mildly entertaining. She also makes you wonder how she discovered she had that skill. Has she tried it with running chainsaws?
But she is better than the two garishly painted guys flipping each other using their feet that we were "treated" to last night or the games between eight-year-old kids who can barely get the ball up to the rim, which typically end 2-0 or something, and so forth.
In fact, there are really only two parts of the extracurricular activities which really entertain.
The first and most obvious would be the girls. They used to call them cheerleaders. These days that polite fiction has been removed and they are called dancers by virtually every team.
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10 months ago
That must just be the fans in Portland.
Orlando Magic fans get WAY louder during the actual game than they do during timeouts or halftime.
10 months ago
Yep, this is a Portland problem. I've seen games in L.A., Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Washington, San Diego, San Francisco ... only crowd remotely like the one you describe was New Jersey, and that was during a bad year for their franchise. (OK, a worse year than usual.) Even Clippers games get better fans than that.
10 months ago
I agree with the fact that sports is too much about casual fans. It needs to go back to being about the hard core fans.
That said, Warriors fans are extremely loud and passionate during the games. I recently went to a game, and the fans support their team, and cheer for them all the time.
10 months ago
haha...blazers
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