Lip Service
71/82 L Atlanta Hawks 119-127
72/82 L Memphis Grizzlies 119-133
73/82 W Houston Rockets 121-108
74/82 W Dallas Mavericks 127-125
75/82 W Philadelphia 76ers 120-112
7 games left in the regular season. 7 games left of my resolution. I’m having feelings about all of it. Can the Warriors find a consistent team spirit? They have a truly unbelievable split between the road and home. It makes me wonder if on the road, they forget that they are a team and they become a group of players. Individual players will have career nights - Kuminga and Looney lately. But on the road, it seems as if it’s one guy having a big night and not a team. Maybe they need the home crowd to remind them that they are a team. Maybe I’m reading too much into everything.
First, an answer to a question that some of you have been asking - does this (me watching and then writing) stop when the Warriors go to the playoffs? No–of course I’m going to watch the playoffs. It’s not much of a resolution to say that. Everyone watches the playoffs. But watching the Warriors lose twice to the Pistons? That’s a resolution.
I don’t have much to say about the Warriors this week. All my thoughts are wrapped up in March Madness and all my thoughts start with “Did you see…”
Did you see Princeton?
Did you see Michigan State?
Did you see the end of the Stanford game?
Did you see Azzi Fudd back on the court?
Did you see Gonzaga and UCLA?
Did you see all the top seeds go down?
Did you see?
I saw a lot of games this past week, or parts of games. I’m 2nd in one bracket and 7th in the other going into this weekend, which is pretty good for me because I make my choices based on outrageous loyalty and misplaced values - there are some teams I will always root for (UConn), some teams I will never root for (Duke) and some teams that I can’t get behind for reasons that have nothing to do with basketball (Alabama this year).
Which actually leads me back to the Warriors. Right smack in the intersection of outrageous loyalty and my values.
Since October I’ve written, however briefly, about every Warriors player except one. I have been not mentioning him deliberately. Hoping it would go away. Writing about the Warriors is my fun time and talking about him is upsetting so I still won’t name him. The words that get written in this space are one of the only things that I have control over so even in talking about him, I’m going to try to not talk about him, or his circumstance and definitely not his name. I wish he wasn’t on the team. I thought he wasn’t going to stay on the team.
The Warriors front office, the players and the coaches talk a lot about team culture and joy and working hard. Many of the Warriors players talk a lot about doing the right thing and social justice and basketball being a platform for something bigger. Frankly, many of the players also talk a lot about God, which isn’t really my thing - to associate my job with God – but it is their thing.
Here’s this from 2018: How The Warriors Became The Wokest Team in Sports (though honestly, many/most/all WNBA teams do far more about social justice than the Warriors - the Warriors just have a bigger audience).
Or this from the God perspective, also from 2018: Inside the NBA Chapel. I ran into this last year and learned, among other things, that every NBA team has chapel available an hour before the game. The Warriors are known for having high attendance at it, whether at home or away. (There are actually tons of articles about the Warriors and Christianity and how the players are living their faith, which was a rabbit hole I went down one day - both about the Warriors and the whole world of Christian journalism.)
Then there’s this, the Warriors City Edition Jersey for this year, celebrating Women’s Suffrage.
Unveiling the Golden State Warriors' women's suffrage-themed new City Edition jersey, described as “among the most radical jerseys in NBA history”.
I’m having a hard time reconciling the words with the actions.
This is an unusual situation for the Warriors. In general, for being a high profile team, the Warriors have no scandals. (Draymond Green punching Jordan Poole being a notable exception). There are no reports of late night partying or things that reflect badly on a team that depends on being family friendly. There are endless stories of Warriors doing good in the community. I’m not saying nothing ever happens, but the Warriors are fairly low key. The Bay Area is also fairly low key. If you follow the players’ Instagram accounts and see any pictures from their personal life, it tends to be either nature photography or kids’ birthday parties.
Which makes this surprising. It is out of character for a very character-based organization.
I’m disappointed. Disappointed that this player was ever on the roster, that he stays on the roster, that I have to watch him play, especially this month, in their Women’s Suffrage Jerseys during Women’s History Month and see that it’s all words.
I don’t blame the players - the players get the team they get and have to play with them. Though with all the talk about how much influence Steph Curry holds with the front office, I’m hoping he said something and continues to say something. I do blame Steve Kerr a bit as he spoke out strongly in favor of promoting this player. I fail to understand why, in the entirety of the NBA prospects, he was the choice.
So I’m disappointed. And not like when your parents sit you down and quietly say “We’re not angry, we’re disappointed” and somehow that feels so much worse than if they were mad.
I’m disappointed like this:
In the past when I’ve talked to friends about this situation, someone inevitably says “well, you watched Kobe, didn’t you?” No, I did not watch Kobe play basketball. When other people said kind things about Kobe in my presence, I reminded them of other narratives. Once he retired I noticed Kobe a little bit - coach his daughter’s basketball team, or talk to the UConn women’s players and I softened my stance. It seemed like the first time that he was taking steps to repairing harm. I can appreciate that. (Yes, I understand that Kobe did not for one second need my approval to live his life, but you get what I mean). Maybe that simply means that I can hold a grudge against a total stranger for a very long time. To be clear, I didn’t watch the NBA during the height of his career so my stance allowed me to have all the righteousness without any sacrifice.
The other thing people ask me is “do you want this player to be eternally shunned?” No, I don’t want that. There’s a lot of ground between nothing and permanent banishment from the world. I want the harm repaired. I want some sign that this player recognizes the damage he has caused. That this organization recognizes the damage it has caused by taking the stance we so often see, with a combination of no law was broken/we can’t do anything about what happened in the past/we checked his references. (To take a giant detour - Ja Morant didn’t break any laws and he was suspended 8 games for conduct detrimental to the league.) I’m not trying or wanting to be the punishment police because that’s in the way of another value of trying to be an abolitionist in this messy messy world. I don’t want punishment. But I also don’t want this where the Warriors put out jerseys and slogans while simultaneously using his face in promotional materials. It’s really simple to turn my disappointment entirely at the Warriors but that’s not all I’m disappointed at.
Cause then there’s me. If this were another team, one of these college teams in March Madness brackets, I would be not picking them because I didn’t approve of what they were doing. But it’s the Warriors and they’ve been responsible for a large portion of my regular joy for the past 2 years so my values are complicated. But that’s doublespeak because it’s not at all complicated. It’s simple. Just as the Warriors’ front office cares more about winning than their professed values, I care more about watching than my values. My values extend exactly as far as not naming the player in this newsletter but don’t extend to my viewership. Can you see why I haven’t been writing this? I don’t want to admit this to you or to myself. I would much rather be writing 1000 words about that glorious comeback over the 76ers last night and Jordan Poole’s 4th quarter shooting extravaganza.
When I was a sophomore in college, I cancelled my subscription to Sports Illustrated. I had been reading SI since I could read and it was the only magazine I got in college. When it came time to renew it, the enclosed letter talked about how it was a great gift for my boyfriend or husband or father. I was furious and realized that this magazine was not trying to be for me and didn’t care about me or any woman as a subscriber. So I cancelled it. I refused to let them have my money when my worth was only as someone’s girlfriend. I hated cancelling SI. I missed reading it every week - without a tv, before the internet, it was the only way to follow sports and I was a sport fan. I wish I had more of my 19 year old righteous indignation.
I feel betrayed by this team that I love so much. But I know I won’t stop watching the Warriors. The front office has called my bluff. They will put anyone on the roster if it will help them win. I thought they were better than this. I hoped I was too.
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