Exits: Clean won't get you a parade
After four competitive postseasons, it still feels like the Cavs have only just met.
When I think of the Cleveland Cavaliers I think of Jarrett Allen.
Not “The lights were brighter than expected” Allen, whose honest answer after another abrupt Cavs season turned into a meme (that he’s a fan of, a relief). But the Allen who has built two computers and a soil humidity reader to know when to water his plants (“It was an easy weekend project,” Allen said of the invention), the Allen who was so delighted to be given a shirt with a picture of him on it holding his cats that he wore it to the postgame podium, the Allen who tries to find a bookstore in every city of a road game run.
I also think of the Allen who sat and chatted with me on court after shootaround several seasons ago, impossibly long legs stretched out in front of him or, adjusting to consider a question I asked, and folding one leg over the other, ankle resting on opposite knee. I think of the different recordings I have of Allen from interviews, his chuckle scattered through each of them along with a “nice to meet/see/talk to you.”
I’m aware, sometimes, where my versions overlap. Where the Allen of my fandom intersects with the Allen of my work. Watching from media row during Game 6 of Cavs-Raptors these playoffs I felt my earliest, protective fandom of Allen — Summer League Brooklyn Nets Allen — eclipse the present, supposed-to-be-impartial version of me with a media credential around my neck. Ok easy, easy, that version of me murmured, concerned, eliciting a few chuckles from the colleagues around me. I know this present version of Allen, strong and physically capable enough to contest Scottie Barnes thundering right toward him as the last, lone barrier to the basket is not the Allen whose legs and presence combined to embody the world “wobbly” in Vegas eight years ago, but my worry is the same.
Maybe the best metaphor for fandom when working around the sport you are a fan of is a sidecar. There are friends who’d claim they detached theirs long ago and have no sidekick version of themselves hunkered down and along for the ride. But I’ve watched those same people struggle to pick their jaws off the floor after an incredible shot, or lose their composure when an athlete teases them or asks how they are. It’s fandom, I think, that many of the best use as a lens for their photographic memories. To recall obscure stats for years, to write so vividly about a team or player or sequence as to instantly conjure it up in a reader’s mind; to level criticism that interrogates an issue at a meaningful level — it all come from a place of care. Good analysis doesn’t come from fandom, but it certainly draws from it.
When we talk about fandom we mostly mean and picture it to be a one-way street. Beaming from fan to player and/or team. Players might be aware of it at scale (the deafening swell of cheers in an arena, looking out at a sea of people watching a championship parade) but overlap less with the individual level. What’s more, we don’t expect players to be fans. I think that’s why it always seems surprising when, as the playoffs narrow, athletes whose teams have been eliminated react to the same big games, comebacks and shots. There’s such a regularity in it and, I don’t doubt, a relief. To be a fan for once.
Watching the Knicks progress through the postseason, listening to their pressers and how they talked about each other, I thought Oh, they’re fans. There were the usual prescriptive observations when describing a teammate’s effort and ability, but edging into their voices more often than not was a glimmering hint of awe or note of disbelief. Fandom’s frequencies.
Listening to the Cavs, I heard none of that.
