Recently, over the last couple days, I’ve been getting back into watching basketball. I played quite a bit of basketball back in college, nothing too serious though of course. It was mainly a routine to pick up girls that would go to our games. Even though we weren’t good at all, we could all appreciate a good game of ball when we saw it. Kobe Bryant’s passing was of course a tragedy that we all talked about and lamented over, but my recent need to actually go into work and handle the various marketing crises related to the coronavirus outbreak has had me uncharacteristically busy. This last week, however, I decided to not watch Kobe, but watch undoubtedly the best player of all time: Michael Jordan. Just a simple search into Google revealed Michael’s best performing games of all time, and I consumed game after game, marveling at the complete and utter dominance Michael had over the world of basketball in his time.
Michael apparently was also recording saying that the only player who could ever contest him was the late Kobe Bryant because he “stole all his moves.” Regardless of Michael’s opinion, Kobe was a force to be reckoned with on the court: nobody can deny that they’ve never heard the phrase “Kobe!” shouted when going for some crazy jump shot. The other basketball greats of the 90s were quite something else as well. John Stockton, widely regarded as one of the best point guards of all time, is so smooth to watch. As he leads the NBA by a huge margin with assists, he is quite different from the modern flashy point guard such as Stephen Curry. Stockton is the all around team player, able to slip the ball through defenders and get it to his teammates to be able to make an easy layup. I really do prefer this old style, where teamwork is rewarded instead of individual, flashy play. Sure, watching a player run up and down the court going for solo plays is entertaining to watch, but the game has so much more depth.
There was also an interesting study I read regarding watching sports. It went something along the lines of those fans that get really excited at watching their respective teams play experience similar levels of chemical activation in their brains as the players themselves. This is quite interesting as it goes to show why there are so many sports fans in the world. Without playing the game itself, people are able to have quasi experiences of the game themselves.
There wasn’t much really in the world of news this week, so I just decided to ramble on a topic that was important to me on something that I did this week.
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