Fear them, worship them, and do not disappoint them. The basketball gods are fickle. The basketball gods are just.

But above all else, the basketball gods will not save you.

Welcome to http://www.thebasketballgods.com!

I’m writing this site primarily because I love the game and am excited about the 2015 playoffs. In addition it will be nice to practice writing something outside of my comfort zone (ie sports) and will hopefully facilitate me deepening my own learning about the game.

This will not be a blog – for now at least – that is primarily about x’s and o’s. I’m a longtime fan of the game, and I like to think I’ve a pretty good understanding of on court action, but I’m a babe in the woods when it comes to this right here ( And for those paying particularly close attention, I drop quotes from The Wire into just about every sentence I can bludgeon them into, which buoys the apparent quality of my writing significantly).

If you’re looking for that kind of detail, go check out Zach Lowe and Kirk Goldsberry on Grantland. You will not be disappointed.

I’m going to be writing from the perspective of someone that watches the games and loves the narratives that grow out of the action on court. I’m going to write because I think it is exciting to watch Steph Curry catch fire but is also beautiful to watch Ray Allen’s unerring form.

Full disclosure, I am a child of the 90’s, and an unwavering Knicks fan. They are an ugly, perennially disappointing organization, and seem destined to bad decision making. But the Larry Johnson 4 point play in the 99′ eastern conference finals sealed my fate. I am a Knicks fan then, now and forever.

But as a fan of the Knicks, if you like watching good basketball, you spend a lot of time watching the league. So I’m partial to a lot of teams. I love watching Portland firing on all cylinders. I love hating Chris Paul and Paul Pierce. The Spurs are 1-1 against Father Time, and I can’t wait to see who takes the series this year. I miss the Vancouver Grizzlies, even though they were terrible, and think the league couldn’t have handled expansion worse.  I miss the SuperSonics much, much more.

I hated Lebron for the Miami super team but loved him by the time he got his first ring. I think people that praise Michael Jordan as an ambassador of the game while criticizing Lebron James have no idea what they are talking about.

I think people who claim that sports ought to be kept separate from politics are lying to themselves and being lied to. I hate that being pro-war, pro-corporation, and pro-commercialization means that you are “just enjoying the game for the game” but having something to say about the power dynamics at play of race, class, gender, and others is “taking a kids game too seriously”.

I think most of the Zen Master credit that Phil Jackson gets is incredibly overblown, but I’ve always enjoyed this one “There’s more to life than basketball, but there’s more to basketball than basketball.”

I’m going to write this as much as I keep enjoying it, and i’m going to feel out what kind of content I’ll create as it comes. I’ll probably do recaps for most of the second round, but only the games that I think are worth it. I will be watching the Draft very carefully, and will have plenty to say about that.

I will play with the Hollingers trademachine endlessly. What’s that? David Lee for Andrea Bargani, Knicks get a mid 1st Round Pick to help the Warriors shed salary? Sounds good to me!

Welcome, and remember.

The Basketball Gods Are Real.